Wired Network in house

I'm in the process of renovating a decent sized house, I'm planning on taking the opportunity to fire in a wired network but the last time i did this it was years ago!

Basic questions:

What is the best/most cost effective cable - I know Cat6 is the new thing but is it worth the extra and what about 6a etc?

My basic setup will be everything run to a central location with a nas box and router.
I'm going to get a couple of the ceiling mounted access points too

Good suppliers of cables/faceplates etc?

Anything i should consider?

One plan I have is to install some ceiling speakers in the kitchen/utility/bathrooms with a small amp/chromecast audio in each (hidden in the ceiling) but think they only run off the wifi anyway

If your cable runs are all going to be <100M it makes no real difference if you go Cat5e, Cat6 or Cat6a. 5e will be the easiest to run (due to being thinner), and the cheapest to boot, just make sure whatever you get it solid cored rather than strand.

I'm in the process of getting the kit ready to implement my new home network and I'll likely be using 5e. Even 5e (if cabled correctly) will sustain a 10GbE network up to around 40m in length, I really don't see why home users are budgeting for Cat6+.

When I was looking around a year ago the price difference between 5e and 6 (both 'decent' solid core etc) wasn't much at all, so I went with 6.

Whilst 5e can theoretically do 10GbE for shorter runs as I was chasing stuff into walls and everything I went with the slightly more futureproof one, but didn't think it was worth paying the good chunk extra for 6a/7 stuff.

Hell, I've got a 1m long cat5e patch cable that can't do 1GbE let alone 10gbE

cheers for the input! that thread with people posting their sets ups looks pretty useful, will trawl through that for a while!

SKILL said:

Hell, I've got a 1m long cat5e patch cable that can't do 1GbE let alone 10gbE

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I've been in IT for 15 years and have not once failed to make a patch cable or lay a "structured" cable using cat5e that's failed to run GbE. All of my recent patch leads have been tested working absolutely fine with 10GbE also.

Either the cable was purchased as a duff cable (if it was pre-molded), or was built incorrectly.

SKILL said:

When I was looking around a year ago the price difference between 5e and 6 (both 'decent' solid core etc) wasn't much at all, so I went with 6.

Whilst 5e can theoretically do 10GbE for shorter runs as I was chasing stuff into walls and everything I went with the slightly more futureproof one, but didn't think it was worth paying the good chunk extra for 6a/7 stuff.

Hell, I've got a 1m long cat5e patch cable that can't do 1GbE let alone 10gbE

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This 1M cable of yours is broken my friend.

Cat5e can do gigabit over ~140 metres, I've not tested further. It's specced to do 100.


As someone who is in the middle of installing ~50 ports of Cat6 shielded in a friend's house, I would stay away from shielded unless you are NASA. It takes so much more time and pain to install.

I've done my own house recently and used cat5e throughout. I've used miles of the stuff in work. Nice and easy to work with, never had a single failure.

Yeah, I get that it's broken, that was tongue in cheek It's an old cable I got with something or other, works fine at 100Mb but won't do higher at all.

My point was mostly that if the price between 5e and 6 is similar (it was when I was looking/buying) then why go for 5e? yes it's marginally easier to run but not by that much really. If I'm wrong and 5e is much cheaper then sure, that's a reason, but price is all I can really think of as a reason not to use 6.

Run 2 cables in and you'll be future proofed both ways.

SKILL said:

Hell, I've got a 1m long cat5e patch cable that can't do 1GbE let alone 10gbE

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I've got one too - came with my Plusnet router and only has 2 out of the 4 pairs connected, so can only do 100Mbps

Why they supply it is anyone's guess (when they also supply another cable that has different coloured ends and is gigabit capable), talk about extreme cost cutting

I did this recently. Ran shielded 5e. x2 to some rooms. 2 full reels in all. Properly terminated. Could not be bothered with 6.

The most demanding thing I'm likely to do is stream HD\uHD content to the TV, and I can't see this breaching 1gig after re-encoding.

Why do people use shielded cable? Is it just because it sounds like it should be better?

Shielded Cat5e would be more hassle to install that UTP Cat6, and would probably cost more as well. It seems like an odd choice unless it dropped into your lap.

can anyone recommend a decent supplier of bulk cable - there's a kit on cablemonkey for 80 quid for 100mm of solid core cat6 a tester and a the wee tool - is that reasonable or am I missing the cheap suppliers?! cable seems preety consistently prices on places I can find!

Cat6 is a lot less tolerant of bad terminations than Cat5e is. I'd strongly recommend getting a structured cabling person to do it.

I put the cat6 purple lszh stuff in when i did mine.

http://www.netstoredirect.com/6-cat6-bulk-cable

no need to get lszh unless it's running next to air con vents in case of a fire.

Get this http://www.netstoredirect.com/cat6-cable/21-excel-cat6-utp-cable.html

So little difference in price I went for the lszh anyway.

bremen1874 said:

Why do people use shielded cable? Is it just because it sounds like it should be better?

Shielded Cat5e would be more hassle to install that UTP Cat6, and would probably cost more as well. It seems like an odd choice unless it dropped into your lap.

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Proximity to mains lines as they share common paths to backboxes. Popper termination of shielded cable is not hassle if you know what you're doing.

The bend radii and dimensions of Cat 6\a makes life difficult. That was the issue in my case.