Phone + Network on 1 CAT5 cable?

Jeremy Worrells skrev:

On a quailty system this can be done. But the system should have at least Cat5E performance for this to work correctly.

There are no reason to use anything else than a 110 block, a good 110 block is at least cat5

There are _NO_ futureprofing in using cat5, that is at least 10 years past the time where it was future proof.

You should run 2 cables to each outlet, at least Cat6, preferably Cat6A the last will give you good futureproofing.

Jeremy Worrells wrote in part:

10baseT was specifically designed to do this, and it also works for 100baseTX. 110 is the way to go for mixed.

If you have a choice now, I'd certainly run the second Cat5e to each outlet. Easier termination (no need for splitter boxes) and gives some future-proofing for 1000baseT . I don't think I'd bother with Cat6 for the short runs in a house.

-- Robert

No, its not advisable. It breaks spec, and you wouldn't be able to run Gigabit Ethernet off of it at all, since 1000-Base-T uses all 4 pairs.

It should be Cat5e at a minimum, although who knows what the future will bring, but you should do various forms of Cat6A for 10G if you really want to future proof.

Thanks for all the responses. I thought this group was dead, but it appears that it's just a low-noise group. A rarity these days.

Good point about the 1000Base-T. I hadn't considered that angle. While I cannot see needing gigabit E right now, video over the LAN would benefit from it.

Since the house is already going to have CAT5e (I checked), I might do runs of CAT6 to each point for network and save the CAT5e for phones.

Lots to think about.

Jeremy

What is the "offical" way of carrying video over CATx wire plant?

We have to seperate what I call baseband video from multichannel video. The standards will be very different.

What does CATx standards have to say about HDTV? ISTM that if I was a junkie for house-wide cutting edge video, I'd pull fibre to each room.

OT: If you are still pulling cable, do yourself a favor and install CATx wire for WiFi over the whole house, even if you don't put in the APs until you need to "light up" an area.

You can never pull wire to enough wallplates to anticpate every use of each room and WiFi may save you from long patch cords, later. I say WiFi will be free based on teh number of pulls you *won't* run if you may want data everywhere but not sure when.

APs can be powerd over the CATx and can be hidden in closets and crawlspace. Neat. No long 120v extension cords.

The only way too future proof your home is with fiber optics inside the house there are a few places that have a pretty nice setup for such a task, such as the wiring the cablinets and so on, as for splitting the single cat5/cat5e/cat6 what i havnt seenmentioned is the eia/tia standard which states that one device per cable, for the computerside. if your gonna install cat6 best bet is too look into fih(fiber in the house) esp if you have FTH(fiber to the home) available here is a link too one such place i have found

cablegooch wrote in part:

Oh? Which fiber? I know of at least 3 different possibilities, and none has such critical mass that will compel its' adoption by the time fiber becomes really needed. In short, I expect a new fiber (particularly easier to terminate).

"Future-proofing" is a rationalization: the future is uncertain. No-one knows if pre-investment in Cat6 will pay off. It becomes a judgment/probability call. If Cat6 is 10% more total-installed-cost than Cat5e then it might be a good bet. If Cat6 is 100% more (double), it almost certainly is not.

-- Robert

Oh?

So, if you future proof'ed your home 15 years ago with fiber, what would you be using it for now? Did you choose a format and connector that would be currently used today? OOTH, any copper pulled 15 years ago would be fairly worthless now too except for the most basic functions like single POTS phone line daisy chained in the house.

FTTH installs expect and have no consideration of fiber in the house. No fiber will actually enter the house, they terminate it to a demarc box on the outside of the house like your existing cable/phone demarcs.

Future proofing is just a big gamble that you'll be able to predict the future and what it'll bring. Right now, I'd say the most future-proofing you can do is to install conduit from a central wiring area out to each jack location you'd want so you can use whatever you have installed now to pull the newest/next thing through the conduit in the future.

I say the best "Future proofing" is to plan neat locations for enough radio APs to give 5 bar coverage all over the house and appropriate outdoor locations such as pool-side.

Pull a fibre and a CAT5e/6 cable to each AP location, even if you don't need an AP there yet. PoE will make putting one in, when needed, trivial.

Right now you can get WiFI "b" speeds, but as I understand it, radio speeds much faster than that are in the works. You might go through several generations of APs over the years, but swaping an AP is easy and you don't have to swap them all at once.

The above is on top of whatever copper or fibre you think you will need, already.

I'll agree that the best for the future is to make sure that you can pull new cables in the future. couple of note:

1- the ONLY future proof solution is singlemode fiber. However, due to the price of the network card to go with it, I doubt that anyone would want to use it to the outlet. 2- The BEST performance (except for singlemode) today comes from multimode fiber: laser optimized. 2000MHz.km bandwidth. This garantees 10G Ethernet today, and will most likely accept 100G when it comes out in a few years. 3- If you plan to install fiber, don't forget to add also a copper port (Cat5e, Cat6, Cat6a) for the equipment that doesn't work on fiber. 4- Wireless is a very well adapted solution for home use, but don't forget that the bandwidth is crap. Ever tried backing up your hard drive through wifi?

I think what you should first be looking at is your budget. If it is unlimited, then sure, install absolutely averything discussed here. But most likely you'll have a heart attack when you see the price of this. Honestly, for home use, I don't see the point of installing anything better than Cat6. Just make sure that you have plenty of outlets and that it is easy to replace the cables in 10 - 15 years.

golgot1 skrev:

Correct

Disagree, cabled home products will be more and more PoE and PoEP therefore they need copper.

Many homes run 100 Mbps today, they will run 1 Gbps in five years and 10 Gbps in ten years, in 15 years when you might want to upgrade to 100 Gbps you will have to upgrade your cabling that is the futureproofing that you can do today.

There are no real products avalible that will allow private home ovners to use fiber, all connectors avalible would fail due to dust and lack of cleaning.

Lay out all your future cabling needs. My guess is:

POTS phone(s) for use during emergencies - keep a plain old telephone service analog phone for power outs etc., and for use as a fax line. This can run on just about anything, include Cat 3/5/5e/6. I do not recommend running it on the same cable as data, even if you are prepared to run at low speed 10BaseT or LocalTalk speeds.

Hardwired Data - Cat 5/5e/6, 100Base-TX, moving to 1000Base-T. Large number of devices in den, many spread through out the house, including VoIP and Video over IP.

Home Theater:

Audio line - 2 DIN connector twisted pair, one right one left; digital audio; fiber optic Audio speaker - 18 AWG solid conductor 1 pair per speaker Video - VHF/UHF modulated coax; component video; S-Video; ...

Especially when you throw in the Home Theater stuff, this is a lot more complicated than a typical "two Cat5e for data, one Cat5e for voice" standard.

My suggestion would be to assume that wireless will handle most of your future needs. Put two Cat6 at all phone or AP locations. Put lots of Cat6 in the home office. And put in conduit with drag lines everywhere, to be able to put in new stuff (fiber or whatever).

Finally, put in whatever you need in the home theater area, including speaker runs to the rear and sides of the room, and out to the patio. Who knows - romantic evenings outdoors in summer...

Wrolf

theater, in corners of room and on a center wall for dolby surround. It would be advisable, as far as future proofing, to put at least 2 cat6 jacks with each audio and 2 with each video. The future for broadcast could be over cat5e/cat6. These cables can carry audio and video, as well as network. although cat6 is a lot more expensive, you would be future proofed all the way around. I would even pull RG6 or 59 (can't remember which) for in house RF. that would give you the ability to install monitoring and AV support for front door security, inside cameras etc. While you're at it, pull cat6 and twisted pair auido for intercom between rooms and the front door. Make all your home runs to the basement, use cat6, and keep your phone, network, and intercom on separate blocks. Good luck! You will have put good value into your home and increased your resale.