Networking the House

poggy

poggy

poggy

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346
Location
Sunny Glasgow
Hi all I’m looking for some advice on networking my new house. We are installing new gas central heating and I would like to lay cables at the same time.

I have 3 bedrooms, 1 living room and 1 kitchen

My plan is to have 2 network points in each room (inc: living room and kitchen). I would use the cupboard under the stairs to store my server along with I think either a 16 or 24 port gigabit switch and a gigabit router (gateway). I will be laying Gigabit cat 6 cable (I have also been looking at the new 10g stuff, anyone used it yet?).

What I would like to know is, would it be better to have a switch upstairs and one downstairs rather than just one downstairs.

Would I have to run two cables per access wall port or can I split the cable?

What length of cable can I run before the data transfer rate starts to deteriorate?

Is there any particular cable, module, switch I should use?

Should I go for managed or unmanaged switch?

Thanks for any advice
Poggy
 
First off, you mentioned a gigabit router but since you will be using a gigabit switch you wont need a gigabit router. The only data going between the router and the switch is internet traffic, and its unlikely you need greater then 100Mb/s for that.

You can split a cable into 2 devices but it will cost you speed. 100Mb/s only requires 2 pairs of wires to operate, meaning 1 cable can support 2 100Mb/s connections as there are 4 pairs of wires in total. To get gigabit speeds though all 4 pairs are used, so if you want to have gigabit speed, you will have to run 2 cables.

The maximum run length suggested for unshielded cable is 100m, as for shielded I'm not sure what they can do.
 
Maximum length is 100m full stop, shielded or otherwise, I'd try to stick below 80m if you can (unless you're getting it done professionally or are very good at terminating cat5).

I'd also run bundles of 4 cables to each room, maybe you only use two but if you get a failure in future you've got spare (which is much preferable to running a new cable) and you can always add additional sockets if you want (more and more internet enabled devices turning up after all). Cable's cheap at the end of the day....

Oh, get shielded (STP) cable for the minimal extra outlay.

An unmanaged switch will likely do you fine, managed is great if you want to run voip or something really funky but it's over the top for home. Or you could go half way and get one of the web GUI semi-managed ones (HP make a good one). Still expensive though...
 
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Shielded cables are the same specification as unshielded, 100m. The run thength isn't related to noise.

I wouldn't bother with CAT6, it's far too expensive for gigabit. Use Cat5e. I wouldnt' get shielded either as it's also considerably more expensive and completely un-necessary for indoor home use.

Unmanaged switches are far better for this application than managed. A 12 port managed gigabit switch will set you back several undred quid, unmanageed will be MUCH cheaper and just as functional.

Gigabit router is also expensive and unnecesary unless you plan to have multiple local subnets.
 
I did my house at the time it was fully re-wired. It's a bigger job than you think, but worth it in the end.
I divided 24 ports between the following rooms (living room, hall, dining room, 2 bedrooms, office and loft) most rooms have 4 ports in groups of two. The idea being two for LAN use or HDTV streams and the other two for IP phones. I wanted to do the kitchen and garage but the mrs wouldn’t let me!

In a medium sized 3 bed semi I still managed to use a full box of 305m. I did some tests with Cat 6, it was too hard to route without it kinking as it's got a minimum bend radius and was nearly twice as much for a box. Cat5e will (and is) running gigabit. Plus you can send HD video down Cat5e with a HDMI -> Cat5e box.

Prices for a box of good Cat5e are about £55, for the same 305m box of Cat6 you’re looking at £100, then you have to factor the extra cost of Cat6 face plates and patch panel. The cheapest Cat6 24 port patch panel was £95!!
Shielded cable is also a waste, it's even more difficult to terminate as you have to earth the shielded section of the cable of it just acts like a massive receiver. As long as you cross power cables and lighting circuits at 90 degrees and try and keep 30 cm away from mains you’ll be fine.

In terms of kit as long as it's branded – I’ve seen some no name Chinese made Cat5 that wouldn’t even manage 10mb it was that bad. I’ve gone for Connectix stuff as it what I’ve seen used in many other installations and is relatively cheap. Other makes include Krone and BrandRex. Also make sure you get solid core cable not stranded, you can’t punch down the stranded stuff.
Follow bigredsharks advice too on running more cables than you might need. Even if you only have a double faceplate on if you have two more pairs spare they could well come in handy in future.

I’ll try and post some pictures of my setup later

Example of a chased out 4 port socket and some trunking to protect the Cat5e



All finished and decorated with the face plat on (temporary numbering)



Rack being installed and some of the upstairs cabling being routed



Rack fully installed with all 24 cables terminated. running on a temporary 5 port switch.

 
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If you're cabling multiple floors you migh find it easier to use two smaller switches and cable a single backbone between them. This keeps the runs short and managable and reduces the need for large bundles of cables serving a whole floor.
 
Thanks everyone for the reply's.

With Cat 6 is there a point when the inner cables will not bend beyond?

Cheers?
 
poggy said:
Thanks everyone for the reply's.

With Cat 6 is there a point when the inner cables will not bend beyond?

Cheers?
Click to expand...

although Cat6 will physically bend, the Cat6 specification doesn't allow for severe kinks or bends like you might have to bend an electrical cable for example. overall, for ease of installation Cat5e is much easier, cheaper and less hassle to get right.

I know I'd rather have a top quality Cat5e install than a flaky Cat6 one.
 
Wireless = very expensive for good speeds and reliability (every machine needs a decent adaptor + access points etc).

Wireless tends to get less reliable the further away from the access point you are, as well as slower the further away you are, and the more people using it - unless it's changed wireless is still at the point where everyone is sharing the same bandwidth, whilst wired moved away from that something like a decade ago when switches became cheaper than hubs.

Ideally for maximum versatility a wired permanent network, with a couple of access points gives the best of both worlds, and is what I've actually got (I've got 100mb easily pgraded to 1gbit point to point from any PC in the house, and 54mbit wireless covering the house for things like my DS or friends laptops*)


*Although the 54mib rapidly drops to about 4mbit in some parts of the house, and that's with 2 access points.
 
I would run Wire too, especially if there is also going to be other work done. Wireless is fine for the internet, but anything else is slow and laggy.
 
Also, if you are going to have a really good wireless connection within your house, fast and strong enough to not be slow and laggy... (still not as fast as LAN)... you leave your network visible to half of your neighbours.

Love what your doing there (you too Five Star!), and when i get the oppertunity, i will be doing it too... got the rack and equipment, just need to convince the parents to lay cables everywhere or move out! hehe.

Also, if you do want to go for some managed gear, you maybe want to check out Ebay for the Cisco / HP equipment... It will be cheaper, and providing you buy from the right seller, it will be great and you will get a warranty. It is where i got my Cisco equipment from.
 
Follow the advice given above. But something that I would personally advise is:

a) A good router - Netgear/Linksys
b) Quality cable between the router and the master phone socket, or the router directly plugged into the master phone socket.
 
Thinking about the original question rather than the implementation of the cabling it really depend on the layout of your property and how much mess you are willing to make to get the cables routed.
I was lucky that I had a good route upstairs that allowed me to route 16 Cat5e cables (it produced a bunch about 4cm diameter). If you have an airing cupboard or small place in an office to put an additional switch upstairs then you could just run one or two cables between floors.

One problem with this is that if you have 3 machines upstairs running a gigabit network all 3 machines will share the gigabit link downstairs. This is ok if they are just web browsing but if 2 of them are moving large files between floors (i.e. media server downstairs?) then performance will be slower. On the upside you will have a cheaper installation, you could get away with just buying a 100m of cable and have less to route.
 
Again thanks for the advice guys.

I'm not going down the wireless route as this whole setup is a media setup; wireless just won’t cut HD streams to multiple devices.

I have some powerline adapters, the ones for HD, they are OK but again I’m not spending x amount of money on an adapter for each room when it would not cost much more to run cable.

I've been thinking about having two switches but I’ve not got anywhere to put the second one except the loft, So one will be fine.

So cat 5e cable is the way to go if only because I will be easier to lay.

As I said the reason I’m able to run the cable is because we are renewing the water pipes for the boiler, how close can I get to the water pipes?

Thanks
Poggy
 
If money was no object I'd say go the two switch route and have managed gear. You can then setup load sharing or trunk groups and have 2/3 cables as a backbone.
However i think this thread is drifting into the world of enterprise solutions now.

One thing you may want to look at if you wanted to introduce wireless is some of the nicer linksys access points. They run on PoE and you can have a PoE injector in your cabinet that will run the remote access points meaning they can be stuck to ceilings etc to give better coverage. Some APs out there are tiny and can fit in the most useful spots.
 
Thanks everyone for their good advice. It seems when talking about wiring the home you always end up talking about enterprise solutions.

Again thanks very much, it's given me lots of pointers and made me think about what it is a want to be able to do and what I need for it.

Off to buy some kit for this job now.

Cheers
Poggy
 
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