Cat5 Cabling for Home

C

Consultant

Guest
Hi,
Am in the process of rewiring a old 3 bed semi and am told putting cat5 cabling is the way to go! Anyone know the benefits of having cat5 in a home? What will / can I use it for? Where should I position the point in each room - high up alongside tv point (as TV's will be wall mounted eventually!) or lower to the ground beside socket?

Also, if anyone has any other suggestions or ideas for the rewire, it would be much appreciated - do I need to consider wiring for satellite TV? My list, if it helps, at the moment is...
-ample sockets in each room
- recessed lighting
- dimmers
- tv points in Living Room / all Bedrooms and kitchen
- outside sensor lights
- outside socket (handy for the gardening)
- phone points x 3
- heat sensor for kitchen
- smoke alarms
- cat 5 cabling
- cooker point / immersion point

Thanks
 
Id keep the cat5 cable on the lower level, as in power sockets or at desk level at most. Cat5 is the standard local area network cabling for PC networks and points position should reflect this. You can connect various PC's in the house to share information, or indeed share a broadband connection - being the typical usage.
good luck!
 
It is just as important that you wire coax cable as well and probably HDMI cable as well. Speaker cable would also be handy.
 
We put in cat5e (is cat6 the best?) when got our house built.

I'm wondering now what the point was. Why not just get a wireless hub or switch?
 
Having advised on this recently to friend in similar situation - we found it most helpful to:


1. Decide what equipment you will have in the house
2. Sit down with plans and decide where equipment will go in each room
3. Decide how much your budget is
4. Decide how important portability of equipment is
5. Allocate points accordingly

I would support the idea of wireless where possible but frankly, hardwiring means clean, guaranteed signal.
 
We put in cat5e (is cat6 the best?) when got our house built.

I'm wondering now what the point was. Why not just get a wireless hub or switch?

I know someone who did the same when his house was rewired a couple of year ago. He now wonders why he bothered, as he just uses a hi speed wireless router for his computers. As it costs very little to add, I would still run the cables. You dont have to connect anything up.

BTW You can also run security cameras over Cat5 and phones etc. If you like your TV then run twin Sat/DAB grade (proper high quality) coaxial cable into each room.

Towger.
 
I would recommend doing it, i plan to wire my two bed apt to Cat5 why, because Wireless is fine as along as you and your neighbours use a differant channel on it, there are only three completly seperate ones, so if next do puts there wireless on the same as your it will cause conflict, second security. Wireless does not have enough bandwidth for HD Streaming etc, if you ever get to the stage where you want to transfare a file over wireless that is anyway large so 600mbps then be prepared to wait.

Next, all Games consols now have Ethernet (Wired Network), You can distribute your phone by it and your basically future proofing your home, i have two games consoles and two pcs and a wireless acccess point, at home, all share the same files off a Network Harddrive, meaning i don't need to have anyone thing on all the time to get my music etc....


I am an IT Tech but now a days these sort of things are becomming more and more common.
And while the walls are being done put in the cables, although i would say at least you would want one point for each wall point, the coax idea above is also very good.
 
I would recommend doing it, i plan to wire my two bed apt to Cat5 why, because Wireless is fine as along as you and your neighbours use a differant channel on it, there are only three completly seperate ones, so if next do puts there wireless on the same as your it will cause conflict, second security. Wireless does not have enough bandwidth for HD Streaming etc, if you ever get to the stage where you want to transfare a file over wireless that is anyway large so 600mbps then be prepared to wait.

Next, all Games consols now have Ethernet (Wired Network), You can distribute your phone by it and your basically future proofing your home, i have two games consoles and two pcs and a wireless acccess point, at home, all share the same files off a Network Harddrive, meaning i don't need to have anyone thing on all the time to get my music etc....


I am an IT Tech but now a days these sort of things are becomming more and more common.
And while the walls are being done put in the cables, although i would say at least you would want one point for each wall point, the coax idea above is also very good.

I use an Apple Airport extreme base station also available now is a Time Capsule (basically a Wireless access point with a hard drive in it)

I am doing up the house completely. I have a sat dish with a quatro LNB into a loftbox which combines this with cable and FM (when rte finally goes out of test)

I do this so I can run a single coaxial cable to any of the points in the house and use a triplex switch that separates it all back out again. My Cable modem and router are in the attic.

I am only going to run cat5e Shielded from the attic to a 4 rj45 plate at socket level behind the back of the tv. The coaxial will run to each sitting room, bedroom and to the kitchen.

A dual coaxial cable is run down to the main sitting room. This is for Sky+ type viewing. (you need two cables, one for each tunner for Sky+ (PVR))

I am chaising wire around the sitting room and putting a faceplate behind the back of the tv for the surround sound system as I don't like unsightly wires.

As I have equipment in my attic and dont know what may happen in the future I am running a 2 x 4 inch duct from close to floor height to the attic from the back of the tv unit should I need to run wires like that in the future.

For the phone. Its in the attic. Wireless 2nd ary base stations can be set up around the house without the need for further wires.

As skyboxes need a phone line then I also have a phone outlet at the back of the tv sheilded connected to the attic.

There is no reason to run cat5 around your complete house but it does make sence to run it on where you will need it. In my case attic to sitting room.

maybe in your case study to attic also. Making use of your attic for the technology clutter can be a good idea.

For me its an only option. as for hdmi. There is 0 reason to do this. you never want to lay hdmi cable around your house. I was thinking you could have you sky box in the attic etc. but the signal de grates with such lengths unless you live in a bungalow that is. The same with scart, not a good idea.
With 1080p + you want short cables for this HDMI under 2m. You can't get a 25 ft cable to do the PS3 full throughput for example.

As a final note bear in mind that if you are running cable then go for shielded and get it done by a professional. I know what I am talking about but I still got a professional to do the work. Why ? cause if I layed the wrong cable then it would mean uprooting the wall.

If you play on putting a surround sound system in then do the cabling now. 5.1 is enough

If your running cable then buy wallplates.

As for wireless. I use 802.11n a lot faster and as most people are on 802.11b/g I don't have any issues with interference or speed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

3+ times faster. longer range and not many people using it yet.
 
why would you need cat 5 in a house????? if its for internet then its a waste as wireless is a far better option
 
Wireless is grand for web browsing and email, thats it. And remember, the more wireless devices you put into your house, and your neighbours do, the more likely it is to degrade. Rule of thumb for me, is always avoid using wireless where you can.

Cat5, or a proper cabling infrastructure for a house in my opinion is almost as important as the mains wiring, and when you have the opportunity to do it during build or rewire, then its a waste not to do it. All services are eventually going IP, and for this you need good quality cable infrastructure capable of high speed. TV services will eventually be IP based, and you can even get devices now that use it. Looking at HTPC (home theatre PC's) whcih replace traditional dvd players and aloow you store and distribute all your media throughout the house, via ethernet using media cenre extenders. These things are out a few years now, and soon will be common place. Coax, telephone cable and wireless are not going to work with these systems. You may think its all a bit fancy now, but will be common place in very few years. Sky for example are exploring tv distribution over ethernet within the home (delivered by sattelite), also google items like slingbox etc.

HDMI cable, I would only use it in the main tv room, and not distribute it around the house, its difficult and expensive, and there are better alternatives.

I would recommend that at the very least a good combination of high grade coax, and cat6 cabling would be a minnimum spec, all run back to a central distribution cabinet. You could look at other solutions like smarthome etc also, or the IrishHomeNet system.

Just to lay my cards on the table, I install the IrishHomeNet system, but main reason for the post is just to highlight alternatives, (whether it be cat6 or any other system) and the reason why traditional coax, phone and good old wireless simply are not future proof for any new home.

Wexfordman
 
Wireless is grand for web browsing and email, thats it. And remember, the more wireless devices you put into your house, and your neighbours do, the more likely it is to degrade. Rule of thumb for me, is always avoid using wireless where you can.

+1 on that - The performance of wireless differs greatly in practice than the theory and it will be a long time before wireless is capable of streaming HD TV around a concrete built house.
 
OhPinchy;621582it will be a long time before wireless is capable of streaming HD TV around a concrete built house.[/quote said:
+1 And consideration needs to be given to the amount of foil in many new houses that are well insulated. It really causes problems with coverage both in and around the house.
 
i have a concrete built house with concrete floors and the wireless signal beams around at full strength. all you have to do is buy a good wireless router and change the frequency if it interfers with anything - simple as that. the whole world is going wireless , it definetely is not going cat5 -
 
the wireless signal beams around at full strength
Take a .H264 Bluray DVD rip at 1080p and try stream that around your house. Now try have someone in the kitchen playing internet radio at the same time, and throw in someone browsing the web or watching Youtube on a laptop. That's the future and to be honest even CAT5e might struggle with that so CAT6 is what you need to future-proof.
 
who does all those things in their house at the same time in all fairness
 
who does all those things in their house at the same time in all fairness
A family?

There are plenty of homes which wouldn't have a lot of this equipment, but for those that do (and there are plenty of people into their gadgets that would have this and a lot more on the go at one time) this is a very possible scenario.
 
yes and wireless networks will evolve to be able to for all these issues.
 
If you are building and renovating and can include the cables at little or no extra cost the decision is a no-brainer. I can't imagine why you wouldn't put it in under these circumstances - even just the cables. We have a block house with insulated plasterboard and a wireless signal doesn't penetrate through it. We've put 2, 4 or 6 CAT5e cables to every room, remember you can use it for phones, intercoms etc. Just got my data cabinet in and patching is underway. I got a 24-port Giga switch for £60.

CAT5e is capable of supporting gigabit ethernet over reasonable distances, CAT6 can support higher rates but remember that a) all your kit - router, cable, boxes, patches, switches, - has to be CAT6-rated and b) you have to be careful with installation - no sharp bends and standing on it can cack it. It will be a long time, if ever, any wireless solution can support the same performance and security as a properly-wired installation. If it could all offices would be fully wireless to save money, wouldn't they?

Another option is the powerline kit - we've been using a Devolo 200 Mb pair temporarily and it's very good. I wouldn't be surprised to see this as the basis for TV etc. distribution in the future rather than wireless.

SSE
 
As a number of people, have pointed out, if you are building or rewiring, it really is a no brainer to install cable for a couple of hundred euro and some personal labour.

Already there are issues with wireless clutter on the electromagnetic spectrum, where most wireless activity is currently focused.

As the number of wireless devices increases rapidlly around us, as is the situation today, there will be further congestion and "gridlock" type problems.

The sesible approach is to include both !
 
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