Home wiring [Telecom]

R. T. Wurth wrote in :

Can, if you limit yourself to 100 megabit over copper. New computers you buy now have gigabit interfaces and you want your house wiring to last you a number of years longer than your computers.

Gigabit also uses all 8 wires.

Good building wiring is Cat 6 or Cat 7 which will deal with gigabit fine and probably 10 gigabit and theoretically up to 25 gigabit if my calculations once were correct.

For home use you might 'get away' with Cat 5e which will do gigabit. Eventually lots more equipment will have network connectivity so one or two network outlets per room may be limiting.

Koos van den Hout

We're a computer-intensive family (3 laptops more or less always on, sometimes up to 5 or 6, plus multiple shared peripherals) in a phone-intensive home (6 landlines coming in for various purposes).

Few years back we spent a bunch of bucks to rewire our largish house with four major "home runs" fanning out from a utility closet to different parts of the house, each carrying a Cat 5 cable, a coax TV cable, and a multiple pair phone cable, with fancy patch panels in the utility closet and at the far end of each home run.

Then, all too shortly afterward, WiFi/Airport came along . . .

Now, the only electrons moving along any of the Cat 5 cables are in one of them that carries the main Internet signal from the utility closet to the Airport base station, allowing it to be located in the center of the house (although the base station actually works just fine back in the utility closet, where the DSL comes in).

Some of the phone wiring is still in use to carry each of the six phone lines to a couple of places around the house -- but much of our phone usage is actually now cellular; all of the six landline phones are now primarily cordless types, each with a single base station that could just as well be in the utility closet; and we're really expecting before very long to ditch 5 of the 6 landline phone services and go to Internet phone service, keeping only one hard-wired line for emergencies.

And our cable TV usage is visibly falling toward zero, replaced by Internet streaming and NetFlicks.

In other words, most of that wiring installation we were once so gung ho about is now (and mostly has always been) "dark copper". I'd never advise you not to do what you've planned, if you really think you'll want it -- but for me the trend seems all in the opposite direction.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Welcome to The Negroponte Switch ...

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never see your post! Thanks!

We have a new address for email submissions: telecomdigestmoderator atsign telecom-digest.org. This is only for those who submit posts via email: if you use a newsreader or a web interface to contribute to the digest, you don't need to change anything.

[Moderator snip]

A couple of suggestions, since I'm now in the process of doing some "re-wiring" of my own...

First, try to run things to a central point where you can put cross connects. Google "structured wiring" for some examples. Having all outlets "home run" to a central cross connect gives you great flexibility. There are several manufacturers who make outlets that can handle voice, data, and video... Be sure to use RG6 for TV and a good (cat 5 or better) twisted pair cable for networking. Color coding the cables is a good way to differentiate voice and data..

Second, run your telephone, audio, video and network in separate cables to the central location. You can use cat 5 or better for telephony, but run it to the central location. Don't try to save money by combining telephony and network in the same cable, it is a false economy. For networking, use a 110 type cross connect blocks.

66 blocks are OK for telephony (as is 110 type, you might want to use the same cross connect for both). Note that there are cables that incorporate coax and twisted pair in the same sheath, these can be very useful. Be sure, if you go that route, to insure that networks have 4 pairs and telephony has at least two or three (multiline phones are not uncommon...)

Thirdly, where pulling cable is difficult (as fishing through a wall from the basement to the second story), run a nylon string with the wires. It's a cheap way to pull new cable through walls, etc.

Fourth, anticipate future expansion. Having an outlet for video, network, and telephony on every wall of bedrooms really allows for any furniture arrangement without long cords. Doing it with the walls "open" is cheap (cheaper if you do it yourself!).

Lastly, run some AC power to your central location. Having an amplified video splitter or a network hub there makes lots of sense, so make sure you've got power.

Just some food for thought....

Eric Tappert

[Moderator snip] [Moderator snip]

Sharing a Cat5 or Cat6 cable with the phone limits the speed of the digital connection. I believe the Gigabit standard utilizes all 8 wires to properly work.

The other thing I would do with it being a new house would be to run the cheap plastic conduit from the outlets to the central place where you are going to make all of your connections. This way you could later upgrade to fiber or what ever comes along by pulling new feeds through the conduits.

Be sure to put an outlet or two in the utility closet for use by things like DSL/Cable modems, Bridges, powered cable TV splitters... Don't share those outlets with other rooms, run them to a separate breaker.

Having an electrician add a whole house power filter in the breaker box would not be a bad idea as well. They are not all that expensive when you consider what they can protect, not to say I would not still use individual units on PC's and such anyway.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Be careful with conduit: unless you're willing and able to splice connectors on the end of a fiber cable, you'll need much wider pipes to fit the fiber-optic connectors.

I recommend placing fiber at the start: you're doing it yourself, so the direct cost is only for the fiber, and then you'll be prepared for the forseeable future.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never see your post! Thanks!

We have a new address for email submissions: telecomdigestmoderator atsign telecom-digest.org. This is only for those who submit posts via email: if you use a newsreader or a web interface to contribute to the digest, you don't need to change anything.

[Moderator snip]

[Moderator snip]

One other benefit of using all 110 type cross connects and solid Cat5e and higher cabling is that you can easily interchange voice and data circuits.

At my last job I deliberatly made use of that fact and it made it very easy for us to re-config things on the fly.

....

There are no standards for sharing data and voice on one cable. I've done it in my home (one 10/100 Mbps Ethernet and two voice lines) with no problem; however I've documented the heck out of each end so I remember what I did.

I've also setup one of my cordless phones to receive power over a spare pair on it's cable, removing the wall-wart from my kitchen counter. I hand built a special cable to split out the power and voice at the phone, but it was worth it. Again, documentation is key so if I ever need to change it, I don't have to depend on my (sometimes faulty) memory.

Generally, it's cheaper to run another cable now than later. This will give you lots of flexibility in the future. As others have said, use the best cable. Pull at least Cat-6 today.

You can buy compenents at your favorite home improvement store these days; but they tend to be expensive. I insatalled a plywood sheet on my basement wall and installed a 110 block on it. All of my voice and data lines are terminated on the 110 block. For the data, I installed some surface jacks on the plywood with RJ-45's and patched them to the 110 panel. Standard Ethernet cables then connect it to the router. I did buy a Leviton voice cross-connect card and use it to connect the telephone lines, but I just nailed it to my plywood board (no need for the fancy expensive Leviton box).

Finally, do give fair consideration to wireless. When I built my house, I only had the electrician wire the points I knew I needed right away and figured I'd pull the rest myself later. As it turns out, I've only added one run to my 1st floor family room for my satellite set-top box. All other network additions have made use of my wireless network. Unless you really need 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps between your computers, wireless is a great solution. Cordless and cell phones also drive down the requriement for wired phones.

-Gary

Just to say, I'm feeling abashed at how well you expressed in a single trenchant paragraph all the ideas that I needed a lengthy multi-paragraph post to go through.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Ditto.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

To be fair, I had read your post and felt it important to reiterate the point about wireless. I had meant to include a statement referencing to other's suggestions; but the kids distracted me from my final edit...

By they way, I also meant to include pictures of my 110 block and setup. These are quite old, as I've added a lot more to my panel since these were taken (alarm panel with alarm jack, RJ-45's for network termination, a Leviton voice x-connect, DSL modem & filter for the rest of the house, shelves...), but they do show the basic 110 setup.

I've slightly modified the URL to avoid 'bots and other nasties: www [dot] segals [dot] org/110Panel/110Panel.htm

-Gary

Friend Wurth

I am probably too late but the suggestion I would make would be to have multi-compartment raceway installed in place of the baseboards in all rooms that have baseboards and just above the back splash in the kitchen. Once installed such wireways provide a permanently accessible means to run additional conductors or fibers to any point in any room. The design of the raceway permits the installation of devices such as receptacle outlets or communications jacks both in the raceway and in the wall above it. Should you want more information just ask.

Has your foundation footer been pored yet? If not you have an excellent chance to improve the electrical safety of your home by having a genuine Ufer grounding electrode installed. This is done by double tying the reinforcing steel in the footer and the basement floor and subbing out a piece of coated rebar or a conductor that is already properly attached to the reinforcing steel at the location of the electrical service disconnecting means enclosure. There is no batter grounding electrode system on a homes lot then a properly installed Ufer grounding electrode.