Need advice on cables for home networking

W

wakkun

Disciple
Hi TE,

We're currently building a new house and before the electrical wiring happens I also want LAN cables to be in a few rooms.

I am planning to get some keystone sockets and hardwire everything to a central switch in the house.

What I need suggestions for is:
1. CAT cable recommendations. We won't be doing concealed wiring fyi.
2. Keystone socket recommendations.
3. Miscelleneous if anything else you think I might need.

Our house is around 1000 sqft, two floors.
Ofc I'll also set up a mesh wifi system, but having LAN is much more convenient.

Can you please help with suggestions and advice.
 
I will definitely be running CAT 6A for future proofing.

But I'll still need to figure out switches and other equipment.
 
wakkun said:
3. Miscelleneous if anything else you think I might need.
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I think you would've already thought about this, but just in case not so - Consider running fiber optic cable from an open outdoor end to your primary WiFi router spot. This way you can leave the ugly junction box outdoor and just your ONT/Router inside. You can run cables for your mesh WiFi & LANs from here and this will be your central switch.
 
I got my entire house wired with D-Link cable, everything concealed, and it's much better than WI-Fi.
I let my electrician buy the cable, just told him to make sure it was cat-6. That way if it was damaged, it was his headache, not mine.
Also, the brand of cable you can get will depend on where you live.
I didn't use keystone sockets, as I prefer to have a direct connection. If you do want a jack, you'll have to buy the same brand as your other sockets.
I'd suggest concealing the wiring, keeping as few bends in the pipes so that you can upgrade the cable in the future, and keeping the ducting for the lan cable separate.
IMG_20230926_101711.jpg
 
ch@ts said:
I got my entire house wired with D-Link cable, everything concealed, and it's much better than WI-Fi.
I let my electrician buy the cable, just told him to make sure it was cat-6. That way if it was damaged, it was his headache, not mine.
Also, the brand of cable you can get will depend on where you live.
I didn't use keystone sockets, as I prefer to have a direct connection. If you do want a jack, you'll have to buy the same brand as your other sockets.
I'd suggest concealing the wiring, keeping as few bends in the pipes so that you can upgrade the cable in the future, and keeping the ducting for the lan cable separate.
View attachment 178819
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Possible when building new home....not for old houses
 
So we basically have two floors.

On the ground floor, I'll be keeping my network equipment (router, switches, pi, plex server, etc.) Probably under the stairs.

This floor has only one room that would ideally need a ethernet connection and also will be keeping a mesh router here.

The second floor has 4 bedrooms that would all be needing ethernet. This is what I am stuck with, since I can't figure out how to get these 4 relatively large cables up there without causing too much of a mess. I'll have another mesh access point on this floor too, in the middle.
 
wakkun said:
So we basically have two floors.

On the ground floor, I'll be keeping my network equipment (router, switches, pi, plex server, etc.) Probably under the stairs.

This floor has only one room that would ideally need a ethernet connection and also will be keeping a mesh router here.

The second floor has 4 bedrooms that would all be needing ethernet. This is what I am stuck with, since I can't figure out how to get these 4 relatively large cables up there without causing too much of a mess. I'll have another mesh access point on this floor too, in the middle.
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Do u have any design in mind.....i would say....give one ether connection from router on ground floor....then another connection from router to first floor and put switch there also and distribute from there.
 
wakkun said:
These are the basic layout of the house, currently being walled up. Next up is the electrical and plumbing.

Ground Floor
Bottom right living room would need ethernet

First Floor
All 4 rooms would need ethernet

https://imgur.com/a/GZSz2xB
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As probably u will be keeping ur devices under stairs....does it have conduits or pipes installed which can reach till the rooms requiring Ethernet connections? Like how all the wiring will converge near the MCB have u asked for same to be done.
 
I have asked for conduit to be installed near the staircase since we'll be keeping the inverter there as well.

My only worry is the size of the conduit wihout affecting the rigidity of the wall too much. In which case would fiber be a better alternative. Then terminate it with RJ45 with a different device up top?

I am not even sure if this would even be viable though, just something on my mind.
 
wakkun said:
I have asked for conduit to be installed near the staircase since we'll be keeping the inverter there as well.

My only worry is the size of the conduit wihout affecting the rigidity of the wall too much. In which case would fiber be a better alternative. Then terminate it with RJ45 with a different device up top?

I am not even sure if this would even be viable though, just something on my mind.
Click to expand...
Fiber is better option and in that case u will be needing the converters i guess.....pipes as used for electrical wiring wud suffice
 
Fiber can get really expensive, you need expensive specialised equipment to splice and terminate fibers, unlike copper eth which can be done with a few hundred rs crimper (i do this whenever i need custom length cables). Your only choice is pre-made cables, but then interfaces are also expensive. Fiber is also less tolerant of bends, but unlike copper, can do really long runs without losing as much SNR. For your application, fiber is an extreme overkill.

Invest in some quality cat6/a cable with solid copper core, none of that copper coated aluminium (CCA) shit. You can run ethernet cables inside the cylindrical conduits that are used for electrical wiring, but make sure to not run ethernet and power through the same conduit. US NEC recommends 50mm separation, but they use 120v, so I'd keep it to 100mm minimum based on my super accurate back of the napkin maths.

As suggested by someone else, I'd use 2 switches, one on the ground floor, one somewhere on the 1st floor, and connect these through a single cat6/a/fiber. These switches can then be used to distribute internet on that specific floor.
 
CAT6A shielded keystone jacks are shit expensive. Just go with the CAT6 ones available with your switchboards (I used Anchor ROMA ones).

One router + One switch (if too many LAN devices) + more routers/access points for coverage should be fine.

I went with CAT6A Cabling (2-3 ports per room) + 24-port gigabit switch (too OP) + opnsense router (x64 i3 8100 based tiny PC - again, too OP) + 3xAsus RT for Mesh.
5 people, each has 1-2 mobiles, plus total of 20-25 smart switches/sockets/bulbs/battens, 2xTV, 1xNAS, 2xPC, 2xLaptops.
 
I would buy some 10gig switches and cat6 for home networking. But for future proofing i would just stick to wireless networking but that is just me.
 
Any recommendations for 10GbE switches?

I've also only tried out TP-Link Deco for mesh WiFi. Is there something else that is better?
 
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