Home Networking

[Gali]

Networking Lords and Ladies,

 

I'm soon-to-be starting my networking of my new home (She's old - est.1926) and I need some help. I've had experience routing hardlines of ethernet, but I'm looking to install a high(er) end router with Cat 5. My question is what router solution I should go with. As well, I have a question in regards to Cat 6 cables. Is it advantageous to go Cat 6 rather than Cat 5/E? I've read that there's a maximum length with Cat 6, but perhaps I'm mistaken with that.

 

The best pricing I've seen for Cat 5 is $13/200ft. Has anyone bought cheaper than that?

 

Thanks as always y'all!

 

~ Gali

[pcshme33]

depends on what your internet speed is. And what kind of things you are going to do.

[manikyath]

my opinion on the whole cat5e/cat6 thing is you're better off getting a high quality cat5e, than pay the same amount of money for a standard cat6. (and still, in a house you dont need a high quality cat5e, any ol' cat5e cable will do.)

 

beyond that, i'm gonna give you this piece of advice: everywhere you're running cables to, run two of them, your future self will thank your present self for doing so.

[jeffmeyer5295]

6 minutes ago, manikyath said:

 

beyond that, i'm gonna give you this piece of advice: everywhere you're running cables to, run two of them, your future self will thank your present self for doing so.

This is the best networking advice you will ever receive!

[GDRRiley]

8 minutes ago, manikyath said:

beyond that, i'm gonna give you this piece of advice: everywhere you're running cables to, run two of them, your future self will thank your present self for doing so.

I have ran 3 Ethernet cables to my room and I agree. just do 2 at a time 

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

I have ran 3 Ethernet cables to my room and I agree. just do 2 at a time 

i have an outdoorsy rated S/FTP cat5e cable to my room... there's such a temptation to replace that thing with two normal ones trough one tube...

[GDRRiley]

Just now, manikyath said:

i have an outdoorsy rated S/FTP cat5e cable to my room... there's such a temptation to replace that thing with two normal ones trough one tube...

I am finishing up running an outdoor one to a detached room that we have, that way I can final have good wifi in there

[Lurick]

Maximum length for CAT5e and Cat6 is roughly 100meters so unless you have a huge house and need to run from end A to end B you shouldn't have much to worry about there. You can get 1000 feet for around $100 and make all the cables yourself and have it look really nice. As someone who's done it before I would suggest getting a smartbox to have all the cables co-locate into or at least a nice 24 to 48 port patch panel you can screw into the wall

[Gali]

2 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I am finishing up running an outdoor one to a detached room that we have, that way I can final have good wifi in there

Would you fight data degredation of any kind running lines from modem/router to router or switch? I'm on 300Mb internet at the moment and the Wifi is inconsistent as hell with TMC. Hence why I'm going hardline to the computers. WiFi is fine for consoles - haven't seen any issue but the modem is right next to them so I wouldn't expect it.

[Lurick]

One other tip I can give you, since you're in NC, like me, if you even think Google fiber or ATT Fiber might come to your house at some point, run an extra line into a crawl space or just down the wall near where your other utilities come into the house, it will save you loads of time and trouble in the future

[Gali]

2 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Maximum length for CAT5e and Cat6 is roughly 100meters so unless you have a huge house and need to run from end A to end B you shouldn't have much to worry about there. You can get 1000 feet for around $100 and make all the cables yourself and have it look really nice. As someone who's done it before I would suggest getting a smartbox to have all the cables co-locate into or at least a nice 24 to 48 port patch panel you can screw into the wall

I was thinking about doing this, Lurick. I have never made connections, but I'm willing to learn! I just want to make sure that I have the least amount of loss in data as I can from the point of origin to the workstations. The house isn't huge - 1100sqft / 900sqft. 100ft runs would likely accomplish the mission just fine.

[Gali]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

One other tip I can give you, since you're in NC, like me, if you even think Google fiber or ATT Fiber might come to your house at some point, run an extra line into a crawl space or just down the wall near where your other utilities come into the house, it will save you loads of time and trouble in the future

There's that too. So I'll probably do 2 or 3 in this case - 1 main line, 1 "just in case", and 1 for the Fiber? That seems a bit overkill ... but have always been under the impression that if you don't plan for expansion then you're planning for failure.

[Lurick]

3 minutes ago, Gali said:

There's that too. So I'll probably do 2 or 3 in this case - 1 main line, 1 "just in case", and 1 for the Fiber? That seems a bit overkill ... but have always been under the impression that if you don't plan for expansion then you're planning for failure.

Yah, basically they run fiber to a box outside near your power and other utilities and then from there they run a copper CAT5e cable to your line and couple the two together.

 

4 minutes ago, Gali said:

I was thinking about doing this, Lurick. I have never made connections, but I'm willing to learn! I just want to make sure that I have the least amount of loss in data as I can from the point of origin to the workstations. The house isn't huge - 1100sqft / 900sqft. 100ft runs would likely accomplish the mission just fine.

Then you'll be just fine, I have a couple 150 foot runs with no signal loss at all. Crimping your own cables is pretty easy to do and allows you to have custom length runs which cuts down on cost in the end. I think in total I did 20 runs throughout the house and wall plates plus jacks cost a total of like $50, mostly because I did CAT6 cable, the Cat5e stuff is a little cheaper. I used maybe 500 feet all said and done of cable to do all 20 connections.

[GDRRiley]

8 minutes ago, Gali said:

Would you fight data degredation of any kind running lines from modem/router to router or switch? I'm on 300Mb internet at the moment and the Wifi is inconsistent as hell with TMC. Hence why I'm going hardline to the computers. WiFi is fine for consoles - haven't seen any issue but the modem is right next to them so I wouldn't expect it.

I may a little do to it being 150ft long but it is going from a powered network swtich to a powered wifi  point so it shouldn't change much. Also nice speedd

[skywake]

Speaking from experience, just remember that you're probably not going to want to replace all that cabling once you're done. So it pays to go a little bit overkill. IMO the cost gap between Cat5e and Cat6 is so small that you're better off going with Cat6. And unless you're doing a run through some extreme conditions (outside, alongside power etc) you don't need anything fancy. But wallplates do matter because that's the bit you will interact with, wear out and see.

 

In terms of the number of runs? Make sure you do runs to all of the places you think you'll need it. A good rule of thumb is to do one to every bedroom and every place you're likely to sit a TV or computer. Then as others have said it's not a bad idea to do two runs. Especially behind TVs and so on. Sure you can always put a switch there and most of the time that'll be fine. But you might want those two cables doing different things. For example you might want one doing PoE at 1Gbps and the other one a standard 10Gbps. There are ways to do most things it with just one cable but having options isn't a bad idea. 

 

The last thing, look at your WiFi at the same time. Consider getting some nicer access points along the lines of Ubiquiti or something. Do some runs to places that make sense to those at the same time. Because once again you're not going to want to do that once you've got it setup. And usually where you want to run network cables and where the best spot for an access point are don't overlap. Especially if you have a double-brick house and made a point of running all the cables through external walls.