Home netwroking advice

Hi

I'm getting some electrical work done (installing more power points) in the property we're buying and so thought that while we're at it, may as well also install LAN cabling as well as the electrical cabling. I'm not 100% sure how the LAN should be laid out but I was planning to install a 4 or 6 socket faceplate near the incoming broadband socket by the front-door, and then use a gigabit switch to connect to each socket. The same switch would also be connected to the ADSL router in order to share the boradband connection around the house.

I was planning on using cat5 cable for the gigabit LAN - is there any particular brand or type of cat5 that's suitable for 1000mbps LAN? Or should I go cat6?

As for the cable routing (topology?), I was planning to have one cable going into the living room beside the TV aerial socket, two to the garage (where I might have a NAS device or two in future), one to the master bedroom beside the TV aerial socket, and two to a bedroom that'll be used as a home office.

Am I missing anything here or is my approach sound and correct? Also, any other advice much appreciated.

TIA

Johno

If you're trying to future proof perhaps fibre rather than cat 6 would be the way to go? I have no idea if fibre is currently feasible for a home installation though.

Cat5e is what you need, though CAT6 is probably a wise idea in terms of future proofing.

Personally I'd run one cable from router, to a location like in a cupboard and put a large (beyond my current needs) patch panel/switch somewhere that is not visible.

http://www.dcdi.co.uk/Cat5e-&-Cat6-/Cat6-Infrastruct...

CAT5e is enough for most situations, if you want to go for futureproof CAT6a is more than enough, but brings installation problems due to the increased cable bulk, turn radius, finicky termination, etc.

Fibre? Let's not get carried away here. About the only full-fibre network I see day to day is for a whopping NetApp filer serving around 15,000 desktops and several hundred servers. Fibre is completely OTT for a domestic network.

Edit - damn my delay in hitting post.

Have a look at the automatedhome.co.uk site - there was a good article on there about someone who fitted out a newbuild with all the toys, and it was a good practical guide on how to cable a house.

Double Edit.

I would look into DIY rather than let the average electrician anywhere near running network cables.

Edited by deleted (Mon 04-Oct-10 12:12:17)

The cost of fibre to Ethernet converters make that option prohibitive at this time.

Agreed on the Cat6a Vs Cat6 Vs Cat5e thing. Mostly at least. Cat6 seems to be the best one can install without the fiddling of termination. The thicker guage wire is also a bit of a problem when using with hard wiring points which are designed for CAT5 (I didn't see CAT6 hard wiring faceplates in my searching).

Here's one I did earlier:

http://www.camieabz.co.uk/netsetup/newnet.html

The only other problem was that the CAT6 cable was too wide gauged for the contact points on the hard-wiring points. Although it worked, it wouldn't allow for multiple extensions at the back of the master. This was no problem for me, as the other extension has never been used, and is in a silly place as it happens, so I just left said wires out of the setup. If planning to do this setup, I recommend CAT5 cabling, unless the contacts are specifically for CAT6 cable.

Mr. Saffron never did reply to the conclusions bit. Perhaps he never read it (hintity hint Andrew! ).

FWIW, I'd pretty much agree with your conclusions on that page.

Cat5\6 cables have a higher number of twists per metre, and cat6 is slightly heavier gauge than cat5, but over such a short distance the differences are always going to be very,very marginal - you usually see a bigger difference from changing the type of router or filter used.

The %age of cat6 used in your total cable run fron the exchange is probably in fractions of a %.

Personally I'd run one cable from router, to a location like in a cupboard and put a large (beyond my current needs) patch panel/switch somewhere that is not visible

Hmmm, as you suggest, I could run one cable to the garage to link up the broadband to a gigabit switch, then have cables going from there to the other rooms, that way the switch is out of sight and can live with any NAS devices and from there I could have a 4-way faceplate with cables going to the bedrooms and living room. That'd probably even mean less cable and a tidier solution.

Thanks

Oh, there is one situation where I would suggest fibre - if you have a long run to a different building, especially if that building has a seperate mains supply or earthing.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/08/31/how-storm-cl...

Although you would probably find that either wireless or powerline is a cheaper and good-enough solution in the average domestic setup.

I did a construction site a good few years ago, and despite the grouching about cost for a short term network (5 years), every remote cabinet had a run of fibre to it.

This is what I was hunting for earlier,

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Content/Wiring-Guide....