Want to have Ethernet wiring in new home

Jul 11, 2018
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I am currently in the process of building my home and would like to know what wiring you would recommend. I work from home and have my kids who are gamers and wife who binges on Netflix. Would a switch work best connecting to my router?
 
Solution
It depends on how many connections you run to the rooms in your house. If it is rather small then you could just use the 4 ports in a router if you have more then you will need a switch. Having a external switch will not have much effect on internet traffic.

The performance is not so much about the equipment you buy for your house but how fast a internet connection you can buy. If you live in the areas that you can only get things like 10mpbs dsl then you are going to have issues sharing with that many people.

I would run at least 1 cable to every room and some rooms it may be beneficial to run more depending on the placement of the jacks. I would run cheap flexible conduit so you can replace the wires or run more if you...
It depends on how many connections you run to the rooms in your house. If it is rather small then you could just use the 4 ports in a router if you have more then you will need a switch. Having a external switch will not have much effect on internet traffic.

The performance is not so much about the equipment you buy for your house but how fast a internet connection you can buy. If you live in the areas that you can only get things like 10mpbs dsl then you are going to have issues sharing with that many people.

I would run at least 1 cable to every room and some rooms it may be beneficial to run more depending on the placement of the jacks. I would run cheap flexible conduit so you can replace the wires or run more if you need. Right now you only need cat5e to run at gigabit speeds. You can use cat6a to get 10gbit but there is little to no need currently in a home installation. If you wait say 5 years there may be something else so its hard to say if running cat6a now is a good idea it may be outdated by the time you start to need faster speeds. Cat6 cable provide no real benefit over cat5e and cat7 cable is not certified and will likely be replaced by a new standard that is not named but people call it cat8. So either buy cat5e or cat6a.
 
Solution
Wires monoprice is a good place to look: don't buy any cca. read on the difference between riser CMR and plenum CMP. UL listed means it's audited on broad industry standards. UL XXX means it's been audited on just one test or more if there are more numbers. Only buy UTP for home use. Make sure the keystones and patch panel are also the same quality as the wire. if you buy cat6a UTP UL Listed, then buy cat6a UTP UL Listed keystone and patch panel. the monoprice stuff is great. the pairs terminate right next to each other, the patch panel is very easy to use. you can't get 10Gbs speeds without that feature.
cat6a isn't a lot more if you buy the cable yourself. being able to pull it out and pull in a new wire is the best way to future proof.

For the switch they are not very expensive so you might as well get a 1Gbs unmanaged ($60). dont plug in wires that aren't being used as they will use power. if you don't need one right away multigig will not be expensive soon. I'd go cat6a for that reason. There are already unmanaged switches for $300 that have two 10Gbs ports and 24 1Gbs. The 10 for NAS.

I'd recommend planning for access points on ceiling for top floor. wifi standards are getting replaced quickly. WAPs are the way to go because you can replace them easily. the cables need to be rated for POE or POE+. Their gauge is the main factor. 22-23AWG I think. check the desc. the monoprice cat6a CMR UL listed I bought was POE rated.