Hardware & Technical Wired home network

Bazil

B
Before Elite : Dangerous gets to Gamma and because I've just had my house rewired so I've got access between the floors etc. I thought I'd take the chance to install a wired network.

My electrician kindly left me some cat6 cable so before the living room gets re-plastered I need to run a cable down that wall. I'm struggling though to find info on the best way to set it up. I'm on BT Infinity with a BT Home Hub 5 (5x G/bit Ethernet ports on the back) I was going to use as the switch and put a 4 port socket on the wall then have those going off to other rooms in the house. Does that sound as though it will work OK?

Is there anything complex about it and where can I buy the stuff?

Thanks,
Bazil.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
It's not complex at all - and you'll find it fairly straightforward if you obey the basic cable rules.

Don't bend cable beyond it's minimum radius, don't wire it in parallel to power cable, don't pinch it, and don't unwind more than needed to terminate.

If you are using Cat6 - make sure every faceplate, patch, rackstring is Cat6 also - or you are wasting your time.

You may be better off using powerline Ethernet - it's slower but won't need any further wiring than your mains. I've not used it myself.
 
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SuperG

S
I do not know much about it. But you have solid core cable. For instalatipns. And the more multi strand core which are much more flexible and use to wire the decices to socket.

I think the difference is each type of cable need it kind of connector.
And a pro crimp tool. And cable check device.

I got two ISP each his own WAN router with WIFI. So two LAN and a lot of devices so bunch of switches.
 

alexios

alexios
Asp Explorer said:
It's not complex at all - and you'll find it fairly straightforward if you obey the basic cable rules.

Don't bend cable beyond it's minimum radius, don't wire it in parallel to power cable, don't pinch it, and don't unwind more than needed to terminate.
Click to expand...

Also, match the colour coding and wire all pairs.

Some ‘clever’ installers split CAT-5/5e/6 cables in two and wire two sockets per cable because everything up to 100BASE-TX used half the pairs of a cable. Caused no end of grief at work when I had to repatch some sockets. Also, it doesn't work at all with 1000BASE-T (gigabit Ethernet).

Asp Explorer said:
You may be better off using powerline Ethernet - it's slower but won't need any further wiring than your mains. I've not used it myself.
Click to expand...

I've used powerline Ethernet to connect between floors for, hmm, maybe six years. It's definitely slower than 100BASE-T. I use 85 Mbps units and get roughly 22–35 MBps in bursts, but around 15 Mbps sustained. Other than that, it works just fine and has been very reliable, especially if you don't need to transfer backups between floors and don't have a super-fast Internet connection. I'm getting 2.4–5.2 ms RTT between floors, but I'm going through two switches (one built into the cheapo router, one proper comms rack-mount unit) plus the powerline transceivers.
 
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SuperG

S
I just drilled a big hole where premade cat cable with conector twice for both LANs comes truogh and TV cable.
But for me I don't care how it looks, but if it functional. But that me.
 

Surfinjo

Surfinjo
Excellent advice.

If I may add one point, be sure to leave sufficient ends at each outlet. A good 200mm. It may sound a lot but there's an old saying in wiring,

'It's Better Looking at it Than Looking For it!'
 

Cmdr Andy B

Cmdr Andy B
the first thing you need to do is step away from the crimp tool - you wont need it yet.

install network wall boxes instead of terminated cables, that way all your buried cable will stay pristine and not end up broken at the bends when you plug it into your devices.

you can get network boxes in twin and single, use 2 twins next to your router and a single in each location you're wiring up and then a patch cable from the wall to the device.

if your in the UK Maplin is going to be the best place to get them as you can see the product before you buy it and make sure the colour coding matches on each socket, sometimes they don't and this can make it a real pain to wire them up.

Twin sockets:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/kauden-cat6-dual-outlet-face-plate-a33qb

Single Sockets:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/kauden-cat6-single-outlet-face-plate-a32qb

Back boxes:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/single-pvc-back-box-zx25c



the sockets will be around £52 to do four rooms, plus back boxes (x6= £23.94) & patch cables.
 
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Varp

Varp
I started looking at this for my house, but found with the potential for running into other pipes etc a bit alarming. So I went for powerline Ethernet. It works really well - as you will be going out to the internet/router for this game you aren't really that likely to need more than 200 Mbps, though you can get 500 Mbps kits. Plus it's enough bandwidth for rock-steady streaming between stuff.

I have four powerline adapters to take the signal from the router, feed my PC, Playstation and SmartTV. Most other stuff I have is happy enough on WiFi.

Less mess and pretty simple to configure. Plus if/when I move or rearrange the house it's portable/flexible.

Just another vote for the alternate solution.... :)
 

Bazil

B
Thank you for all of the responses, there's plenty of information there for me to take in.

I've just had the house re-wired and it is being re-plumbed so everything is up and visible, so no worries about going through a pipe or electrical cable. Also I'm having plastering done once its all finished so I feel this is the perfect time to do this and future proof the house for a very long time.
 

Hootmon

Hootmon
Make sure the behind-the-wall run length doesnt exceed 90 meters. That shouldnt be a problem in a normal house, but its something to be aware of if you are turning a lot of corners.
 

Bazil

B
Hootmon said:
Make sure the behind-the-wall run length doesnt exceed 90 meters. That shouldnt be a problem in a normal house, but its something to be aware of if you are turning a lot of corners.
Click to expand...

Haha, I wish I had a house that big. :)

In fact, no I don't, think of the heating bills in winter over here.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
alexios said:
Some ‘clever’ installers split CAT-5/5e/6 cables in two and wire two sockets per cable because everything up to 100BASE-TX used half the pairs of a cable. Caused no end of grief at work when I had to repatch some sockets. Also, it doesn't work at all with 1000BASE-T (gigabit Ethernet).
Click to expand...

Oh - if only I could show you the chimera obscenity I have to deal with at work :)

Doubled split pairs into a doubled free-floating junction, gigabit linerate, then fed to Cisco VOIP phone with an internal 100Mb switch, patched to desktop.

Yup that's right - years back they spent around $20 million delivering gigabit-to-desktop, and then immediately went and undid that all by using cheapo VOIP phones :)

Got to love beancounters.
 

alexios

alexios
Asp Explorer said:
Oh - if only I could show you the chimera obscenity I have to deal with at work :)

Doubled split pairs into a doubled free-floating junction, gigabit linerate, then fed to Cisco VOIP phone with an internal 100Mb switch, patched to desktop.
Click to expand...

Well, it's a pass-through socket, right? *sigh*

At least our data centre is properly wired.
 
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