Home Network Question

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the newb question but my knowledge of the ins and outs of networks leaves a bit to be desired.

I am going to be renting a 3 bedroom townhouse along with my girlfriend and when I toured the townhouse before signing the lease I noticed it was fully wired for phone, ethernet, and cable. In every room there is a wall plate with a cable outlet, a phone outlet, and a Cat 5 outlet in it. The ethernet port is labeled "Cat 5" and the phone jack is labeled "Phone" so from where I am standing it could get any easier for me.

What we are going to do is have the cable modem put in a central room in the townhome then I want to make all of the Cat 5 outlets in the townhouse live but I do not know what I need or how to do this. I will say that in the master bedroom there is a panel and in previous houses I have been in the stuff behind the panel controls the cable TV throughout the house. So what do I need to do to get all the Cat 5 jacks in the townhome live? Is is as simple as running a Cat 5 cable from the modem to a router and then to a Cat 5 jack in one of the rooms or is there more to it than this?

Thanks everyone. :-)