Structured Wiring Questions.

the 2nd floor. The house is a two story house and it was built in 2000.

Seperate CAT5 for VOIP and "ethernet/internet" is redundant and unnecessary for any "house" smaller than, say, a hotel. 100Mb ethernet will carry lots of phone calls while every PC in the house is using the ethernet. Your bottleneck is the upstream speed of your broadband connection. For DSL this can be as low as 128kb/sec. For cable broadband it's a a couple Mb/sec or so. Use a switch in your wire closed and most enternet users won't even see each other's traffic.

Anything faster than Cat5e has no payback.

In addition to your copper, calculate the right number and location for WiFi Access points for good coverage. These can be in crawl spaces or closets and out of site. They get power over the CAT5 cable (Power Over Ethernet aka POE) so they can be tucked almost anywhere.

I'd look for a new multistation home phone system that included an intercom function rather than run dedicated wire and seperate wall/desksets.

Bear in mind that some satellite systems can use more than a single wire. A dual-tuner DirecTV unit requires two links to the multiswitch/dish.

Sometimes it's 'better' to put the AV stuff in one place and distribute it's signals internally instead.

Which allows for up to 4 POTS lines.

Why both? Granted, if you want two ethernet devices in each location then you could do this. You could also use a switch at that location. But if you want a single wall connection for each device then having both is a good idea.

One FOOT? How much are wire you thinking of running?

Check with your local building inspection department.

No more so than what regular plumbing does. You have to take care when putting holes in structural members of a house. Too many holes in a joist is a bad thing. Not all walls are structurally significant.

Intercom systems will generally run over anything. But their placement is usually near the entrance ot a room, not where you'd usually put TV, phone or computer jacks.

Well I'm planning to have a junction box that has two inputs (cable and satellite) and have a splitter for the satellite to all the rooms. Thanks for the tip on running two satellite lines because of dual tuners on the satellite box. I will plan to have 6 plugs at the outlet. I can label one cable, one satellite, and one satellite/cable and if if a particular tv needs two inputs either from satellite or cable and can just switch one cable over to the satellite/cable. I also could use a splitter at the outlet and just have two lines coming from the splitter into the dual tuner.

Two separate lines for phone, one line will be a phone line so that I could still dial 911 in case the power goes out. The other will be dedicated for voip. The voip line will plug into a Linksys VoIP adapter. Granted for the voip line, I only need 2 of the 8 conductors, but you never know ...

The one foot diameter hole is for an access hole so that I could drill a 1"-2" hole between the walls to the next floor. For example I would cut out a 1ft diameter hole out of the drywall at the base of the wall. Then I could use a spade bit to make the 1" - 2" hole to run the pvc piping to run the cables ...

There are drops that I want to put on the exterior walls that reach to the bottom floor, and these are the walls I am most concerned about ...

I'll need to find where are the joices in my house and avoid getting near them. I guess my next step is to find the building plans for my house.

Thanks, Matt

I read that with VoIP you have to have lines isolated from the phone company. I agree, what I call my VoIP line may not be VoIP in the definition sense. My VoIP line will be connected to a VoIP adapter and then the adapter will be connected to a router. I am still using traditional/analog based phones and have not thought about purchasing VoIP phones.

Its a conservative 2 story house (~2000 sqft) and I like to have an anolog phone for the 911 calls in the master bdrm and the kitchen.

How many Volt-Amps is your UPS? Wasn't that black out for long time?

Thanks, Matt

I don't think you use "voip" the same way I do.

A voip handset runs voice over an ethernet (or any other IP media, such as WiFi) and shares the bandwidth. If you are going to use a Linksys router that has an RJ-11 jack for an analog handset then you're not installing a viop system in the house, IMO. Just more POTS wire.

You can expect to see WiFi-capable viop handsets soon, which I think will be neat.

IMO you only need one POTS phone in the house for 911 calls, unless it's a _very_ large house.

Put your switch and router stuff on a small UPS. (or maybe not so small) During the 24 hour NorthEast power outage a couple years ago I had my DSL connecttion on my UPS and was able to run my laptop for the entire duration and recharge my cellphone when needed. I was online and chatting with friends all night. (lucky).

them. I guess

Wow, I guess the you don't have the fridge hooked up to that UPS. Thats one thing when you have a total power outage and everything goes down and you need to make an emergency call; it still is nice to have a POTS phone and that all charged up cell phone.

I don't like the idea of relying on wifi because your still using bands that every other cordless appliance is using. when my 2.4 GHz phone is in use the wifi connection dimenishes. I have tried spacing the channels out, but there is always a neighbor using their cordless phone. Also if I want to transfer huge files from the pvr to the computer, wifi will suck.

I want to add the wiring right, i'm not concerned about the cost since I have purchased most of the wiring equipment and cable already.

I have a two story house, would it be unreasonable to have the 2" pvc going from the second floor down to the bottom floor? And is there a way I can clearly locate the joices?

Thanks, Matt

them. I guess

well over 24 hours for me. He were online for a while at 20 hours and then went dark again. I suppose I got a bit of a recharge then.

1200 VA (less due to an old battery). It supports a fully-featured desktop system. When the lights went out I was home and immediatly shut down the machine. My laptop had a full battery (good for three hours) and when it was used up I plugged the lapopt the UPS and was up again. I was careful to hit the "standby" button on the laptop whenever I wasn't using it.

I was lucky. All the necessary telco infrustructure needed to keep my DSL going also had power.

Build "g" Wifi into your whole house. If you are cost sensitive and yet want a fully wired house it's an economy move becasue you don't need anywhere as may drops but can put a printer or PC, or work on a laptop, anywhere with the right adapter.

If you think about COAX and ethernet at the same wallplate you never use your PC within a couple feet of your TV (except for the Tivo/cablebox). You'll be using a long TV or data patch cord all the time.

Hi Matias,

That was a long message, so I'll post on top.

First of all, you will greatly simplify your setup (and life) by getting rid of different types of UTP cable. Considering amount of labor and overall effort that goes into this kind of residential retrofit cabling installs, as well as the relatively small size of a residential house, you will hardly notice a price difference between CAT6 and CAT5E (stay away from just CAT5, if you can even still buy it).

Now, the question of whether or not CAT6 is a viable solution for a brand new installs in view of CAT6A (or CAT6+) solutions out there does only make sense in commercial installs. A residential house usually has cable length less than 60m (approx. 180'), and 10G Ethernet is therefore guaranteed to run via general CAT6 cabling. Not so in larger commercial buildings, but it?s a theme for a whole separate discussion.

So, to round this up, pull all CAT6 or all CAT5E, do not use different cables for different applications.

Find a way to create a vertical shaft. The PVC pipes your proposed would make a it a great solution, but I would stick with 2" as a minimum if your walls' constructions allows. For un-insulated walls you can actually get away with simply removing sections of drywall and making 3-4 of 3/4" - 1" drilled holes for cables going through the floor. Then leave pull strings in every one of those holes, pull those cables you need and make sure you have a least one extra hole with pull string for future, and then close the walls back.

Good luck!

If your DSL link is to the central office it's very likely it'll stay running. Mine did two summers ago.

Yeah, this is important. Where the TV is located is very likely to be different from something using the network. It's possible the TV stuff might need a phone line but it's also likely a regular phone handset probably won't need to be near the TV. Basically it helps to do some thinking about where everything will be placed when actual furniture is installed (not implying you didn't).

-Bill Kearney

Hmmm, bear in mind that VoIP is just IP. Once you 'convert' from one to the other you're freed up from the wiring that might be needed. As in, convert from IP to POTS using a VoIP ATA (like the linksys) and then you can use plain old telephones anywhere in the house. Many VoIP adapters support clever methods of 'falling back' to POTS should power go out or 911 dialing is needed. You can basically leave the house wired for POTS and simply use VoIP devices at the central wiring location. Bear in mind that you can use VoIP in the same way as a shared POTS line or you could use each handset on it's own VoIP extension. The latter gets a little complicated and usually involves a PC running something like the Asterisk free PBX software.

Wire's cheap and running it 'all at once' is usually a good idea. But running more than you need, or to 'too many' locations is just a waste. Sometimes it's better to plan to make it 'easy' to add more wire into places that "probably won't need it" any time soon.

Ohhhhh, yeah that makes sense. I was envisioning some 1' holes through the floor... You're talking about just making some holes in the drywall to facilitate drilling the through-floor holes. That's normal. Drywall can be patched pretty easily.

And once you embark on the 'break holes in the wall' process it really isn't that much harder to fix one hole or a half-dozen...

As in, run them to the outside and then down to avoid going through the house? It's do-able but there aren't that many situations where it's really necessary. Any time you start whacking holes through the exterior walls you introduce any number of complications (like bugs, rodents, water, cold, etc). That and the conduit needed to meet code it pretty pricey compared to running it inside. But every house varies and yours might need it.

Having the plans or talking to another neighbor that has the same floorplan is *always* a good idea.

Seeing that there are more and more media centers being released, it would be practical to have an ethernet connection near the tv. I know the Replay TV dvr can stream frrom one Replay box to another, or even to your computer if you like...

As I am still new to VoIP, but wasn't aware that some adapters were capable of 'falling back'. I will have to do more research to find out which ones have that feature.

I like the idea of VoIP extensions, so that I could have a phone number for my office and a seperate one for the house... I have heard of asterisk, but I don't like the idea of running a full blown computer and waste money on energy costs just to answer calls... a system with a 300W power supply could cost around $30/mo. to operate, thus increasing the total phone costs. Maybe for s#$%s and grins I might try it out.

What I mean by exterior walls, is the drywall side of the exterior walls. I didn't mean to imply that I was going to drill through the stucco and run the cabling outside and then back in. I guess the way I'm using the term 'walls' includes both sides. I feel that that the exterior walls are hardest to run cabling through becuase of all the fire breaks and.

Thanks, Matt

Having two different VoIP lines is different than having different extensions. Two lines would be dialed to each other as a regular phone call and would require each to have their own VoIP number. Extensions, on the other hand, are entirely internal and would be able to share a single outside line. Of course, extenions could also be configured to deal with multiple outside lines as well. But it's when you get into wanting each telephone to be able to act independent of the others that you start getting complicated.

Then run it on as low-powered a box as your budget deems necessary. Devices like laptops make fine machines for going the low-power route. I have my doubts on your $30/mo. cost but electricity prices vary by area (and season, time of day, etc...).

If you want what a system like asterisk provides then it's operating costs are a necessary part of the equation. Devices like Sipura's consume considerably less but they're not offering the sort of 'pbx' functions that might be useful.

outside and then

feel that that

fire breaks and.

Well, when working with walls be sure to follow code for fire safety requirements.

It's spelled "joists".

If you have wood floors you might be able to tell where the joists are by looking for the nails that hold down the flooring. They're often nailed down into the joists (but not always). Or you could use an ultrasonic stud finder. Just as they find the wood in the stud walls they can often find joists. Also note that ceilings below are usually attached to the joists above. Likewise using a stud finder will help locate the joists. Worst case you find a hollow sounding spot that's in a relatively easy place to patch and you cut an access hole. Drywall is easy enough to patch and those rooms needed repainting anyway, right?

But yes, it's reasonable to have a riser going through the house. It's also reasonable to have chase spaces with access panels in places that make it easier to run wires even without conduits for them. Quite often there's a closet that's accessible 'enough' to allow punching holes on the top and bottom of a side and use that as an easy way to make the holes to bot the floor above and below.

Also consider that may electricians or other contractors are amenable to making an extra buck in their spare time to do this grunt work for you. I've gotten nice work done simply by asking the guys working late on a nearby remodel if they needed some 'side work'.

If you're in any sort of development that has other houses using the same floorplan it would be a fine idea to just ask those neighbors about their renovation work. It's a fine way to meet folks anyway, just don't be a creep about it. I learned where a second steel column post is located in my basement by seeing the unfinished space in a neighbor's place. Saved me from wasted effort pulling down a wall for 'free space' that has a column smack in the middle of it.

Wow! thanks for that advice. I appreciate the time you have put into your replies. I think I have a better grasp now that I have heard some experts.

Thanks, Matt

Experts? Well, learned amateurs mainly. Often learned 'the hard way'. It sometimes helps soothe the pain of making mistakes by telling others how NOT to make them!