Ethernet points throughout the house

Soldato
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Hey all,

Happy New Year :).

I am looking to install ethernet points to 3 rooms upstairs and I wanted some opinions on cabling etc.

I have had others recommend about using Cat 7/8 for future proofing, but I was thinking about using Cat 6a; as speed seems more than sufficient for current Internet connections.

The plan is to go from under our stairs (where the current point is and should be when Openreach come and install fibre). I will either use conduit or chase upwards until under the floorboards and then into each bedroom, and hopefully be able to use conduit between all 3 points in the event upgrades or repairs are required. Providing this would be possible, then I suspect Cat 7/8 in future should be fairly easy if done right.

At the moment this is looking like a DIY project, but if anyone has any insight on how much a professional would charge, that would be good to know :).

My guess is Cat6a speeds will be more than sufficient for many years, would 7 or 8 be worthwhile at this point? Can anyone recommend where to buy cabling kits from and what exactly I would need?

My usage is mainly online gaming, streaming PC for VR could be quite useful as well.

Joe
 
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Cheers guys, assuming I can link, this is what I was looking at originally:-


There seems to be so many to choose from with different labeling but this one states "Cat6a Solid LSOH Shielded Cable"
 
That's overkill in my opinion, first of all the cable is CAT6A which is only needed if you are terminating in shielded keystones and if you are planning on doing 10Gbit runs up to 100m (CAT6 will do 10Gbit up to ~50m).

The punchdown, stripper and tester look fairly basic as well so I would guess they are charging a premium for bundling them together.

I'd recommend the following:
Cable: Excel CAT6 U/UTP LSOH 305m (Available from various retailers for £150 - £200)
Punch tool: TRENDnet punchdown tool with 100 and Krone blade (Available from two online resellers for £15-£25)
Crimper: VCE GJ670BL crimper (£20 from various online resellers)
Cable stripper: Any yellow twisty tool (Anywhere from £5 - £20 from online resellers)
Tester tool: Any basic tester tool (Anywhere from £5 to £25 from online resellers)

Now the above is by no means a professional install kit but for those you can be spending upwards if £50+ on crimping tools and £500+ on toning/testing tools but it should be good enough for you to complete the install to a working standard.

Likewise look around for the tools and cables etc, I personally like Excel as places where I have worked have always used Excel and it's what I used at home and I have never had any issues with their consistency etc.

On the tool side the TRENDnet and VCE tools I have personally used and wired up various CAT6 points in our house and garage without any issues or problems :)
Thank you. I will check those out. I guess the premium is paying for that convenient package. In fairness the cabling shouldn't be too far. I need to do some measurements, but I could probably get away with 100m for all 3 rooms because of how central the router will be in the house (it is basically in the middle).
 
That's overkill in my opinion, first of all the cable is CAT6A which is only needed if you are terminating in shielded keystones and if you are planning on doing 10Gbit runs up to 100m (CAT6 will do 10Gbit up to ~50m).

The punchdown, stripper and tester look fairly basic as well so I would guess they are charging a premium for bundling them together.

I'd recommend the following:
Cable: Excel CAT6 U/UTP LSOH 305m (Available from various retailers for £150 - £200)
Punch tool: TRENDnet punchdown tool with 100 and Krone blade (Available from two online resellers for £15-£25)
Crimper: VCE GJ670BL crimper (£20 from various online resellers)
Cable stripper: Any yellow twisty tool (Anywhere from £5 - £20 from online resellers)
Tester tool: Any basic tester tool (Anywhere from £5 to £25 from online resellers)

Now the above is by no means a professional install kit but for those you can be spending upwards if £50+ on crimping tools and £500+ on toning/testing tools but it should be good enough for you to complete the install to a working standard.

Likewise look around for the tools and cables etc, I personally like Excel as places where I have worked have always used Excel and it's what I used at home and I have never had any issues with their consistency etc.

On the tool side the TRENDnet and VCE tools I have personally used and wired up various CAT6 points in our house and garage without any issues or problems :)
Hey, with the crimper is that required if I want to make my own Cat6 cables to use after installing the points? I have it in the basket, but way I understood was the punchtool would be for the points (unless I am missing something :))
 
The crimp tool is for making the RJ45 plug (male), the punch tool is for making the RJ45 sockets (female).

You're typically going to want to terminate at the wall with sockets, so using the punch tool, then purchase short patch cables to run from the wall to your devices. The other side of the cable should go into a patch panel assuming you're getting a mini rack? Although some patch panels are female to female, in which case you would need a crimp tool to terminate those ends, although I don't think you should use those types of patch panels.

So in the rooms you're going to have a bunch of these with a faceplate:

5nHtods.jpeg


And at the router end you have this (patch panel):

whKSh4e.jpeg


Both only requires a punch down tool, but you might as well get both just in case.
I'm with ya, I am planning on doing wall points rather than a rack. It is only for simple home networking, more so for gaming :). Then patch cable likely into a small switch or in some cases direct.
 
Yup go cat 6, run in conduit if at all possible with some strings so you can pull additional cables if needed.

A set of cheap cable rods is very useful, and you can get a fairly good tester for the cables that can tell you if they're terminated correctly and if not what wires are shorted/dead/crossed - I got one that had 8 remote heads that lets you leave the heads on the cables and test them at the other end without having to keep running up and down the stairs to swap the remote to the next cable, IIRC it cost me about £50 but you can get cheaper ones with only one head for about £10-20 if you only want basic tests.
Thanks. I think cable rods wont be necessary for this one (fingers crossed). It is a quite short run from under the stairs to each bedroom. Have you got the model number for the tester?
 
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