Wiring a house for CAT6

[Tyler]

To all your wiring geeks out there. How can I wire my house for CAT6 without running 1,000 feet of wire? I just bought my first house and it has no cable wiring or anything. If you didnt know I work for TWC so I plan on running the house with RG11 from the tap to every outlet But I have 2 Blu-Ray player, a desktop computer and a PS3 that all need hardwired in this place. A customer gave me about 600 feet of CAT6 wire that I need to use. My D3 modem is going to be in my man cave where my desktop is going to be and on the other side of the wall is going to be the PS3 and one Blu-Ray player so that an easy wall-fish job. But I have one blue ray player on the second story. How do you suggest I run this? Should I place the modem in the basement and run a series of homerun CAT6 and make my own outlets or what? Thanks

[Alberta Advantage]

Are there two desktop computers? One by your modem and one by the Blu Ray players?

If there's two computers, one by your modem and one by your other devices, you'll require two drops but can also get away with one drop if you purchase a router. You can run from your modem to this router and then from your router to your other devices. It depends on how much extra equipment you want to buy. You can then run a cable from your router by you modem to a switch or hub which will act as a splitter and plug your two Blu Ray players, PS3, and other desktop using patch cables. This will use the least CAT 6 cable which isn't cheap. If you don't want to buy a router and you have enough CAT 6, you could run from your modem, to your switch or hub where the majority of your devices are and then run an additional CAT6 from your switch back to your desktop by the modem. There isn't a need to do single drops for each devices and 600 feet will disappear pretty quick. Network routers and hubs/switches are pretty cheap too.

[Tyler]

Originally Posted by Alberta Advantage

Are there two desktop computers? One by your modem and one by the Blu Ray players?

If there's two computers, one by your modem and one by your other devices, you'll require two drops but can also get away with one drop if you purchase a router. You can run from your modem to this router and then from your router to your other devices. It depends on how much extra equipment you want to buy. You can then run a cable from your router by you modem to a switch or hub which will act as a splitter and plug your two Blu Ray players, PS3, and other desktop using patch cables. This will use the least CAT 6 cable which isn't cheap. If you don't want to buy a router and you have enough CAT 6, you could run from your modem, to your switch or hub where the majority of your devices are and then run an additional CAT6 from your switch back to your desktop by the modem. There isn't a need to do single drops for each devices and 600 feet will disappear pretty quick. Network routers and hubs/switches are pretty cheap too.

My modem is actually a 4-port gateway, plus a I have a router too for extra hookups. I don't know where i'm going to put anything yet. I was thinking of putting my modem next to my desktop. The Ps3 and one blu ray player are going to be in the next room and the other blu-ray player is on the second floor. That one is going to be the trickiets one to run. I was thinking of doing a homerun from the modem and just following the cable line to the outlet upstairs.

[JSchuricht]

It really depends on how your house is constructed. Homedepot has some specialty drill bits in the electrical section that are 3-4' long and flexible with a hole in the end for a draw string. Decide where you want your drop and where it will come out near the router. Assuming the outlets are not right above each other, you will either need to take the cable up to an attic or down to a basement/crawl space to go horizontal. You will need a good stud finder to get an idea of the easiest route. Be mindful of outside walls with insulation, they are a pain to work in, also try to avoid doing anything on a wall that would likely contain plumbing.

[Tyler]

Originally Posted by JSchuricht

It really depends on how your house is constructed. Homedepot has some specialty drill bits in the electrical section that are 3-4' long and flexible with a hole in the end for a draw string. Decide where you want your drop and where it will come out near the router. Assuming the outlets are not right above each other, you will either need to take the cable up to an attic or down to a basement/crawl space to go horizontal. You will need a good stud finder to get an idea of the easiest route. Be mindful of outside walls with insulation, they are a pain to work in, also try to avoid doing anything on a wall that would likely contain plumbing.

I have Several Flex Bits so I can do wall fishes down to my basement. I did find out that the living room and first bedroom are an addition on top of a crawlspace but there is no access to it from the basement. Would it be okay just to pop a hole in the foundation wall going into the crawlspace and just use my glow rods with a magnet to hook to the line and pull it into the basement? I think I have figured out what I am going to do.

I am going to place my Modem in my living room so I can run short drops for the PS3 and Blr-Ray player. Run a wall fish down to the basement to my Router so I can hook up my desktop, then run a homerun line from the router in the basement to the outside of the house and follow the cable line to the 2nd story so I can hook up my other Blu-Ray player. What do you think?

[Jarrod B]

um.........

[TRENT310]

Where do all the services enter the house? Hopefully the electrical, phone and coax are all on the same backboard inside, not outside in a NID-style box. In residential settings I believe beside the electrical panel backboard is the best place to terminate all home run data/com (add backboard if needed), unless there is another centrally located closet that could be better. The smallest I'd use to terminate the installed cabling is a 24-port patch panel which fits 1 rack unit. There must always be a separation between the installed wiring and the patch wiring, never just crimp on 8P8Cs (aka RJ-45) to the installed wiring. Wiring is permanent, but the needs and uses of it change.

Is this just CAT6 23AWG STP or is it CAT6A with the '+' shaped pair-splitter in the core of the cable? Either way, don't be trying to jam it into wiring devices that are designed for 24AWG Cat5/3. 6A is going to require different wiring devices altogether since it is physically larger in diameter as well.

If your network design is going to have 'branches' as in, little 5 port unmanaged switches scattered around the place, that's not a real home-run cabling system. Every switch you pass through adds a hop (store-and-forward), and could be a performance bottleneck - maybe not throughput but in latency. Copper cabling is cheap, don't skimp on it. (If you said 8µm single mode or 50µm multi mode fiber is currently expensive, I'll take that argument, but copper has low cost-per-foot or metre.)

Network equipment and patch panel live in the basement on a small 4U wall-hanging rack or so. Get a 16 or 24 port switch so that you have a flat network with a single switching backplane... daisy chaining a bunch of little 5 port switches does not constitute a non-blocking design. But I've seen it done too often, which is why I mention it.
Modems always go as close to the service entrance as possible. The figurative 'last-mile' drop to your building has already been long enough, shorten the distance as much as possible on your end, reduce the connections (lossy, especially when dealing with RF) as much as possible.

This is all my opinion, but my trade is designing and installing commercial/industrial structured cabling (mostly inside plant but some outside plant) and doing the network build outs (infrastructure hardware) - I don't think a residential environment is any reason to cut corners... if it's your own place then it's even more of a reason to do the best job. It's not a random client site install at their house where you're paid piecework.

[powerstrOKIE]

Save that 600' box and get more. If it's worth pulling one it's worth pulling two or more. Also, why the preference for Cat6? You can run GigE over cat5 and cat5e. We do it everyday over old untwisted two pair cat3 or worse for VOIP with data and voice links. Do yourself a favor. Run everything to a centralized location. Extend your demarc to you home network "MDF" then run double for evey single so on and so forth. HDMI can be balun'd over cat 6 and coax adapters do get pricey however. Take your time and do it right the first time. Also, no need to run RG11 to your home, unless, you have extreme distance to couter and/or extreme loss due to splits. You can only safely send so much video power to a device without compromising it's integrity. 0db is perfect at the set. no loss, no gain. Just perfect signal no pizelation or ingress/egress. If you want advice several of the guys here can help you.

Jason

[forddieseldoctor]

[powerstrOKIE]

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