New Build - Ethernet

Chopper83

Hi hoping for some advice in an area I don't have any experience in!

I'm building my house at the minute and the electrician is asking do I want any network points put it so the house is hard wired. I'm thinking this is a good idea..

I have 3 living rooms and 4 bedrooms - Would you suggest running at least one network point to each room with possibly more for behind the TV?

If so is Cat6 worth the additional outlay?

Any other advice greatly appreciated.

tsue921i8wljb3

Chopper83 wrote: »

Hi hoping for some advice in an area I don't have any experience in!

I'm building my house at the minute and the electrician is asking do I want any network points put it so the house is hard wired. I'm thinking this is a good idea..

I have 3 living rooms and 4 bedrooms - Would you suggest running at least one network point to each room with possibly more for behind the TV?

If so is Cat6 worth the additional outlay?

Any other advice greatly appreciated.

I'd advise at least one to each room and however many you think you'd need at the TV although you also have the option of a small switch behind the TV for extra ports.

Also consider if you are building a large house or two story with concrete slabs that you can use Ethernet to help you extend WiFi coverage by placing access point(s) at strategic locations. Some people would have access points on the ceiling or wall mounted so think about running cable where you might place them.

Place an Ethernet point where your broadband enters your home so you can distribute the connection over the LAN.

Cat5e and Cat6 should both do gigabit, Cat6 will do 10 gigabit over ~55m but 10Gb switches and compatible devices are still prohibitively expensive. If you got a good deal on Cat6 cable I'd probably use it.

All cables need to be brought to a particular location where they would be connected to a switch and perhaps a patch panel for neatness. Hopefully your electrician is experienced and does a good job.

wandererz

All good advice above.

I would go for Cat 6 if possible to compensate for future (although, the same could be said for fibre). This is something you won't be able to rip & replace easily, so best to plan ahead.

You will need a central location for all these cables from each room to aggregate. Have you decided where this will be? Perhaps a closet under the the stairs or attic or elsewhere? Wherever that is, you will need a patch panel & a switch to connect all the cables into.

7x rooms + 1x connection from broadband provider = 8x cables at least. Hence 8-port patch panel & 8-port switch minimum (probably 12 though).

Also consider where you want to place cameras around the exterior of the house (and interior). Each of these will require an Ethernet cable.
That increases your patch panel ports & switch ports & runs of cable.

In that case probably 24 port patch panel & switch??

Johnboy1951

In addition to at least one, but preferably two, ethernet cables to each room (Cat5e is more flexible and cheaper than Cat6 and capable of 1Gb/s speeds) , all running back to one central 'media press', I would suggest the following .....

if possible put each of the cables within a pipe/duct so that should it be required in future they can easily be changed or upgraded.

I also suggest a similar set of pipes/ducts to facilitate wiring to the exterior of the home for lights, cameras, terrestrial aerial coax, satellite coax cables and other such cabling.

Bring them all back to one central location from where they can be distributed over ethernet cable to whatever rooms you wish .... or wirelessly everywhere. Ensure the space is large enough for router, switch, tuners, camera recorder and other such devices you might wish to incorporate in the future.

In the long term it will make sense to have all such devices in one location ..... but do not scrimp on space either. These things tend to expand to fill all available space

Chopper83

Thanks for the suggestions folks

As far as I know the ISP will bring their connection into our living room so I'm assuming the below

- I'll need an Ethernet point from point of entry into the house
- I'll run the cable from point of entry to a central point where I'll store a switch - Thinking this will be under the stairs
- I'm going to have at least 2 network points in each room with additional points behind TV (possibly 3)
- I'll need a network point somewhere on 2nd floor for an additional router as suspect wireless wouldn't be great there

Some additional questions!
- For TV on wall - assume I'd want the network points behind the TV on the wall?
- Any recommendations for where to locate the network points? Best keeping 2 points together rather than one on each side of the room?

Much appreciated fellas

Johnboy1951

You will need some space at the TV for a device to convert the signal back to one usable by the TV, and probably a power outlet for it if not powered by the HDMI connection of the TV.

tphase

I'd be tempted to run another conduit parallel to almost every electrical conduit. Wherever you have power, you might want to plug in something that can be networked or put in a phone/TV point. You don't necessarily have to put in a wall box or even cable unless it would be too awkward to do it later (in which case leave a good loop of cable in the conduit). If you place it the same distance and the same side of every mains conduit, you won't have too much trouble finding it again. Chopping out a hole for a wall box is a lot less messy than cutting a channel for conduit.
Wish I had done something like that with my house - I've easy enough access from above but the thought of cutting channels and the subsequent cleanup (plus the inevitable complaints from her indoors) put me off

For your patch panel, I'd recommend one that takes keystone jacks. Handier to work with especially if you're going to be wiring in additional network points in the future. Get a panel a bit bigger than you need. 24 port panel would give plenty of room for expansion, you don't need to populate all of them

DublinDilbert

Chopper83 wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions folks

As far as I know the ISP will bring their connection into our living room so I'm assuming the below

- s

Who is your ISP?

Many won’t bring it to the living room, just to the master phone point in the hall. I would run a CAT5 from the master point in the hall to where your terminating the rest of the network cables (utility room).