Moving House Installing Ethernet cat6a?

Randall8686 · 26 Oct 2021 at 11:54

Been a while since I have needed to do anything like this but we are purchasing a new house. We have 1000mbps down and up internet connection. we also have a media server and a document server used for photo editing and video rendering.

Currently the majority of hardware is all 1gbps but when prices get more reasonable I would like to update the desktops to faster connections.

is Cat6a the way to go? Longest run will be approx 55 meters. I have a Chippy who will be lifting all the floors and getting access around the place so I really only want to do this once as we will likely live in this new house for the next 20 years!

I will double every run and leave a spare cable as I did in my current house. I see CAT7 on the market now but assume that's extremely rigid and over the lengths i need probably pointless. If the cable i put in can support upto 10gbps in the future that would be great even if only a handful of the points use it.

Avalon · 26 Oct 2021 at 12:11

Decent quality copper 5e does 10Gb at domestic lengths, anything higher is optional, if you are having floorboards lifted then consider ducting to make any future upgrade less painful as 20 years is a long time.

the-evaluator · 26 Oct 2021 at 12:22

I used 5e when I wired up my place. 10Gbps works perfectly over it and 5e is a doddle to work with.

bremen1874 · 26 Oct 2021 at 12:28

If you really do have 55m runs then I'd choose Cat6 over Cat5e.

Randall8686 · 26 Oct 2021 at 17:10

bremen1874 said:
If you really do have 55m runs then I'd choose Cat6 over Cat5e.

its about 45 as the crow flies but accounting for going up and down and not in a straight line etc then im guessing im likely to end up with 50/55 meter lengths. Judging by all the comments standard CAT6 will be fine. Thanks all

Randall8686 · 26 Oct 2021 at 17:11

Avalon said:
Decent quality copper 5e does 10Gb at domestic lengths, anything higher is optional, if you are having floorboards lifted then consider ducting to make any future upgrade less painful as 20 years is a long time.

Thats not a bad plan. I was planning on having draw strings put in so i can pull new cable but ducting might be an idea. I will speak to my chippy and see what he thinks.