New home network

[redbeard23]

I'm going to be getting a house, split level, built in the 70s, it needs to have the electrical replaced, so I'm going to have networking and coax added. I'm going to have space in the utility room for a rack. Currently the house has DSL, if the nearby cable ISPs don't serve that address I'll be ordering starlink.

 

I'm going to have runs put in for an upstairs, downstairs and garage access point, I know I'll need a switch, what else am I gonna need, I'm trying to save money if I can, 1gbps or 2.5gb gear, my motherboard is 2.5 gig, I'll have a few consoles and a few tvs with streaming, I'm looking at a 20-24 U rack for the potential to add a NAS and or Plex in the future 

[Bombastinator]

My personal opinion of in-wall low voltage wiring after having a house with it for a long time is the stuff is subject to change without notice which may or may not cause a problem. The way around this (which is expensive) is NM conduit for all low voltage.   Because the things often come with connectors attached the NM has to be big enough to pass the connector AND the cable.  1&1/4” is huge expensive stuff, but will allow you to pass connectors through the pipe. The wire you have in place may or may not be better than what can currently be gotten because copper was cheaper back then.   I was told by an electrician to run 12g for all the wiring even if it wasn’t required, because it creates a ton more flexibility and in the long run it will be worth it even if it costs more up front now.  He was right I have learned. 
 

A possible advantage of this system is if you do it for regular electrical too and put pull strings in the tubes you can save money on electricians by doing it yourself as prepping stuff FOR electrical work is less expensive than having an electrician do it. More total money in parts but a lot less in total labor.  Electricians can be quite expensive by the hour. So potentially a better system for less money.  The math has to be done though to make sure it actually is less total money though.  The total labor will be potentially higher if the DIY time is included.  It sort of depends on how much your time is worth.  

Edited August 2, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Allan B]

Not really sure what your question is?  My one comment, i ran cat5e and coax in my last house, I regretted the coax as it was a waste of time\money.  Even if you go with cable internet\TV, the TV boxes are now wireless or ethernet and I had the cable modem in bridge mode in the basement right were the cable line comes in.  I never used a coax run ever.  Run the networking, ideally cat6, cat5e will do 2.5gbit if it is not long, but cat6 will go up to 10gbit for future use.

[Falcon1986]

20 hours ago, redbeard23 said:

what else am I gonna need

A patch panel with room to expand is what I discovered late. Made a world of a difference tidying up all the ethernet cables that converged at the switch.

 

Looking back, I have to agree with @Allan B when it comes to running coaxial. Only run what you know for sure will need coaxial. With modern devices of today, we tend to stream over the internet anyway, whether it’s via WiFi or ethernet.

 

When I wanted Cat5e runs, I asked the electrician to run them in parallel (same conduit) as the coaxial, since they would be originating at the same wall plates and converging at the same distribution point. Saved me lots of time and effort back then. All I had to do was crimp the ends and hook everything up. We hardly use half of the coaxial runs today since most fixed devices are streaming via ethernet.

[redbeard23]

21 hours ago, Allan B said:

Not really sure what your question is?  My one comment, i ran cat5e and coax in my last house, I regretted the coax as it was a waste of time\money.  Even if you go with cable internet\TV, the TV boxes are now wireless or ethernet and I had the cable modem in bridge mode in the basement right were the cable line comes in.  I never used a coax run ever.  Run the networking, ideally cat6, cat5e will do 2.5gbit if it is not long, but cat6 will go up to 10gbit for future use.

I was thinking about coaxial for resale, but I suppose if I just have conduit running for ethernet to the same places that someone in the future might want coaxial or whatever else than I could skip the cost, I don't plan to get cable or satellite TV

[redbeard23]

20 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

A patch panel with room to expand is what I discovered late. Made a world of a difference tidying up all the ethernet cables that converged at the switch.

 

Looking back, I have to agree with @Allan B when it comes to running coaxial. Only run what you know for sure will need coaxial. With modern devices of today, we tend to stream over the internet anyway, whether it’s via WiFi or ethernet.

 

When I wanted Cat5e runs, I asked the electrician to run them in parallel (same conduit) as the coaxial, since they would be originating at the same wall plates and converging at the same distribution point. Saved me lots of time and effort back then. All I had to do was crimp the ends and hook everything up. We hardly use half of the coaxial runs today since most fixed devices are streaming via ethernet.

Thanks, adding a patch panel to the shopping list

[wseaton]

Why are you guys investing all this wiring when we're dealing with DSL / starlink?

 

Patch panels have no purpose outside of a data center unless you are going to have an electrician do a proper earth ground. 

[redbeard23]

2 minutes ago, wseaton said:

Why are you guys investing all this wiring when we're dealing with DSL / starlink?

 

Patch panels have no purpose outside of a data center unless you are going to have an electrician do a proper earth ground. 

Starlink will eventually be gigabit, I also plan to have a plex server and NAS

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, redbeard23 said:

Starlink will eventually be gigabit, I also plan to have a plex server and NAS

Patch panels are only on the very edge of my Ken, but I can see how they would organize things even if strictly speaking they weren’t needed.  Even a home network can turn into a mass of spaghetti very quickly.  If you’re going with patch panels though the conduit thing also makes some sense.  You don’t want to have to tear out a wall just because cat5e doesn’t cut it any more. Ever heard of cat3?  It’s worthless but my house is full of it.  I had to abandon it in place.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Bombastinator

[redbeard23]

9 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Patch panels are only on the very edge of my Ken, but I can see how they would organize things even if strictly speaking they weren’t needed.  Even a home network can turn into a mass of spaghetti very quickly.  If you’re going with patch panels though the conduit thing also makes some sense.  You don’t want to have to tear out a wall just because cat5e doesn’t cut it any more. Ever heard of cat3?  It’s worthless but my house is full of it.  I had to abandon it in place.

Oh I always planned on there being conduit for it, even just 2 inch pvc pipe would be better than nothing

[Alex Atkin UK]

12 hours ago, redbeard23 said:

Starlink will eventually be gigabit, I also plan to have a plex server and NAS

Personally I think Starlink will go out of business, its just not economical to maintain low earth orbit satellites - that's if the space trash problem it creates doesn't just destroy everything in orbit first.

 

12 hours ago, wseaton said:

Why are you guys investing all this wiring when we're dealing with DSL / starlink?

 

Patch panels have no purpose outside of a data center unless you are going to have an electrician do a proper earth ground. 

I disagree, any house with enough space for one absolutely should have a centralised network rack of some kind.

Even if you only use WiFi, the router should be central with Access Points placed around the house for optimal speed and latency.  The faster things get, the more important this will be.

This also makes it easier to have a UPS for backup power and you can save on AC outlets using PoE, which can also be more efficient on power as you only have a single AC to DC converter in the switch then DC to DC converters for each device.

[Donut417]

23 hours ago, redbeard23 said:

Starlink will eventually be gigabit, I also plan to have a plex server and NAS

Yeah, Thats never going to happen. The network is already being bogged down and who knows if they will ever be able to get more satellites in space at the rate they need them. 

[Bombastinator]

On 8/5/2022 at 9:16 AM, redbeard23 said:

Oh I always planned on there being conduit for it, even just 2 inch pvc pipe would be better than nothing

It’s actually better than nm.  The difficulty with plumbing pipe is lack of flexibility.  May not matter in some cases though. 

[redbeard23]

On 8/5/2022 at 10:59 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

I disagree, any house with enough space for one absolutely should have a centralised network rack of some kind.

Even if you only use WiFi, the router should be central with Access Points placed around the house for optimal speed and latency.  The faster things get, the more important this will be.

This also makes it easier to have a UPS for backup power and you can save on AC outlets using PoE, which can also be more efficient on power as you only have a single AC to DC converter in the switch then DC to DC converters for each device.

Ya, with the square footage I think one AP in the upper rear and one in the lower front and one for the garage would cover the entire property, at least the part that's grass and not dense forest

 

I'd also have the option for PoE security cameras rather than bogging down my wifi

[Bombastinator]

17 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Yeah, Thats never going to happen. The network is already being bogged down and who knows if they will ever be able to get more satellites in space at the rate they need them. 

Just watched a video on that.  It was just have a think or undecided or something.  Talked about a company using what amounts to a gigantic evacuated sling to throw satellites into orbit.  It’s still in later research phases so “Who knows” is a point though.

Edited August 6, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Just watched a video on that.  It was just have a think or undecided or something.  Talked about a company using what amounts to a gigantic evacuated sling to throw satellites into orbit.  It’s still in later research phases so “Who knows” is a point though.

The bigger problem is we can't afford to have that many sattelites in orbit.

1. The Kessler Syndrome.  There is already debree out there, the more sattelites the quicker the chain reaction is going to be that wipes out ALL sattelites and makes space exploration impossible.  We should only be putting up the absolute minimum we can to delay this until we can figure out a way to do something about it, IF we even can.

2. Obstructing the night sky.  Starlink has already been reported as causing issues for monitoring for asteroids that might hit earth.  That's kinda important if we want enough warning to try and do something about it, and it only gets worse as more sattelites are put up there.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The bigger problem is we can't afford to have that many sattelites in orbit.

1. The Kessler Syndrome.  There is already debree out there, the more sattelites the quicker the chain reaction is going to be that wipes out ALL sattelites and makes space exploration impossible.  We should only be putting up the absolute minimum we can to delay this until we can figure out a way to do something about it, IF we even can.

2. Obstructing the night sky.  Starlink has already been reported as causing issues for monitoring for asteroids that might hit earth.  That's kinda important if we want enough warning to try and do something about it, and it only gets worse as more sattelites are put up there.

#1 is possible.  I don’t know enough about it. 
#2 strike me as somewhat unlikely as if #1 is real it would happen long before #2 could become a functional issue of merit.  Something occluding a given point for a fraction of a second doesn’t strike me as a functional problem for that.  It’s when there is so much up there that it would happen multiple times from multiple points on the globe.  I saw a video on this one with a map of current debris locations and it was sort of a cloud multiple times the volume of the earth.  Given that much of this stuff isn’t very big the actual occluding volume is a tiny fraction of 1%.  
this may be a situation a bit like the argument against 5g where it sort of goes “it does this thing and this is the result of this thing” without paying attention to the actual numbers. When it actually goes “it does this thing and the result of this thing in sufficient amounts does this.  But those amounts are known and haven’t even come close to being reached”.

[redbeard23]

On 8/6/2022 at 7:16 PM, Bombastinator said:

#1 is possible.  I don’t know enough about it. 
#2 strike me as somewhat unlikely as if #1 is real it would happen long before #2 could become a functional issue of merit.  Something occluding a given point for a fraction of a second doesn’t strike me as a functional problem for that.  It’s when there is so much up there that it would happen multiple times from multiple points on the globe.  I saw a video on this one with a map of current debris locations and it was sort of a cloud multiple times the volume of the earth.  Given that much of this stuff isn’t very big the actual occluding volume is a tiny fraction of 1%.  
this may be a situation a bit like the argument against 5g where it sort of goes “it does this thing and this is the result of this thing” without paying attention to the actual numbers. When it actually goes “it does this thing and the result of this thing in sufficient amounts does this.  But those amounts are known and haven’t even come close to being reached”.

the future of starlink isnt an issue for me anymore, found out theres a company with fiber and a max of 2000mbps