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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?"

40 of 730 comments (clear)

  1. Fiber? What other cables. by jarodss · · Score: 4, Redundant

    Not like this hasn't popped up on slash a few times before, but why only phone, cat5 and fiber?

    What about running Svideo and RCA to everyroom or an extra drop of cat5 to run sound on?

    And as far as running the cat5 parallel to the phone, if your building the house why not set your cables into conduits, that way you can upgrade to whatever cabling you need in ten years.

    1. Re:Fiber? What other cables. by Colin · · Score: 4, Redundant
      What about running Svideo and RCA to everyroom or an extra drop of cat5 to run sound on?

      There are various (cheapish - under $100) ways of running video over Cat5. Personally, I've got Cat5 and audio cables into rooms, and run everything over that.

      However, 2 per room is not enough. There are a number of reasons for this:

      • They're never where you want them. You'll always want to move stuff around, and cables draped across the floor doesn't look good.
      • Once you've got the cables in, you'll see more uses. For example, telephone, TV, Audio for hifi, remote control for hifi, remote control for lighting, PC network - all possibly in one room.
      • When building, it's cheap. It's much easier to put these cables in before the drywall goes up. Trying to fish them through afterwards is hard work. BTDT

      Don't bother with fibre. It's not going to get used. People have been saying "fibre is the next big thing" for 5 years now - and cable just keeps catching up. Video over Cat5 is cheap - so, instead of piping cable round the house, put all the set top boxes in one location, and remote control them. 100Mb Ethernet is very cheap - VHS video quality needs about 3 Mb/sec, so you can stream that across existing networks. Hi definition uncompressed video is more than 100Mb/sec - but 1Gb/sec over copper is on the horizon.

    2. Re:Fiber? What other cables. by isorox · · Score: 4, Redundant

      We have 20m runs of svideo at the uni tv station no problem. If you're more interested in length though we've done 100+m runs of high quality microphone cable (for video, £1.40 a metre), and 5-m+ runs of cheap (15p/metre) common tv cable with a couple of bnc or composite ends stuck on.

      We have a 300m rj6 crap quality cable with 2 20db boosters and a high output on the VTR at the start and another booster at the end (before a proper industry booster and splitter with another 200m run from there).

      If you need more then a 50m (150 foot) single run in your new house I'm envious.

      However its all very well dropping in whatever cables you need, think about how you are going to use them - do you really want them all arriving in your basement? Drop a lot more cable down to your living room, just in case.

      Might be worthwhile sticking some cheap speaker wire or 2 core mains flex down there too - if you need a signal.

      And finaly, whatever you come up with, double it. A video signal to each room is fine, until you want a tv in there, and a camera.

  2. Running Ethernet With Phone Lines by Keefesis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as you're using shielded cat5 cable and your phone lines are shielded, you shouldn't have a problem running them through the same conduit. Be aware, however, that if you run your cat5 cable within 6 inches (safe margin) of electrical sources, you will see interference and will experience performance problems. I'm not sure what your electrical people are doing, but it's common to place electrical outlets near phone outlets (fax machines, cordless phones, etc). Just FYI, be aware of this.

    1. Re:Running Ethernet With Phone Lines by Fozz · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, phone lines are low-voltage and should not represent much of an interference problem with your ethernet signals. Keeping your CAT5 at least 6-12 inches away from any 120V AC lines running parallel is always a good idea.

      Always cross your CAT5 and 120V power cables as perpendicular as possible to avoid crosstalk.

  3. Phone wire?!?? by atporter · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just use the Cat5 for everything. An RJ-11 will fit in an RJ-45 jack just fine. Tie it all back to a patch pannel in the basement and then you can patch phones/ethernet/whatever to your hearts content.

    1. Re:Phone wire?!?? by blacklambda · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just be careful... putting a 2-pair modular connector in the space for a 4-pair can bend the pins on the outside of the 4-pair.

      --
      Ryan Dorman, CCNA Network Communications Specialist Millersville Univesrity
  4. Price by utdpenguin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Im just guessing at numbers, but fiber is expensive now. It will get cheaper. Lets say the Cat5 isn't worth replacing for 10 years or so. In ten years fiber will be a _lot_ cheaper. Possibly cheap enogh to offset the cost and trouble of rewiring? Dunno, just thinking aloud.

    --
    In Soviet Russia you dant have to put up with these crappy jokes
  5. I don't know much about this.... by puppetman · · Score: 5, Funny


    but why don't you set it up so that in future years you can put in what ever cable you want?

    I always imagined having a duct built into the floor of my house, running along the walls, with a grate over top. I would run whatever in there, be it fibre or cat-5, etc.

    And if I ever went wireless, I could just fill it up with beer and use a really long straw.

  6. Don't do either yet. by Toodles · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By the sound of the post, you feel that this is an urgent matter before the drywall goes up. It doesn't have to be. What you should be concerning yourself with putting in is conduit, not the wiring, if this is a house you plan on living in for a good long time.

    With good conduit, running wires is a fairly painless process. Install the conduit, let the contractors install the drywall, then run the cat5, fiber, whatever. After X many years, if you decide you need to upgrade to fiber or whatever is current enough for your needs, pulling the existing wire and replacing will be a cinch. By putting in the wiring now instead of conduit, you are speeding up the depreciation and obsolescense (sp?) of your house, not increasing it. Good conduit even helps with events you didn't plan, such as if you figure out you need to pull RCA cables for house-wide stereo, or additional coax, or whatever.

    Toodles

    --
    Toodles D. Clown
    1. Re:Don't do either yet. by imrdkl · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Depending on the construction and how he will use the ceiling space, conduit could be quite a luxury. Most wood-frame houses dont have a speck of conduit, relying on romex through the upright members, typically 1-2 rooms per circuit. Conduit would be great, but requires a whole different kind of electrical contractor/installer, typically. (one who can use a pipe-bender quite proficiently)

      In any case, if you do use conduit, be sure to follow the rule of at least two, tagged fishlines on every pipe from every jbox, for later use of pulling new wire in to the existing pipe.

      Back on topic, I believe that ethernet in the walls is more than sufficient. One can always bridge to a fiber link at the termination in the future, but the last-mile question for fiber is far from being answered clearly, it seems.

    2. Re:Don't do either yet. by swb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Conduit would be great, but requires a whole different kind of electrical contractor/installer, typically. (one who can use a pipe-bender quite proficiently)

      High voltage electricians are all trained to use a pipe bender, and at least among the unscientific sampling of the ones I work with frequently, all prefer to EMT conduit even when they could get away with flexible armored.

      Low voltage guys seldom use metal pipe and probably aren't as experienced. It's hard to say what kind of guys are actually on the job at most wood stick construction new homes. The worst part of running pipe in a new home might be trying to figure out where it would run, locating and keeping accessable the jboxes, and convincing your builder that this is something worth messing with his schedule.

      The latter part is key, since the building, GC, and subs have wicked schedules that can get thrown when some homeowner wants to do something different in the middle of construction, especially if it involves a trade or skill they don't do on a normal basis.

  7. Combo by Karma+50 · · Score: 5, Informative

    How about this stuff

    A lot more expensive than plain cat5 though.

    --
    http://www.thehungersite.com
  8. Fiber is unlikely by demaria · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fiber is highly unlikely to be necessary or desirable in the next 10 to 20 years in residential housing. Install Cat5E cable, it'll handle gigabit which should be fast enough for just about everything.

    Instead of spending money on fiber, spend money to install conduit. Conduit conduit conduit! Conduit is nice since you can later on pull fiber or additional wires more easily.

  9. In ten years... by RedWolves2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In ten years everything will be 802.11. So does it really matter? Just run the cat5.

  10. Fiber is still expensive by Maktoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right now, I wouldn't even consider using fiber.

    You would need a lot of other hardware to make it work.

    With Ethernet, hubs and switches are cheap... you can wire everything back to a patch box and from there have it connect to your ADSL or cable modem.

    I'm not sure what the costs are on actual fiber cable, but it's certainly not as cheap as CAT5. What's more, you would either need a NIC in your computer capable of accepting fiber (over $US300 I think) or you would need a Fiber-->CAT5 converter box at each point where fiber comes out of the wall. Those boxes aren't cheap either.

    Really, it just comes down to this. If you want super-fast communication between your computers in your house, and are willing to pay a hefty premium, them fiber it is. But it's not going to make your Internet connection much faster. Your Internet connection will only every be as fast as whatever the Cable or DSL modem has going out... and that's usually a 10Mbs connection running at 2Mbs download max.

    Personally... if you want scalability, I would just make sure that the CAT5 you string is high quality and has *all eight conductors*... that way it is good for Gigabit Ethernet... which is slowly coming down in price and is already more affordable than Fiber for LANs.

    enjoy

  11. Cat5 and Coax by Robert+Hayden · · Score: 4, Informative

    You should run two drops of Cat5 and two drops of RG6 Coax to every "main" room you may have people. Run it to a central cross-connect in the basement or garage.

    The reason you want to run two coax drops is that if you get a dual-tuner sattelite decoder (like a DirectTV TiVo) you will need to lines going out to your dish or to your multiswitch (which splits the signal between >2 lines, so you can put receivers in multiple rooms).

    You could also run a Left/Right RCA audio system to each room, but audio will travel decently over Cat5, so you shouldn't have to worry about that.

    Fiber would be useful, but frankly you don't need it now because nothing we are doing iwll need fiber probably for 10 years. If you want to prep for it, you can run conduit (probably 1.5" would be sufficient) to each room, to make pulling new cables in (or pulling old cables out) easier in 5 or 10 years. Run it to a modular mounting jack so you can change stuff out if need be.

    Having just recently gotten my DirectTV TiVo (and hacked it to 146 hours of storage), I know my next house is gonna need twin coax to every main room. :-)

  12. As a certified electrician... by dfeldman · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I have pulled cable in several new construction projects and I have a few tips that will save you a lot of headaches in the future:
    • Run conduit. Big conduit. There's a lot of space between your walls so why not leave yourself the room you will need to expand later?
    • You can buy 25-pair (!) Cat5e cable. It costs about twice as much as 4-pair but it is well worth it for expansion reasons. There's not a whole lot you can't do with 25 pairs.
    • Don't forget to buy plenum wiring, which does not emit toxic fumes when it burns. It's probably code in your area. I have seen bean counting managers cheap out and buy generic cable, and get fined thou$ands of dollars for it.
    • Coax isn't a bad idea, especially in a residential installation. You never know when you will want cable/DSS in a room.
    • Run a string between any two points where it makes sense, and mark the strings so you know what you're pulling later.
    • Don't bother with fiber. It is overpriced and will remain so for quite a while. Copper is good enough for gigabit ethernet and will provide all the bandwidth you need (within one building at least) for a very long time to come.

    Good luck with the project!

    df
    1. Re:As a certified electrician... by dgou · · Score: 4, Insightful
      My SO, a data wrangler from a local university says:

      Great list. Esp. marking the strings, you'll really want to know what is where.
      25 pair sounds cool, however it is a termination nightmare unless you're just going to use it specifically from point to point as your major house backbone and have it premade and preterminated for your situation. If you terminate it yourself you might be able to maintain 100Mb, but likely not and certainly not Gig. Unless there is a whole new 25 pair solution out there. Big conduit to run a plethora of different cables (except power of course) is a more general solution.

      I would also add that you want more than one outlet per room. Depending on your builder, it could be something that you'd have to octopus up (or down) from a central point, or you might be able to run in between the floor boards to get opposite wall coverage (or three or four wall coverage depending on your layout.

      One thing is for sure, there is never enough bandwidth, and you don't know what you'll want to run in the future.

      The house I bought was already built, and has pathetic insulation which is not easily fixed. I'm planning on moving the "server farm" and "main hub" between the attic (in winter) and somewhere lower in the house in summer.

      Consider also that where-ever you've picked for your central hub might become ideal for something else (kid's attic room, enclosed hot tub in basement, whatever), and since its so easy now, I would be inclined to run the conduit so you could have two (or maybe three, depending on the structure of your house) alternative spots.

      It might also be cool to run a room or three with a few extra outlets for gaming/multimedia/"record"-making/"movie"-making parties, efforts, etc. (I'm thinking of "Duality" ((Lost the URL, darn!)).

  13. Wireless is to secure networking... by ColGraff · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...as running through the street naked singing "I'm a little teapot, short and stout" is to modesty and sanity.

    No offense, but even the best wireless security solution can't compare to having an actual cat5 cable you can control access to.

    --
    I'm the stranger...posting to /.
  14. Re:Fiber is still expensive -- followup by Maktoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  15. House Wiring by oldzoot · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wired my own house a few years ago.

    Here is some advice based on what I did. Note that I was at the time a licensed communications wiring contractor, so the house is wired a litte more than perhaps is usefull, but here goes.

    1. Put muliple locations in each room. I put to faceplates in each bedroom, typically near a corner and opposite each other ( diagaonally opposite corners ) a cable from the outlet can be run along either adjacent wall for convienience in locating phones or computers. In each outlet are two cat 5 data cables and 1 4pair telephone cable. In one of the two outlets is an RG6 CATV cable.

    2. Home run telephone wires - I ran all the telephone cables directly from the outlet to a telephone junction box in the garage which was mounted directly above the one from the phone company. The phone company box faces outside, mine faces inside and there are some holes in the 2X4 seperating them for cables to run through. I mounte 4 type 66 punchblocks in the inside box and terminated all 32 cables there. All multiple jumpering etc. is done in that box.

    I ran all the data wiring ( 48 cables ) to 4 dual gang boxes inside the master bedroom closet. Using ortronics IMO2 dual gang faceplates with 6 double port modules, I got 48 ports in the 4 outlets and its is not cludgy like a patchpanel on a swingout door would be- it has a finished look. I also got the electrician to put a utility outlet inside the closet close to the ports to power the switch and localtalk bridge.

    3. Put a telephone outlet near your CATV outlets - if you want to use satellite tv or some other service which requires a telephone connection it will be very good to have.

    4. Put data outlets in common rooms - the livingroom, dining room den etc. These areas could end up as common homework computer areas for the kids. I have a table in the living room and one in the dining room ( we eat in the kitchen ) with some older computers on them that the kids use for homework.

    Note that the contractors installers may be very helpful if you offer a 6 pack or two of beer to help grease the skids. I got all kinds of built-in bookshelves, nooks and other cool customizations this way.

    Another suggestion !! Put in the return line for a circulating hot-water system during construction. If you can not afford the pump now, you can add it later, but it is a pain to put the return line in.

    Also consider insulating hot water lines and putting insulation inside the inner walls to give some soundproofing.

    Good Luck

    Zoot

    --
    enough is too much
  16. My experiences in wiring a new house by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    I recently wired a new house. Here's my experiences with it.

    I wired the house with cable and two CAT5e cables to each telephone housing, plus security and some audio cabling to a few select areas. I also set up the internal vacuum system.

    Do Not, I repeat, DO NOT wire anything before the electrician has wired for power. Plan with the electrician so that you can make sure your wire is at least 1 foot, preferably 2 feet away from his wire when running in parallel, and otherwise crosses at oblique (near to 90 degrees) angles. Master electricians are smart, but the workers they employ are morons. We had to yank out a lot of wiring because the electricians laid power cable in all sorts of unfortunate places right next to ours. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

    Do nail in wire protector plates onto wood just like your electrician does for the power cables. They're to keep the drywallers from wrecking your wiring with their drywall nails.

    Do consider running a little conduit, but only a little. Don't conduit the whole thing: what we wound up doing was running conduit from the basement up to the attic. The house is two-story. That way if we absolutely had to, we could wire things in the future without massive rebuilding.

    Do run everything (phone, cable, network, fiber) in a star configuration to a central hub.

    Do do both the telephone and networking and cable yourself. It's simple. Don't pay the electrician to wire for telephone if you're going to wire for networking; you're just wasting money.

    Do Not use plenum, braided, or shielded CAT5e cable. Plenum cable has basically one use: to be run through air ducts in old office buildings as a fire precaution. Shielded CAT5e will turn your network into an antenna if not properly grounded. In general, you don't need it unless you're running along with lots of electrical lines in close conduit areas. Braided cable is only for patch-cord use.

    Do consider the new combination cable available, which has fiber, cable, CAT5e, low-power DC, and audio all in one bundle. But it's a pain to wire because it has to be bent at very gradual angles. Might be a good way to go though, and cheaper.

    Do not expect that security is wired in a similar fashion. In particular, 4-wire smoke detectors cannot be wired in a star configuration at all: they must be wired in a specific, unusual serial topology.

    Do remember that your hub must be in a locked area.

  17. Forget fiber ... conduits w/ CAT5 and 802.11 by Doctor+K · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I just bought a house and instead of wiring it up, I just use 802.11b for the bedroom computers. However, my 802.11b access point / firewall also has a switched hub, so my workstations are hooked up with CAT5. This is more than fast enough for any kind of internet connection you are likely to get in the near future.

    Don't listen to the ... ahem ... "experts" telling you to install fiber. In my day job, I work in research on fiber optics technology (mostly for 40 Gb/s+ DWDM long haul and metro networks). Fiber equipment that I am familar with is not made for the consumer market.

    Would you even know what types of fiber to buy? (multi-mode / single-mode, C-band / L-band / Extended-L band, ...) Or what kind of connectors you would need? Or do you have the access to the equipment necessary to splice fibers (it's not cheap to do it right)? Do you know what kinds of equipment to attach to the end of the fiber (modulators, switches, splitters, NICs ...)? And exactly what are you going to hook up that requires fiber's speed?

    If you are worried about an upgrade path, the smart thing to do is install conduits. When fiber goes to the consumer market, you will be ready.

    Kevin

  18. Re:Problem with Fiber (almost forgot this) by uberdave · · Score: 4, Informative

    That kind of signal loss is going to be insignificant. The real problem with bending fiber around corners, is that the strands are somewhat fragile. I've seen runs of fiber that had to be doubled because some of fibers the first one had broken when the cable was bent too sharply. The best thing with fiber is conduit, because it gives smooth rounded corners.

  19. I just did this by renehollan · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, worse: I bought a house already built.

    I ended up running 2 runs of Cat5e and 2 runs of quad-shielded RG-6 to 6 drops.

    You will want the coax... trust me. While I'd like to run everythng over UTP or fiber, the costs of locating things like VCRs, and satellite receivers at a head end, and streaming video digitally are prohibitive compared to the costs of running the coax. You may want to plan for the day when everything is streamed over IP and carried on an ethernet or fiber physical layer, but I think it is far better to have dead cable in the wall than to use horribly expensive equipment today as opposed to your neighbor who just hooks up the new TV to the cable outlet and is done.

    Fiber. I didn't run any, but mostly because of the cost -- it's still too expensive. Also, don't forget headend terminations for all those fiber lines -- they are expensive. If you can afford it, by all means. In my case, I figure I'll sell the house and build a new one before I have a real pressing need for fiber: am I really going to want to stream full-resolution uncompressed video room to room? I doubt it.

    Do put in as many drops as you think you'll need, and then some. You have an advantage over me: your walls aren't up yet. Plan for a minimum of one per room, more if there are multiple entrances. For example, many central family rooms open up to formal dining/living rooms and kitchen -- place the outlet on the "wrong" wall and you'll have to snake a cable across an entryway... not cool.

    If you can afford the cabling, make EACH 110VAC outlet have a co-located (but not sharing the box-- that violates code) coax/data drop. That's excessive, and you immediately have to separate the AC and other cables to avoid interference, but you'll have a drop whereever you need one. Personally, I'd probably stick with one outlet per continuous wall segment, more for bigger rooms.

    I ran 2xCat5e and 2xRG-6 (quad-shielded). You can get combo cable (speedwrap) that contains this (with or without fiber) in a single jacket that makes for easy pulling, but expect to pay double over individual cables. If you're paying for installation, the reduced labour might pay for the more expensive cable. Note: the reason for two runs of coax is in case you want to run a video stream back to the headend, like, perhaps a baby monitor camera. However, with recent PVR having TWO tuners, you'll find you need to use both coax cables, espescially with satellite systems (the receiver sends a signal selecting satellite and polarization to the multiswitch over the coax -- you don't have all channels on the cable at once). If you want to do this and send video back to the headend you may need three coax cables.. though a cheap PC and webcam might do the trick over the Cat5-e instead (and I can think of creative uses of satellite diplexers to use two coaxes for two satellite signals, one cable/off air signal, and a backfeed, but I haven't tried it).

    As for plugging phones into RJ-45s... why bother? Just terminate one of the Cat5e cables in an RJ-14 jack, leaving one pair not connected... you can have up to three lines on that RJ-14. Alternately, split it out in the box to two RJ-14s. You can always require for ethernet later, if you have to (or use a PBX that requires 8 wires). This also ensures that you don't accidently plug the phone in the wrong outlet (confusing the coax ports is bad enough).

    I'd post more, but have to go.

    --
    You could've hired me.
  20. Re:On the other hand... by FFFish · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, and now's the time to get the electrician to drop a loop down to a box every fourth stud or so. You *can* *not* have too many electrical boxes ready to be used.

    Make sure you have an accurate map of their placement. Then let the sheetrock guys cover 'em up: most of the boxes will go unused. But the day you desperately need an outlet *right there,* you'll be eversothankful you had the foresight to have a hidden box ready to go...

    --

    --
    Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
  21. Don't forget to run the conduit vertically by coyote-san · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One other point is that conduit pipes should be run vertically. Running a 2" pipe through all of your wall studs is a Bad Idea, but running such a pipe vertically is another matter entirely. It also makes it easier to install the insulation. (You want insulation on interior walls for the sound proofing. A little money now will save a lot of headaches when your kids are teenagers.)

    You also want a large pipe that's a straight shot from attic to basement/crawlspace.

    The idea is that you have good access in attic and basement/crawlspace, so they don't need special treatments. But walls are a real pain once they're sealed, so you want to keep it as simple as possible. And nothing is simplier than a large vertical pipe with no bends in it. Even if the pipe is completely empty (e.g., you sealed in a few extra pipes "just in case"), you can pull a line with nothing but a string and a lead weight.

    --
    For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
  22. Re:On the other hand... by FFFish · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Arrrgh. Another thing!

    Run some beefy nylon string through the studs. This will give you the opportunity to pull cable in the future. Use separate holes, and smooth off the edges so that the chances of snagging are reduced.

    (This, if you don't do the conduiting.)

    --

    --
    Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
  23. Re:On the other hand... by mmaddox · · Score: 4, Redundant

    Ignore these ranting loonies...

    Wire what you WANT, and then add an extra run to your office, your wife's office, and behind your televisions. Don't forget the kitchen.

    My new house was completed last April, and I've got 5e drops (2 or more per room) with a 100M switch in the "wiring closet" - an extra room in our attic. We considered fiber, too, but realized that fiber connections are just the flakiest things in the world. They're expensive, unreliable, and a downright pain, plus, it seems unlikely that we're going to be seeing anything faster than Gig-E anytime soon, so we're all set.

    If, by some weird occurrence, fiber becomes standard sometime in the future, I can pull the rooms by cutting and tying off my 5e from the attic. I will have removed the 5e and added the fiber at the same time. No sweat.

    More important than the cabling, make certain to get your primary computer room plugs on a different circuit from the rest of the room's circuit. THAT will come in handy. I have my office computer outlets and my wiring closet outlets on their own, separate circuits, and I don't feel too uncomfortable running what I want, now. Make sure you get extra outlets, too!

    --

    What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?

  24. Something You might have overlooked by rveno1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    of Course it is a no brainer to wire your house with cat5e (in fact when my dad redid our house 8 years ago he made sure they installed cat5)

    But from another perspective AFTER you wire the house (and before the drywall is up) run through your house with a CAMCORDER and record where all the wires are placed this will become an invaluable resource when you have to do expansion!

  25. Re:Cost vs. Future by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny
    I've always thought that if I built a dream house, it would have a utility core that could access every room. Something like a 18-inch wide gap within the main central walls of the house that you could walk in. That way, I could route wires and install electronic equipment to my heart's content.

    Of course, the only proper entryway for something like this would be a button that makes a bookshelf swing open...

  26. You can't Plan Ahead by nuintari · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My expiriance with wiring from the ground up is that you cannot plan for everything. You'll always think of something else that you wanna do with your existing scheme, and need to pull more wire. So conduits are the only option.

    As for fiber, I've never had to pay for it, but I've had to work with it. Its not worth the effort to use it, go high quality cat-5, and if ya want, then ya can go GigE. I'm told fiber is cheap to buy, expensive, and hard to run, and the hardware to talk over it is murderously expensive. But maybe even the cable itself is expensive, I dunno, used it, don't like it, don't wanna think about paying for it.

    Conduits, and loads of them, will make your life easier, and will greatly improve the value of your home, wish my house had conduits, but mine predates WW2..... and has power consumtion issues. *cries*

    As for what to put in the cables, its whatever ya wanna do with it. Me, right now, I;d run s-video, cat5, and coax, and maybe whatever the current "buzz" cable type is, and at least 4 outlets in each small room, 6 to 8 in big rooms. Else, your wife/significant other will go mad when she can't move the TV. And put em fairly close to your electrical outlets, so ya can just take all your cables that are close together, and tie em together with zip ties, and make the mess behind your euipment a little more pleassent.

    --

    --Nuintari

    slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.

  27. Wireless? by rknop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would run cat-5 cable if I were you. It will be useful for the forseeable future... and who knows what you will want to have run in 10 years? Redo it when the time comes. In the mean time, for a house network, it's hard to imagine 100Mb/s not being sufficient for several years.

    I've run cat-5 cable in two houses. After a few months, you forget how painful it was and are just grateful to have it. In my old house, which was very small, I only wired a couple of rooms, but it was nice once it was there. In the new house, I only wired a single room. I intended to wire several more... but instead got myself a couple of wireless cards. The desktop has a card, and I have a second for the laptop. I run them in Ad-Hoc mode. It's much more convenient this way. I had intended to have lots of drops wired in, so that I could run my laptop in whatever room, but now I can do that with a very minimum of pain. More expensive, yes, but more flexible and much easier to install in the first place.

    (The one wire runs between the room with my desktop and the cable modem, and the room with my Wife's desktop. Since both computers stay in one place all the time, it makes sense to have wires for them. Since my Linux desktop is also the house router, it has three network cards: one for the cable modem, one for the house net, and one wireless card. I have two different private 192.168.x.x subnets in just my one house....)

    -Rob

  28. use STEEL Conduit instead of plastic by OmniGeek · · Score: 5, Informative

    And if the contractor can't handle conduit (find a better contractor?!), you can do it yourself. Steel conduit is cheap (I know, 'cause I've done this), and conduit benders are not difficult to use. Of course, if you don't wanna use a conduit bender, you can buy prefab curved sections.

    A few things to keep in mind:

    0. Use METAL conduit rather than plastic - indefinite lifetime, RF shielding, and nailproof when hanging pictures. Also easily findable with stud-finder gadgets at need.

    1. Use BENDS rather than square corners (and insist the contractor do so -- inspect before accepting...). Makes pulling cable more fun, and VITAL for fiber (if it ever comes to that)

    2. If you do it yourself, make sure you debur the insides of all conduit ends with the little blade on the tubing cutter. It really sucks to have a short 'cause the conduit cut the insulation.

    3. Check local codes and the building inspector on how to GROUND the conduit properly (one probably grounds this to the building safety ground at the electrical service entrance -- a definite building-inspector question). The building inspector can be made into a very handy resource if you social-engineer the interaction properly - you want him to take you seriously, and to understand that you want to, and are able to, do things right and with proper permits; at this point, he ceases to be an obstacle and becomes an ally. Also, be real clear to the building department that your conduit is LOW-VOLTAGE wiring and NOT power wiring; the code requirements are different.

    Lastly, 3Com has a nifty mini-hub that fits into a wall box, seen on /. recently...

    --

    "My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
  29. Some thoughts.... by chrisd · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Some things I've run into with my basement remodel and upgrading a 1936 place for modern data and phone. The previous owenr updated the electric froom hook and look to conduit.

    1....You want to be careful about running parallel data/phone, audio,video and power close to each other. Even with high quality cable, you can have problems.

    2.....Do not strand boxes with wire inside them. Sealing over live boxes is a huge no-no. Why? Because what if you drive a nail into an active box. Many municipalistes will force you to correct this if you want to move.

    3.....You cannot route wires through heating /ac ducts. Probably ovious, but I thought I'd note it.

    4.....Always run more cat-5 than you need. If you are pulling two lines for net and phone, pull another. It's no real extrta cash and coudl save you later. Also, it's nice if you want to pull an extra line that is outside the firewall to your office for guests.

    5.....Think about where you want your wireless for home coverage. I have a smaller house, so I don't have any problem, but if my house were more spread out, I'd probably hav eto move the antenna out of the basement, necessitating a run of cat-5 to wherever, with nearby power. It's either that or run a very long antenna line.

    6.....Power, power, power. A computer + Laser Printer + Ups + Monitor + other gee gaws will suck up at least a 20 amp circuit. You don't want to over load a circuit. That's bad. I'm running 3 seperate circuits for the home office. 1 for fridge and other stuff, 1 for computer geear and 1 for lighting.

    7.....Check references for all contractors if you aren't plannign on pulling bits yourself.

    8.....Get familiar with your local codes. They are there to protect you, generally. Finding out where you are required to do GFCI circuits alone can save you trouble later.

    Good luck.

    --
    Co-Editor, Open Sources
    Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  30. Re:Fiber or UTP for Gigabit Ethernet by TimX · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is true.
    I just did my own wiring in the house that I just bought a month ago. I ran Cat5e, because it much more inexpensive and I design and install LAN/WAN equipment, and deal with fiber everyday. I hate fiber. The Transceivers along will run you $900 per end, that's a minimum $1800 per drop. Plus you will need to by the switches.

    Why do that when you can buy a four port Gigabit UTP switch for less than $300 and Gigabit nic's for $44.

  31. OT: Use plenum by mosch · · Score: 5, Informative
    This isn't directly on topic, but it's important so I wanted to make sure you read this.

    USE PLENUM

    Yes, it costs more, but it meets building code, and isn't nearly so flammable. Please don't be cheap and use the PVC stuff that will help housefires spread wonderfully just to save $100.

  32. Complete wiring guides: by Futurepower(tm) · · Score: 5, Informative


    Glad you mentioned this, because it reminded me how difficult it is to find good documentation about wiring Ethernet.

    As a wise Slashdot reader once said, "You can't have too much overkill", so here is the wiring scheme shown 3 different ways. I hope it saves you the time of gathering it together yourself.

    Slashdot doesn't allow the HTML PRE tag. Slashdot removes leading spaces, so I've used dots below. Another problem is that the lameness filter is lame. That lameness filter is definitely named correctly.

    Use only Standard EIA/TIA T568B. This is also called the AT&T specification. T568A is NOT USED.

    T568B:

    When the hook of the RJ-45 Ethernet connector is underneath, pin 1 is on the left.

    Pair 1 is pins 4 and 5, Blue and White/Blue.

    Pair 2 is pins 1 and 2, White/Orange and Orange (Transmit Data + and -)

    Pair 3 is pins 3 and 6, White/Green and Green (Receive Data + and -).

    Pair 4 is pins 7 and 8, White/Brown and Brown.

    /--T21 White/Orange
    Pair2 \--R22 Orange
    /--------- -T33 White/Green
    / /-R14 Blue
    Pair3 \ Pair1 \-T15 White/Blue
    \--------- -R36 Green
    /--T47 White/Brown
    Pair4 \--R48 Brown


    Pin ColorPairName

    1 wh/or 2 TxData +
    2 or2 TxData -
    3 wh/grn3 RecvData+
    4 blu 1
    5 wh/blu1
    6 grn 3 RecvData-
    7 wh/brn4
    8 brn 4


    I know this sounds crazy, but standard Ethernet uses ONLY pairs 2 and 3, for both half and full duplex. The other wires just sit there, unused. (It is possible to buy external adapters to use the other two pairs as a second 10- or 100 Megabit 100Base-T connection.)

    The R1, T1, R2, T2 designations are for telephones. R1 is Ring 1 (the red wire at the telephone box). T1 is Tip 1 (the green wire at the telephone box). Ring and Tip are old names for the telephone wires, but if you talk to a telephone company installer, he or she will use those names.

    Quite obviously, someone messed this up majorly, as in "How can we make this confusing?"

    If you are new to wiring Ethernet start with the simple explanation at Johns Closet (as in wiring closet): Wiring: Color Codes, Terms, and Tools.

    See the Leviton Do and Don't Guides

    See the Wiring Guides at the Leviton Learning Center . See the Residential And Light Commercial Installation Practices (Tia-570 Compliance) [PDF file] guide.

    Also see the wiring specs at FAQS.org: 9.0 Standard EIA/TIA 568 (Use ONLY T568B)

    More information about wiring: Data Communications Cabling FAQ

    Your local store will probably try to charge too much. Shop around for Ethernet cable and connectors. You need the real thing, cable marked "Category 5". Other cable won't work.

    One last thought to those who are new to Ethernet networking. A Hub broadcasts all data to all computers. An Ethernet Switch sends the data only to the computer that where the data will be used. Therefore, switches are faster in cases where the network is sending data between more than one pair of computers at the same time.

    --
    Senator Biden (and Osama bin Laden) say that the Saudi government cannot continue without U.S. support: What should be the Response to Violence?

    --
    Bush's education improvements were
  33. Re:On the other hand... by Erasei · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    visit my free wallpaper collection, wp.erasei.com