Ethernet Wall plates

Richeh

Richeh

Richeh

Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2003
Posts
3,385
Location
South East Coast
Hey,

I am in the process of having my 3 storey house wired up with an ethernet wall plate on each floor.

One issue I am finding is regarding the ethernet standards. 90% of wall plates state something similar to 'Ethernet wall plate Cat6' I want 6a or even 7 standards. The ones specified for this tend to be quite a bit more expensive but is there any difference? I know the actual cable used needs to be 6a/7 but as they all use the same connection ie RJ45 is there actually a difference. Will a 'Cat 6' Wall plate work at full spec with a Cat 6a or 7 cable?
 
Hmmm, can't say for every instance, but in my own case, when I wired up the place back in 2014/2015, I just grabbed a Cat6 solid core cable (STP) and punched them into single/dual/quad gang boxes mounted onto the wall, so somewhat similar to what you are looking at grabbing now. The modules in the boxes were not rated Cat6a or for shielded cables, etc in my case; think just basic Cat5e or "maybe" Cat6 modules, but definitely not Cat6a or Cat7. Just make sure you punch down the same wiring standard in each module so they all hae the correct wiring both sides of each connection point.

Anyway, I recently upgraded my network cards and switches, and can get the full 10gbps from them. Even though the modules are Cat6, the Cat6 250Mhz STP cables going between each point was not earthed, and some connecting to devices were using Cat5e only, I was able to get the full 10gbps out of it. Although each cable wiring between each point is usually 12 meters or less, so even though my Cat6 cable is 250MHz, did not get grounded, it's working a treat. So unless if you have an exceptionally large residence where each run of cable exceeds 50 meters, or you need to guarantee the 6a standard to potentially push to beyond 10gbps connections, I think you should be fine even with Cat6 modules in the wall plate and Cat5e cables running between each point.

That's just me though, someone more experienced in networks may be able to offer you more accurate and precise information. :)
 
There is no reason to go above Cat6 in a house. It's highly unlikely you will be able to carve out a hole deep enough in your wall for Cat6a to certify.
 
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Main reasoning for 6a or 7 was that I want full 10GBit around the house. All my internet searches stated that Cat 6 was only good for 1Gbit - assuming by your replies this is not correct? One of the runs is around 30 metres but if I can get 10Gbit on this with Cat 6 then that would suffice.
 
Cat6 properly installed will do 10Gb, if you want to go quicker than this in future then your best option might be to install fibre microduct alongside the Cat6 cable so you can push fibre through them in future.
 
Thanks for the replies. Odd question. I'm in a 'new build' 4 years old. Each floor has a telephone connector RJ11. After doing some research i've found this may actually be a Cat type cable with only a couple of things connected. We don't use a landline - if I just unscrew an RJ11 plate and there are extra wires does this mean I can just change the face plates with the appropriate tools and we have whole house networking? All of the work I planned to do was external. To be fair we are just getting a POE CCTV system installed and I thought as we were doing the work get the whole house wired for ethernet at the same time.
 
If they are phones then each outlet will be linked to the next one along, so unless you plan on putting loads of switches in then it doesn't help you much.
 
Caged said:
If they are phones then each outlet will be linked to the next one along, so unless you plan on putting loads of switches in then it doesn't help you much.
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Sorry, could you explain further? You said that they will all be linked as in one network but switches are required? Regardless of the internal wiring I will be getting a new hole cut into the house for the CCTV into an NVR. But replacing the faceplate and obviously connecting the appropriate wires etc to change to an ethernet faceplate and then connecting to a switch that goes into the NVR wouldn't work? There is currently one BT landline wire into the property?
 
It depends whether all the phone points are terminated in a patch panel somewhere or wires as legacy phone cabling
 
How would I be able to tell if this is the case?

Is it just unscrew each. Plug in each face plate correctly and try with the current setup?
 
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Richeh said:
Main reasoning for 6a or 7 was that I want full 10GBit around the house. All my internet searches stated that Cat 6 was only good for 1Gbit - assuming by your replies this is not correct? One of the runs is around 30 metres but if I can get 10Gbit on this with Cat 6 then that would suffice.
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I have 5e about most of the place and I run 10 Gb.
 
Richeh said:
How would I be able to tell if this is the case?

Is it just unscrew each. Plug in each face plate correctly and try with the current setup?
Click to expand...

You would have some place in your house where all the wires from those telephone points emerge and go into a box that splits them up to feed said points.

If it was only designed with telephone in mind, it's possibly all just daisy chained together from point to point rather than going back to one location and splitting off from there.

If you do have a central location where all those telephone cables appear, if they have been wired as cat5e, you could then install a switch and re-faceplate the points.
 
If you pull one phone socket off and there are two cables behind it, that would be pretty conclusive
 
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I put cat 7 in my house when we had our work done. It was solid core and very rigid installation cable. Run that to wherever you need..then if/when you need to upgrade the weakest bit (the faceplates ) then you can do that.

The only other thing I would definitely do (if this is something you are feeling competent to do) is to run at least one single fiber cable...the reason being that currently sfp+ switches are a lot cheaper and use less energy then 10gbaseT...I really regret not running one of these between my garage/server Room and lounge (where I had a lot of cables come into a 16port Poe switch for CCTV and connectivity to the faceplates behind TV's).


The other thing I regret was not running copper to my under-stairs cloakroom...for me this would have been a good thing to do as it's where the box for my alarm goes.
 
I ran rj45 faceplates on each floor to front and back of house so that if I wanted to I could stick access points there..as it is, I have a wax630 in my attic (this is my home office) which also serves it really well to the first floor, and a wax620 to the furthest end of the lounge kitchen extension we had (I can get 500mbps at the end of my garden still).
I used an old nwa1123ac in my garage as this was at front of house which gives good enough coverage to my solar inverter and also to the driveway.
 
Richeh said:
Hey,

I am in the process of having my 3 storey house wired up with an ethernet wall plate on each floor.

One issue I am finding is regarding the ethernet standards. 90% of wall plates state something similar to 'Ethernet wall plate Cat6' I want 6a or even 7 standards. The ones specified for this tend to be quite a bit more expensive but is there any difference? I know the actual cable used needs to be 6a/7 but as they all use the same connection ie RJ45 is there actually a difference. Will a 'Cat 6' Wall plate work at full spec with a Cat 6a or 7 cable?
Click to expand...
How thick are your walls?
 
Richeh said:
Main reasoning for 6a or 7 was that I want full 10GBit around the house. All my internet searches stated that Cat 6 was only good for 1Gbit - assuming by your replies this is not correct? One of the runs is around 30 metres but if I can get 10Gbit on this with Cat 6 then that would suffice.
Click to expand...
If you want 10gbit, use fibre
 
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