future-proofing house with cat6...

Eurorunner

I'm in house buying mode right now. More than likely will be signing for a house that is yet to be built. The spec includes telephone points in all rooms.

The one variation I want to include is to have the builder put in RJ45 wall plates and cat6 cabling instead of the phone points.

Have any of you done this and if so, where did you get the cabling etc.?
Where is the most logical place to run the cabling to ..if it all has to run back to a central point?
How much cat6 am i likely to need for an average sized 4bed semi?
Any other points to consider welcomed.

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.connectix.ie - price in Ireland are same/cheaper than the sterling ones.

Even CAT5 can get you gigabit if done properly.
so the better CAT5e should be enough for the medium term.
CAT6 has more stringent termination requirements so unless it's done properly you might as well use CAT5e.

Labour costs more than cable - so run double points everywhere
for the same reason buy several boxes of cable so you can run a several at the same time - each box has 305m so should be enough

Enhanced Category 5 UTP LSZH Solid Cable (305 metres) 001-003-003-61 £36.33
At that price Low Halogen (less toxic in a fire) is a no brainer.

If you are doing this before the walls go up, you should look at getting satellite cable to all rooms CT100 or something , if it was self build you could also get trunking put in with string inside it so later on you could draw cables through it (for when you get fibre)

gline

Eurorunner wrote:

I'm in house buying mode right now. More than likely will be signing for a house that is yet to be built. The spec includes telephone points in all rooms.

The one variation I want to include is to have the builder put in RJ45 wall plates and cat6 cabling instead of the phone points.

Have any of you done this and if so, where did you get the cabling etc.?
Where is the most logical place to run the cabling to ..if it all has to run back to a central point?
How much cat6 am i likely to need for an average sized 4bed semi?
Any other points to consider welcomed.

Maybe wire it all back to the attic and stick all the patchpanels , hubs etc up there, will save u on space and wont look so ugly there. Yeh cat 5e is fine as Capt'n Midnight said, if u need anyone to cable it all in let me know used to do structured cabling for 2 years

sirlinux

Just finished doing this myself, get the electricians to just run two (or more) cat5e to the outlets, terminate it yourself, it's easy and the electrician most likely wont want to do it, i put it in teh attic out of sight, make sure you get power as well where you bring the cables back to, and get an extra cable run back to the eircom demarcation point on the side of the house, also consider fitting and RFI filter and anti surge unit to your consumer box to stop all thos nasty power problems you might see (dont forget an antisurge for the telephone line as well). As pointed out two runs of ct100 to each point is also a great idea. Sourcing the cable yourself will also usually save a few quid.

fatherdougalmag

Would under the stairs/utility room be a better spot? Just from a maintenance/upgrade point of view.

sirlinux

to be honest it's ugly, even if you buy a rack and cabinet it's damn ugly, hide it out of view if possible, but leave it accesible.

Y.B.Sober

Just finished hard wiring an internet cafe. Capt'n Midnight is right, if at all possible use some form of trunking to cut down on any possible work in the future - and the string is priceless! 'Sirlinux's' tips also make good sense.

It probably doesn't need to be said BUT keep the cat5/6 as far away from any other cables as possible. If the cat5/6 must cross a power cable, try and cross at right angles, it will minimise the effects of any electric field created by the power cable. Even if you are getting qualified electricians to hard wire for you, this needs to be pointed out to them. In my experiences, they liketo bundle cables together, regardless of their purpose.

Eurorunner

Thanks for that guys. Exactly the kind of info i was looking for. Spoke to the builder and they dont have any problem with doing this.

naitkris

why not go CAT7 for even better future proofing or even CAT8 for the sake of it (don't know if there is CAT8, is there?)?

but seriously CAT6 and CAT7 are both not official standards and depending on who you buy the so-called CAT6 cable off it could be a totally different type of CAT6 to the type that CAT6 is when it becomes an official standard.

CAT5e on the other hand is an official standard and does support Gb Ethernet (which is seriously fast and quite future proof imo)... unless you have the need for 10Gb Ethernet capabilities, for, as an example - running a major data centre or becoming Ireland's newest Internet access provider out of your home i don't see the adavntages of going above the official CAT5e standard... maybe i am wrong on that i don't know... but it saves money also don't forget... and just cause it's newer don't make it altogether the best choice...