Laying down pipe for networking flat?

furman · 4 May 2006 at 07:40

Hi,
I am getting my flat refurbished, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to put down a pipe like the blue 25mm water pipe to add networking/phone connections to each room. I think CAT6 Gigabit cabling would be best - same connection right? I have wireless but I prefer quick file transfer on the LAN. I was also going to add a telephone connection. I have seen the wall faceplates but I haven't decided where my stuff will go.

Stelly · 4 May 2006 at 08:39

furman said:
Hi,
I am getting my flat refurbished, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to put down a pipe like the blue 25mm water pipe to add networking/phone connections to each room. I think CAT6 Gigabit cabling would be best - same connection right? I have wireless but I prefer quick file transfer on the LAN. I was also going to add a telephone connection. I have seen the wall faceplates but I haven't decided where my stuff will go.

Thats what I'm going to do when I go it, have a gigabit backbone

mates done it and its amazing for LAN games

Stelly

furman · 4 May 2006 at 08:51

Thinking about it again, do I need to put the cable in a pipe or just it alongside the other cables?

uvarvu · 4 May 2006 at 09:23

My friend did that but he didn't listen when it came to the quality of the ethernet cables. As a result when we switched to a gigabit hub the maximum usage hit around 13%!!

Stelly · 4 May 2006 at 09:29

furman said:
Thinking about it again, do I need to put the cable in a pipe or just it alongside the other cables?

I would just put it along side, save you some money

Stelly

furman · 4 May 2006 at 10:09

Belkin cable is good quality right?
I was thinking of the setup. How could I plan it? 3 Bedrooms, hallway and living room. Should I stick a gigabit hub in the hallway and run everything from that location - my mind is a bit numb thinking about bathroom fittings so I haven't put as much thought into this yet :confused:

furman · 4 May 2006 at 10:18

Actually I think I might just buy a 100m roll for £40 and fit to a wall plate, makes more sense and the walls are not finished yet. Is it straight forward?

Fit a wall plate to each wall with 2 outputs and buy an 16 port gigabit hub and attach the cables to it in the hallway.

pcoltrane · 4 May 2006 at 10:21

Does gigabit ethernet need a different standard of cabling then or would my existing Cat5e cabling do the job? I've just had new carpets down so would be reluctant to pull it all up again!

Marc

furman · 4 May 2006 at 10:32

I think Cat5e is a "faster" (don't know the correct term) version of Cat5, Gigabit from what I have read is Cat6

scott.holmes · 4 May 2006 at 10:40

I think Cat6 is Sheilded so it doesnt suffer from interference. You can use Cat5e or Cat6 for a gigabit network, cat5e is cheaper, Cat6 is by far the best but a pain in the *** to work with, as its a stiffer cable. I have a GigaLan in my house, all the upstairs is wired for it, with face plates and i also have one going downstairs.

I think it probably cost me around £200 for the entire setup, i got a 305m roll of Cat5e from ebay, was under £20. With Cat5e i run easily at 30 to 35Mb transfers between the PCs, so its more than adequate for GigaLan. The cost of Cat6 for me outweighs it!

As for putting the cables in the wall, its much more work but i chanelled all the walls and used electrical trunking. Lots of mess but much tider in the long run! I got a 16port GigaBit switch from eBay, bargain it was and thats in a Rack in the Loft. I used a Patch Panel to terminate up there, but you could just wire straight from Wall > Plug > Router/Switch if you wanted.

furman · 4 May 2006 at 11:09

Hi,
I think I will stick with Cat6 cable, just trying to find a wiring diagram and guide.

What is a patch panel? I was thinking that I needed to buy a 16port gigabit switch and plug all the wall sockets into it.

I have found a netgeat 16port gigabit switch for £120, roll of 100m Cat6 £40, Cat6 wall plates £8 each, just need some connectors and a crimping tool.

The cable is Belkin Cat6 Solid UTP Bulk Cable, Grey 100m - doesn't say snagless - does that matter?

scott.holmes · 4 May 2006 at 11:12

Patch Panels: http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=patch panel&sa=N&tab=wi

Its the things you see in all data cabinets that look a total mess unless the tech is a neat freak

Basically, one end of the Cat6 wired into the Plug, the other end into the Back of the Patch Panel, and then you use another wire (With Plugs on both ends) from Patch Panel to Switch.

Its just a tidier way of doing things, but by no means do you need to. Like you say, you can wire Face Plate > Plug > Switch and cut out the need for a Patch Panel.

Edit: As for wiring Diagrams, most Patch Panels/Face Plates are colour coded, to match the wires in the Cat5/5e/6 so you cant really go wrong..

Pug · 4 May 2006 at 12:20

Cat5e is perfectly fine for gigabit LAN

Category 5 E Cable (enhanced) Same as Category 5, except that it is made to somewhat more stringent standards (see comparison chart below). The Category 5 E standard is now officially part of the 568A standard. Category 5 E is recommended for all new installations, and was designed for transmission speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (Gigabit Ethernet).

Stelly · 4 May 2006 at 12:48

If you need any help, I do it for a living

Stelly

scott.holmes · 4 May 2006 at 13:44

Pug said:
Cat5e is perfectly fine for gigabit LAN

Totally agree, if you can get Cat5e cheaper than Cat6 (which it will be almost everywhere) you should save some cash and get it...

I think Cat6 would be useful if you ever went to 10 GigE network... i think then Cat6 would work with that. If im wrong someone please correct me stupidity

furman · 4 May 2006 at 13:52

The Belkin Cat6 Solid UTP Bulk Cable, Grey 100m is £40, is that expensive for that cable? This just on a roll so I need the connectors.

VaderDSL · 4 May 2006 at 13:52

My friend and I are planning this in the summer, but it's only a rented flat - so we're just going to buy trunking to put by the skirting board and run the cables through there.

I just need to get a list of tools I need, so far I think I need :

RJ45 crimping tool
IDC punch down tool
wire stripper
wire cutter

As we'll have dual faceplates in 2 rooms and single faceplates in 2 rooms. all leading back to a patch panel maybe - depends on budget.

scott.holmes · 4 May 2006 at 13:59

furman said:
The Belkin Cat6 Solid UTP Bulk Cable, Grey 100m is £40, is that expensive for that cable? This just on a roll so I need the connectors.

Seems an OK price, but like i said i got a 305m roll of Exel Cat5e from eBay for around £20.... Just depends on the cost your willing to pay!

PS: Emailed you about Connectors...

Vader: The RJ45 crimp tool normally has the functions to strip and cut the wires, so you dont need seperate tools for that...

furman · 6 May 2006 at 15:28

I just checked, the cable I have on order says unshielded twisted pair - is that standard or does it mean that I could experience interference?

id10T_error · 6 May 2006 at 19:10

CAT6 Has better earthing/shielding (ie separator) than CAT5/5E which is important to prevent crosstalk which is a big issue when using Gigabit on a fast setup (10/15k Drives and RAID-setups)