Cat5e Home Network

[MasterAbacus]

DanAir, can you explain further about what you mean about the complexity of shielding? I too would like to add some Cat5e cabling in my house and I am worried about not only the effect of mains wiring (it would be impossible to keep them entirely separate), but also the radiation from lighting transformers and also the lighting control system I intend to install.

You wont have too many probs in a home setup.... its not as if you will have a cable run at its max length anyway.... 100m....

Most cabling is shielded.... as its called... Shielded twisted pair...
Home lighting etc shouldnt cause any probs, if it does you will never notice it... Just keep a distance of at least 30cm from any mains cables, and try not to cross over mains cables with data.

when it comes to positionong sockets, most go side by side with mains sockets to look neeter, again, you will, or should not notice any loss in data transfer speeds.

 

[Chri5]

The rules regarding separation between voice/date and power are that 50mm is required.

300mm is excessive and might not be practical. The average home run is unlikely to be much more than 20m, so I can't see that separation to the extent Master Abacas suggests is necessary or practical.

Try to keep power and Cat5 separated, under no circumstances share joist holes and when crossing power go at right angles- better still use bits of MT1/ MT2 trunking as bridges.

If the house is large you could run 1 x Cat 5 to a central point on each floor, provide a 4 port hub (100Base T) and then fan out the cabling to rooms from there.

I would also add that where wire can be used I am of the school that wire is always preferred over wireless.

No security issues, no issues with reception from router due to thick walls or metalwork and no drop outs. It could be argued that wired is cheaper.

NIC card £5, cable £5, 2 x p-leads £3, RJ45 mod sockets £3, back box £1 =£17 per port plus a bit of work.

A decent wireless adaptor is £30+

 

[aptsys]

I would also add that where wire can be used I am of the school that wire is always preferred over wireless.

No security issues, no issues with reception from router due to thick walls or metalwork and no drop outs. It could be argued that wired is cheaper.

NIC card £5, cable £5, 2 x p-leads £3, RJ45 mod sockets £3, back box £1 =£17 per port plus a bit of work.

A decent wireless adaptor is £30+

I agree with you totally there.

 

[Dippy]

Sorry to hijack akewt's thread, but this seems a good oportunity for me to ask my own questions.

Since I have my ground floor ceilings down at the moment (partly because the artex was cr*p, and partly because I'm putting in a lighting control system), I too have the opportunity to put in some network cables. I too have bad experience of wireless: Even with my laptop about 3m LOS away from my Linksys wireless G router, I sometimes get drop-outs.

I don't have a complete idea yet of what my network should be, so I just need to decide how many cable runs to put in at first fix. As long as they are there I can do the connections in the future.

I have two locations for equipment rooms. One on the ground floor (an understairs cloakroom) and one on the firstfloor (an office). I can run cables between the two. I have two telephone lines in the study, and one is ADSL enabled.

I need to have a basic network for the computers in the study, but of course that's easy. However I need to add computers elsewhere in the house (a family room and the childrens' bedrooms for when they get older) and also the lighting control system which will be located in the downstairs equipment room.

My other desire is to have AV distribution around the house. I still just have coax and freeview boxes at each location. I really want to reach a stage where I have either a PC or something else at each TV (flat panel) and all the entertainment (is distributed from a central server). I have briefly looked at the equipment out there (Sky, BT Vision etc) and what I want is still not available. However hopefully it will come soon.

Other things I imagine could use a home network are a security system, and the telephone system, but I haven't looked into that.

So my questions are:
1) how many first-fix cable runs should I allow for in each room (to be future proof)
2) should I allow for more than one network (considering that an HD video stream will take up a lot of the bandwidth)?
3) is cat5e cable sufficient?
4) am I OK planning to have a hub (or switch/router) at several locations to keep my first fix cabling simple?

 

[bernardgreen]

Even with my laptop about 3m LOS away from my Linksys wireless G router, I sometimes get drop-outs.

If next door have wireless as well the number of packet collisions on the radio channel can drastically reduce the data rate.

 

[electronicsuk]

1) how many first-fix cable runs should I allow for in each room (to be future proof)

A minimum of two cables to each room would be my best advise, but if it were me I'd want at least two dual outlet plates per room, one in a sensible location for a computer and another near the bedside for a phone.

2) should I allow for more than one network (considering that an HD video stream will take up a lot of the bandwidth)?

By running multiple cables you're already allowing for more than one network, you'd simply need to patch through to multiple switches/hubs at the head end. In a fully switched home network it's extremely unlikely with current technology that you'll saturate a 100Mbit connection, but if it worries you then you can always buy a switch with a gigabit backbone that support VLANs as this will allow you to segregate network traffic virtually within a single switch.

3) is cat5e cable sufficient?

In my opinion, given the extra expense of cat 6, yes. Cat5e will support gigabit, and that's more than most homes have.

4) am I OK planning to have a hub (or switch/router) at several locations to keep my first fix cabling simple?

To me this seems to overcomplicate things. If you want UPS protection on the network then it means multuple UPSs at seperate locations or a centralised system with power distributed about the house. What's more, you leave more points of failiure and there's more equipment up upgrade if/when you make the switch to gigabit. I'd buy yourself a decent 24 port 10/100 switch with gigabit uplinks and POE support if you want to future-proof yourself.

 

[jpdw]

A few points/suggestions:

• Whereever you run 1 cable, run 2. Means you can later connect 2 devices at that location (doh!) - okay, so double the cable cost but 300m is only approx £35-40. Additional effort pulling 2 cables each time is marginal (when compared to just 1)
  
  In each room you go to, run to 2 locations on opposite sides / corners
  
  Run the cables even if you just coil them up & leave them below the floor boards for later use
  
  Leave a reasonable amount of spare to allow for learning how to effectively punchdown the cables to the sockets and/or for deciding later to move a socket a couple of feet along the wall
  
  Get some cable rods (from approx £15) - makes life so much easier
  
  You say you are running some automated lighting set-up ... depending on what technology you are using and/or any future plans, consider running cat5 the rear of (deep) switch plates .. again, even if coiled up. Note though you must use cat 5 with mains-rated insulation for this (google for 'c-bus cabling') (this is because some HA systems use cat5 for signalling to/from switchplates)
  
  Label all your network cables - cheap & simple method is to devise a code using 3 or 4 bands of coloured electrical tape at both ends of the cable ...
  
  Run all back to 1 central location (or 2 / 3 / 4 if you leave somewhere really big). In the central location you'll later want a(n ethernet) switch... consider if you will also want to put an always-on-server at this location and if so, consider heat ... or realise you'll want another network cable from the central location to a room that can house the server.
  
  cat5e vs cat6 ? some people way "6" others say it's not worth the extra cost... if you can, you may as well use 6 not 5e, but at the moment there's no compelling reason or future sight of a reason ... 5e will do gigE if installed okay & over the kind of length runs likely in a home ... hence only you can decide if you can justify the extra cost.
  
  use UTP (U=unshielded) not FTP/SFTP (Foil-shielded) ... again, this helps keep down cost. Obviously this wont be as immune to interference -- just be more "sensible" with your cable route

 

[DanAir]

cat5e vs cat6 ? some people way "6" others say it's not worth the extra cost... if you can, you may as well use 6 not 5e

I only have experience with cat5e but I understand that while theoretically higher speeds are possible with cat6 (with the right setup) greater skill is required to get good terminations, with cat5e being much more forgiving, and therefore practically unless you are quite experienced chances are you will achieve just as high, if not higher, speeds with cat5e even in the future when there are practical applications for cat6.

 

[c128]

I would also add that where wire can be used I am of the school that wire is always preferred over wireless.

No security issues, no issues with reception from router due to thick walls or metalwork and no drop outs. It could be argued that wired is cheaper.

NIC card £5, cable £5, 2 x p-leads £3, RJ45 mod sockets £3, back box £1 =£17 per port plus a bit of work.

A decent wireless adaptor is £30+

I don't think anyone would disagree that wired is preferable to wireless in terms of reliability and speed, but it doesn't follow that wireless is going to be unreliable in the OP's environment and it will also avoid cabling hassle. The fact remains that you'd be hard-pushed to buy a mainstream, decent, router these days that doesn't include wireless. Add to this the fact that routers often either come bundled with a USB adapter, or adapter's are available separately for around the £15 mark, then the premium for the OP actually trying out wireless is either nothing or £15 over the cost of the router he'll be buying anyway.

Personally, if I were just interested in sharing my broadband around the house, and wired cabling would require some effort/would be unsightly, I'd be trying wireless first to see how it faired. If real-world performance was c*ap, I'd then be considering a wired network. In my own home I use both wired and wireless, but the wired side of things is only there as I have a home network and server...

 

[sanj.varah]

whoops i have just shoved a load of cat5e through the same holes as some mains cable and parallel to it for about 0.5m in places

is this going to seriously screw up my performance? they are quite short runs maybe 10m a run max. back to the base station

 

[bernardgreen]

c128 wrote

Personally, if I were just interested in sharing my broadband around the house, and wired cabling would require some effort/would be unsightly, I'd be trying wireless first to see how it faired. .

But be ready with the cable drum for when your next door neighbour goes wireless and your service suffers from co-channel interference

 

[c128]

But be ready with the cable drum for when your next door neighbour goes wireless and your service suffers from co-channel interference

I've got 3 neighbours, 2 to the sides and one at the back, all with wireless - no detrimental impact on my own wireless connection (can't vouch for them, of course ). I think it's easy to "over egg" the issues with wireless - clearly folk do have problems, but conversely people just don't report when they're happy with it.

I guess my basic point is that no-one would dispute the benefits of a wired connection, but if providing the wiring itself proves to be a pain for either installation and aesthetic reasons, and all you're doing is sharing a broadband connection, then why not try wireless first if it requires no/neglible outlay (assuming you're buying a new router anyway)?

 

[Dippy]

Thanks for the advice.

Get some cable rods (from approx £15) - makes life so much easier

I'm not sure what cable rods are, although I can imagine. Can you name a suitable supplier (or better still a web-link)?

You say you are running some automated lighting set-up ... depending on what technology you are using and/or any future plans, consider running cat5 the rear of (deep) switch plates .. again, even if coiled up. Note though you must use cat 5 with mains-rated insulation for this (google for 'c-bus cabling') (this is because some HA systems use cat5 for signalling to/from switchplates)

Are you suggesting that I run cable to the switch-plates just in case? I'm not sure why you suggest this. And is your comment that it must be mains-rated insulation is that it would be routed alongside mains lighting cable? I plan to fit the JCL FlexiDim system and it uses cat5 cable to the electronic switch-plates.

use UTP (U=unshielded) not FTP/SFTP (Foil-shielded) ... again, this helps keep down cost. Obviously this wont be as immune to interference -- just be more "sensible" with your cable route

Is cost the only reason?

 

[plugwash]

Afaict for shielded twisted pair to be really effective all the components in the run need to be shielded, that means shielded walports/patch panel sockets and shielded path cables. Also some networking equipment especially at the cheaper end of the market doesn't have the shield connection.

Shielded kit is considerablly more expensive, the cable is less flexible and I belive it is also more difficult to wire. There is really no need for it in a home or office environment.

 

[Malc C]

jumping in a bit late here, but I've hardwired our home with cat5e cables about 6 years ago (wireless NICs were around £60 each with wireless routers costing around £150 at the time so hardwired was the cheapest option)

I have a Safecom router with built-in usb print server, netgear 8 port mini switch, and cable modem. There are two wall sockets in each bedroom, and lounge, which are teminated on twin gang face plate RJ45 sockets behind my desk. These are patched into the switch via 1mt cables, and the switch connected to the router via a 0.5m cable. This allows the 4 PCs in the house to access the net, share files on a 500mb NAS and print to a central printer.

The cabling is run in trunked skirting, conduit and under floor, then into walls. Its been fine for the past six years and provides ample data transfer. However given the popularity of gigabit, the cost of small netgear gb switches and network cards is now so cheap that this too could be an option for the home network.

Malc