Safe lower limit to pay for Cat5e cable (big house wiring project)

Jez · 30 Aug 2011 at 21:40

I am currently in the process of buying a fairly sizable house throughout which i plan to install 4*cat5e points into most rooms terminated into patch panels in a rack on the ground floor (the house has 3 floors, so there is going to be a lot of cable involved).

The purpose of the cabling will be:

HDMI over cat5e to feed various TVs
100/1000 standard networking to feed the odd computer

What would you lot say the safe minimum to pay for 1000ft (305m) boxes of cat5e cable would be? Boxes seem to range from as high as £150, down to £38 for what looks to be the same thing other than shielding. Do we think i need shielding?

Has anybody got any pointers for placement of said cable around the house, i guess it will be best to ensure that i avoid too much mixing with mains cabling and the like?

NathanE · 30 Aug 2011 at 21:54

For reference... Cat6/UTP for the HDMI is better than Cat5e/STP. Much much better.

For the Ethernet, I'd just install cheapo Cat5e and be done with it.

Jez · 30 Aug 2011 at 22:10

Thanks for bringing to my attention cat6. It is actually cheaper than the cat5e option

ci_newman · 31 Aug 2011 at 17:20

And in my experience, for internal work the cheapo cabling is just as good as the expensive stuff...

Jez · 31 Aug 2011 at 19:00

Thanks guys, going to just use el cheapo cat6utp :-)