Home Network Installation

bulletv1 · 10 Mar 2015 at 16:19

After reading some threads on here i've got some ideas in my head and was wondering if you've got any tips or suggestions on it.
I recently purchased a house which is looking more and more likely will need to be rewired and trying to figure out if it's worth them putting cat6a in the walls when they chase the cables in and have a cable to each socket.
Will be mainly used just to network various things around the house and maybe some AV and home automation. They will all feed back to where the consumer unit is which is under the stairs where there is room to put a small rack etc.
Any ideas or suggestions?

lucid · 10 Mar 2015 at 16:56

Bearing in mind that wireless is a leaky boat, I'd always recommend a cabled home network. Quite whether you consider it worth it or not though is really a question only you can answer.

From my point of view the benefits are that it takes pressure off the wireless network. The assumption by many is that it's possible to keep throwing more and more wireless enabled products in to a house. What's often overlooked is that the wireless network speed is throttled back; slowed down by older or less sophisticated wireless devices. Then there's those devices that seem to gobble up more than their fare share of what's left of the wireless speed.

Shifting gear off wireless and on to the wired network helps everything run a bit faster; wired and wireless.

The disadvantage with a wired network is the physical location of sockets. It takes a bit of planning or simply brute-force flooding to ensure the connection points are in the right place.

Bear in mind when you are wiring that there's a difference between a data network and HDMI/AV over Cat cable that means the two have to be kept separate. Good planning is essential.

@simpleMr · 10 Mar 2015 at 22:19

If I was you i would make sure they gead good quality copper cabaling and then power link adapters around the house.IF you get a 250mbps or 500mbps then you got around 30 to 60MBps which will sustain blurays and dvds etc also you can move them around and they are cheap .Then get a realy good wifi router or make your own pfsence it and away you go

lucid · 10 Mar 2015 at 22:35

Powerlink / Powerline / Ethernet over mains boxes radiate a tonne of radio interference. They can also struggle if trying to bridge ring mains on two different circuits (upstairs / downstairs).

Also, the quality of copper cabling used for mains circuit wiring (2.5mm Twin & Earth) is tightly controlled by British Wiring Regs: BS6004 Electric cables. It's all copper, not some copper coated aluminium (CCA) or copper coats steel (CCS) unlike cheap Cat cable and budget AV/HDMI cables. Any differences in quality will be minimal at best and unlikely to have a significant impact on how fast EoP runs.

Solid copper Cat6. That's what you need to be wiring with now for home networks. Cat5e is still useful and will give Gigabit speeds in domestic wiring unless you live somewhere as big as Buck' Palace, but it doesn't have the noise rejection of Cat6.

HungryHippos · 10 Mar 2015 at 22:49

Yeah I have wired networking installed and I don't regret it at all. Years of living with dodgy wireless and dodgy powerline is a thing of the past now. Only got CAT 5E but still great and 1Gb speeds are fine for me.

I do recommend getting extra points in the lounge though, I only got two to that room when 4 or more would have been better. Can put a switch in there if I want but not ideal.

zoomee · 11 Mar 2015 at 08:43

lucid said:
Bearing in mind that wireless is a leaky boat, I'd always recommend a cabled home network. Quite whether you consider it worth it or not though is really a question only you can answer.

From my point of view the benefits are that it takes pressure off the wireless network. The assumption by many is that it's possible to keep throwing more and more wireless enabled products in to a house. What's often overlooked is that the wireless network speed is throttled back; slowed down by older or less sophisticated wireless devices. Then there's those devices that seem to gobble up more than their fare share of what's left of the wireless speed.

Shifting gear off wireless and on to the wired network helps everything run a bit faster; wired and wireless.

The disadvantage with a wired network is the physical location of sockets. It takes a bit of planning or simply brute-force flooding to ensure the connection points are in the right place.

Bear in mind when you are wiring that there's a difference between a data network and HDMI/AV over Cat cable that means the two have to be kept separate. Good planning is essential.

+1 - perfect advice. I've just finished wiring up my sisters house and it works a treat. They were having it extended so everything needed to be changed anyhow - best to get it all in before the plasterers arrive. You don't even need a 'network technician' just get an electrician to wire it in for you and fit the faceplates etc yourself, easy peasey.

My own house has wiring running through too even though wireless could cut it. Wireless is only really used for things like mobile devices and the best bit about having a wired connection in is you can stick an access point on it and give wireless to that particular area if required also.

Wired > Powerline > Wireless > piece of string

RoyMi6 · 11 Mar 2015 at 09:08

lucid said:
What's often overlooked is that the wireless network speed is throttled back; slowed down by older or less sophisticated wireless devices. Then there's those devices that seem to gobble up more than their fare share of what's left of the wireless speed.

This is less of an issue these days.

1) It's only 802.11b devices that slow down your 2.4GHz network and these are less common these days
2) 5 GHz devices are unaffected

Obviously make sure you make use of / buy a dual band WiFi router.

Still, echo most of what is said above. Go wired where possible and avoid all compatibility issues for the net 10 years or so.

covenantuk · 11 Mar 2015 at 10:13

Always go wired network where you have the opportunity. Save wireless for the small devices that need it such as phones or Sonos/wireless remotes

zoomee · 11 Mar 2015 at 12:21

RoyMi6 said:
This is less of an issue these days.

1) It's only 802.11b devices that slow down your 2.4GHz network and these are less common these days
2) 5 GHz devices are unaffected

Obviously make sure you make use of / buy a dual band WiFi router.

Still, echo most of what is said above. Go wired where possible and avoid all compatibility issues for the net 10 years or so.

The more wireless devices one has on their network - the slower it becomes unless your using a MU-MIMO router (which most of us ain't)

This is due to wireless signals being transmitted one at a time on the average users WIFI router to each connected device. MU-MIMO is the first wireless standard which can transmit to more than one device at a time (Found in some of the newer AC routers these days)

Thats the non-technical explanation - theres still a way to go with MU-MIMO as it only helps with download not upload in its current form so its not the end solution but one that helps those with devices that can support it.

bulletv1 · 11 Mar 2015 at 13:00

Cheers for the info guys. Had the electrician over last night and he thinks i won't need a rewire but as the cables still need to be chased into the walls i might see if i can get a few installed in the living room as that's where my pc and consoles will be and run the back to under the stairs with a small switch. So maybe 2 behind the tv for my homehub to plug into the network and one for my PS4 and one cable to each of the other sockets in the room.