Wiring A New House?

jbp123 asks: "I'm building a new house. Once the electrician has run the phone lines I want to run cat5e ethernet cable. I figure two drops to each of the 6 rooms with phone lines. I've never done this but my plan is to run the ethenet cable through the same path that the phone lines follow. I'll use up the rest of the 1000 foot spool by running a third cable to a few of the rooms. Ethernet cable is cheap. I found solid cat5e 1000 foot spools for $60 delivered so the decision to run cat5e cable is a no brainer. The question is should I run fiber? I really don't know how much the cable costs since I don't know what cable to use. It is much easier to run cable before the drywall goes in so I want to make an informed decision now. Ten years from now will I need/want fiber?"

Comments

Re:Fiber is still expensive -- followup

[Maktoo]

Oh, I just thought of something.

It will be a little more expensive, but you might want to think about stringing "STP" CAT5, instead of UTP... that's Shielded Twisted Pair instead of Unshielded.

STP is what is plenum graded, so that it doesn't catch fire as easily. Also, it's better shielded against interference from other electrical sources that might be in the wall.

It's not a requirement or anything... but it might be worth considering simply for safety reasons.

Re:On the other hand...

[Erasei]

You should check with your local city building code before doing this. While most places won't have a problem with it, in the village where I live (Chicago area, ~30,000population) any in-wall piping is required to be metal conduit. This is done for fire safety reasons regardless if it is electrical wiring inside or not. Just something to consider.