Running network cable externally?

Skeeter

Skeeter

Skeeter

Caporegime
Joined
8 Mar 2007
Posts
37,146
Location
Surrey
We are in the process of buying a house and I've been scratching my head about how to cable the living room up with the office and the broadband. Its just been gutted and redone inside so the GF isn't keen on be pulling up carpets, its on a concrete slab so no under floorboards option, and there are loads of doors and a coorrider between the rooms so there isn't a simple 'through the wall' option.

But then I though about going outside the house? I could go out the wall in the office, round the house and then back in behind where the TV will go. The GF won't mind so long as I terminate it correctly (I.e. in wall sockets).

What's the opinion on external cabling? I was thinking running 2 cat6 external grade cables, properly looped at each end to stop water ingress, and terminated in wall sockets would see me right for a number of years. Is there anything to be aware of with external cabling? It will likely be mounted to the wall of the house rather than buried so will be open to the elements and sunlight? Any advice welcome :)
 
Its a 50 year old house and the pile of unused PowerLine adapters I have somewhere shows the luck I have had with powerline networking. Plus there expensive as hell.

I will try using the ones I have when we move in, but if they turn out to be pap then I will want a cabled solution.
 
You have it for your TV aerial and satellite dish; external network cabling is just the same. Just make sure the holes in the exterior walls are watertight and you use proper exterior cabling that is UV-resistant and water-resistant.
 
Can you point me at some decent cable? I've found a lot of stuff that is unsheilded, which seems odd to me? I'd have thought external network cable would be shielded?

I'd use the same loop and then into a silicone sealed hole method that Sky uses.
 
I used some standard cat 5e cable my neighbor gave me (sky fitter), ran it outside up the wall and back in. That side of the house was quite exposed. Never once had an issue.
 
I did exactly that a few weeks ago. Out of the living room, across the house and into the office.

20151101_152659.md.jpg
 
External grade CAT6
http://solwise.co.uk/networking_sundries_cat5_cable-unterminated-outdoor.htm

Just make sure everything is punched down properly! I had issues with both cables that I ran. The office is terminated to a faceplate but I ran short on cable for the living room and had to end up putting plugs on, switching to a brush plate and using a CAT6 coupler. Not the neatest but its hidden away.
 
I just used the same cat6 cable I bought for internal use and ran it in external trunking which as I was painting the house at the same time, I just painted over and it's all in the same unit all tidied away with the Sky cables and telephone cable.

Whilst I was doing that I ran two cables just in case one failed but also gave me flexibility for future projects.
 
Did the same thing at my house. Used external grade CAT6 and ran two cables round from the upstairs office (3rd bedroom) down to the lounge at the front. Looped and sealed, clipped alternating with single and double clips, terminated into wall plates directly. Been there for 5 years now without any issues.
 
Yep had external cabling ran professionally doing something very similar. I have a 4 port wall box as my main hub in the "office" and this splits with 2 ports going to the master bedroom and 2 ports back downstairs to the point where the virgin feed comes in. It's external grade cat6 so should do the job for a fair few years.

In terms of security it doesnt really both me. I suppose that yes someone could come to my house, snip the cable, terminate an end onto it and start steeling my Internets, but it's not going to be a particularly stealthy process and I'd soon notice as I have devices that can't connect. Even if they did it without disturbing one of the actively connected devices data on my network is only shared if you have one of the PC account passwords so NTFS permissions would still stop them from being able to do anything more than use the internet.
 
In terms of vandalism I suppose it would be pretty easy to just snip the cable. To actually snip it, terminate it and use it though would take someone rather determined to get onto my network and considering I have a switch and 4 devices connected to the cable I'd soon know about it.
Plus everything on the network is either Linux / NTFS permissions so they would need to have some knowledge to get anything other than the internet. I'm sure with the amount of wifi hotspots I can pick up around me, there would be easier targets.
 
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