Moving to a new home, being rewired. Home networking advice.

simpletom

simpletom

simpletom

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Hi

The short of it:

Lounge and dining room, two bedrooms. These will have double network sockets.

The line entry point is on the front of the house. At the rear of the house is a nice space under the staircase for a media server.

I am getting Virgin Internet.

The questions:

Now, is Cat6 a better idea than Cat5e? It is being wired by a spark friend of mine so the fitting is not by me. It will be done as part of a total rewire and all plastering made good.

I currently use Be Unlimted and have a Netgear DG834N(?). Do I need other hardware? I understand Virgin may supply me with something but I assume I'd need a switch of some description.

Is it advisable to have the switch etc under the stairs? I guess a run fron thge router to the switch under the stars will allow for more space to terminate the cabling.

Any issues that may scupper my plans?

Ta!

PS: I have searched for the answer but non really fit my criteria.
 
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if your putting in new go for cat6.

never done it myself but seen various mentions of running ducting in the walls etc to allow cable pull throughs in future if you have any issues, so you don't have to replaster, not sure if thats an option or generally advised as a decent idea.

are you getting virgin just for the internet ?, if you are is the under stairs on the same side of the house as the run that virgin might use to get into the house, might be able to ask em to run the cable straight there for a few cups of tea/biccies :).

have a look in the home cinema forum, few people got media servers etc so might be able to offer more advice.
 
I would also put in more sockets than you would use. I have 4 in my lounge. BD, AV Receiver, XBox, Sky. It's better to have redundant that not enough.
All my cables route to the understairs cupboard with no issues. I used 5e but that was only because 6 was too expensive at the time.
Hmm, I installed flush wall boxes, as the surface mount boxes are fugly and be design..stick out.
So, put in atleast 4 in all rooms, label them clearly so you know what cables goes to what port.
 
Minimum of six in the living room, if you include a tv, I've got eight.
I've used double sockets every where else,would have prefered four to a room,plus four where my pc lives, two are for network printers & one spare, plus I put a double socket in the kitchen for the small pc used just for recipes, etc. (Got me brownie points):D
Have BT Infinity feeding a Draytek 2750N into a 24 port gigabit switch, wanted 16 port switch, but picked up the 24 port cheap off the bay.

Starting from scratch use Cat 6, & plan your locations, a lot of my cables I've hide in cupboards.

Definitely use flush wall boxes, as already mentioned, a lot of work at start, but worth it for neatness

Since installing have Sky multi room in one bedroom, I do need another double socket in there now, plus the other bedroom could have benefited for a extra double socket for the tv DLNA.
 
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So more sockets, then? I can handle that.

The Virgin will be cable 50 meg.

So you reckon I can get them to run the inbound feed to under the staircase?

Alternatively, I could have the modem and router in the living room and the switch under the stair near the rear of the property?

Ta for the advice.
 
I'm a little surprised that the consensus is to put half a dozen ethernet sockets on the wall. I'd have thought one or two sockets followed by a second switch would be a cleaner solution than one 24+ port switch under the stairs.
 
JonJ678 said:
I'm a little surprised that the consensus is to put half a dozen ethernet sockets on the wall. I'd have thought one or two sockets followed by a second switch would be a cleaner solution than one 24+ port switch under the stairs.
Click to expand...

Having multiple switches throughout the house would be messier, cost more and take up way more power!
 
Always put in a couple more than you need and make sure who ever fits it uses conduit rather than plastering over the cables, that way when you want to upgrade in years to come it will be an easy job. I went for cat5e on my house when I did it a few months ago as that is more than good enough for what I need.

Dave
 
I'd genuinely look at Cat6A especially if any of the cable runs are more than 55metres. Cat 6 will support 10Gb upto 55m, but from then you'd need Cat6A. Its 50p a metre compared to 40p for Cat6 as well, so why not futureproof?
 
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