Home Wiring Project Advice Request

[E30Mpwrd]

I'm doing some extensive rewiring of an old home, and trying to do a better job than I did in my current home (although my current network has been trouble free).

My general plan is to buy a 19" rack (Mid Atlantic)--I can't get my wife to agree to the sweet hinged Triplight enclosure that costs 3x as much--run dual Cat6 and dual coax from each room to the rack in the basement (and double that for the living room and office), connect to a cat6 punchdown block and (for the coax) connect to a keystone punchdown block. Those would connect to an unmanaged gigabit switch and a Terk splitter respectively. I'm planning to also put an HDTV and Sirius antenna on the roof. I'm hiring someone to run the wire, but I will do all the terminating myself.

That brings me to my questions.

I've found several versions of "composite" cabling, which has Cat 6 and quad shield coax. Unfortunately, the specs seem to be generally lacking, so I'm having trouble telling if it's solid or stranded. Regardless, my first question is whether or not composite cable is a good idea? It's obviously a bit more expensive (about $50 more than the individual cables from monoprice), but it seems easier to work with. I probably only need 1000' total of each, but to get runs of 2 cat6 and 2 coax, I'm thinking I'd probably need to buy 2 1000 ft strands of each, otherwise running two strands of each will require pulling a bunch of cable off the spool (and that worries me in terms of binding up the Cat6 as per the sticky). However, the sticky indicates you shouldn't secure the cables tightly, as you risk "reflection of the signals." This stuff is secured tightly by design; so is that bad? Also, is it super inflexible / hard to work with, making install in an old house a PITA?

This one is clearly solid wire, but there is very little detail about the specs:
http://deepsurplus.com/Network-Structured-Wiring/CAT5e-Ethernet-Cable-Solid/Ethernet-Coaxial-Composite-Cable-2-CAT5E-2-Quad-RG6-500ft-Bulk-Composite-Cable.

I can't tell if this one is solid wire or not, but it's slightly cheaper and they're at least disclosing some details: http://www.primuscable.com/store/p/1797-Composite-Cable-2x-RG6U-Quad-Shield-2x-CAT6-550MHz-23AWG-UTP-PVC-500-.aspx

There is also this one, but it's quite a bit more expensive: http://www.hometech.com/hts/products/wiring/wire_cable/combo_cable/ht-combo46.html It's 24awg while the other two are 23awg, but I have no clue if that matters even one iota, or which is better.

Any thoughts on which of these if any makes sense? Or am I better off with individual cables?

My next question is around the patch panel (I know some think they're unnecessary and I don't wish to discuss that--I'm doing one); the monoprice cat6 24 port panel is certainly cheap, but the only review on their website in which someone actually tested it says it didn't meet the spec, which scares me. Is it worth buying a higher quality patch panel? There is a thread on this board from 2009 (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=317703), but beyond some saying buy quality and others saying monoprice has worked fine for them, there isn't a conclusion. Since I don't intend to test my network to the spec, I'm inclined to err toward quality (ortronics seems to be the most reasonable of those listed). Also, in that same thread Spidey07 claims that "A straight 110 punchdown is near impossible to get to cat6 or 6a specs." I'm not sure what he means--and it sounds like he's suggesting Keystone jacks instead, but you still have to punchdown those.

I'm also curious how much cable slack is typical / standard to leave when you're doing punch-downs? In my current home, I left a ton (I thought I might want to move my rack), but it left a very messy look. Given that you have to be careful with the Cat6 bends, that seems like another reason to minimize slack, but you need enough space to do the punchdown work. Speaking of which, obviously you can't punchdown with the patch panel in the rack, so do you put the rack on a table in front of the rack, or on the floor (which would require a bit more slack)?

Final question is the phone. I don't need many phone jacks, but where I do, I'm thinking of running plain old two wire phone line rather than taking up 2 of the Cat 6 wires. Am I crazy? I would then use a keystone patch panel to punch down the phone line to connect up the few rooms that have wired phone service.

Thanks in advance for your any help!

 

[ericloewe]

Personally, I'd use the individual cables for a few reasons: flexibility - coax and ethernet aren't always routed to the same spots, cost - you said the individual cables are cheaper, as well as a probably illogical fear of stuff that looks like 4 cables kludged together in one plastic sleeve.

As for the phone jacks, it's best to run dedicated cables. Using one of Cat. 6's pairs is pure waste, since you can get 100Mb/s max from two pairs (three pairs will almost certainly revert to 100Mb/s, too). If you do have enough leftovers to run the POTS part, then it's not a bad idea to use a Cat.6 cable for two phone jacks (or more). If they're not side-by-side, terminate a pair (or two if you're running 4 wires) in one jack and run the cable to the other jack and terminate another pair (or two).

 

[Modelworks]

I don't recommend quad shield coax, use dual shield instead, most of the cable companies do and the reason is that the loss from dual shield is really low and putting the ends on quad shield can be a frustrating experience without the right tools and knowledge. The loss difference with the distances in a home are not enough to justify the trouble.

For phone get 2 pair solid , just like the phone companies use, red, green, yellow, black , wire, solid. The reason I am not suggesting network cable is because when everyone sees the typical phone wiring they know it is phone, not network and the cost is less.


If you want to pull them all at once then just tape the ends together with some vinyl electrical tape, that is what wire pullers do.

For slack I use the distance from my hand to my elbow for a guide, push the rest back into the outlet or the wall.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/24-10203EA 1000ft coax $50
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/24-10527 1000ft cat6 $149
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/24-7235 1000ft telephone wire $104
Total $303 per 1000ft runs

 

[JackMDS]

+1 to Modelworks suggestion.

 

[Mark_K]

Isnt it going to be all wireless within 5 years?

 

[imagoon]

Isnt it going to be all wireless within 5 years?

No. Wireless will never match a properly designed cable system because it is a shared medium. I cabled my entire house because I enjoy the solid connection and I don't have to worry about my neighbor nuking a burrito causing my netflix to stutter.

 

[alkemyst]

No. Wireless will never match a properly designed cable system because it is a shared medium. I cabled my entire house because I enjoy the solid connection and I don't have to worry about my neighbor nuking a burrito causing my netflix to stutter.

Ethernet is shared as well.

Wireless will eventually be the standard for all end user devices. In fact the only place physical cables will usually be will be the backhauls.

Speeds are beyond 100Mbps already, once LTE networks fully mesh the metro areas and a few other key items, the need to even have an ethernet card/port will greatly diminish for all but a handful of users.

Already many mobile devices are losing their ethernet ports just like parallel ports in the past (and then serial)

 

[imagoon]

Ethernet is shared as well.

Wireless will eventually be the standard for all end user devices. In fact the only place physical cables will usually be will be the backhauls.

Speeds are beyond 100Mbps already, once LTE networks fully mesh the metro areas and a few other key items, the need to even have an ethernet card/port will greatly diminish for all but a handful of users.

Already many mobile devices are losing their ethernet ports just like parallel ports in the past (and then serial)

Wireless is shared, Ethernet is packet switched. Unless you are going back to the old coax true shared bus. Wireless is closer to thinnet with collision detection than switched Ethernet.

So yes, you are correct Ethernet is "shared" because otherwise it would be useless as an interconnection network. However there is only so much spectrum and it is a shared collision domain in the wireless world. Collision domains have been removed from the 1 gig (effectively due to the tech) / 10 gig standards (completely removed).

Wireless may work fine for iPad but given an Ethernet port vs wireless, I will always choose the cable.

Maybe when they managed to come out with an omnidirectional wireless tech that is channelized so that devices / microwaves / baby monitors don't stomp all over each other other and still gives me true 1gig full duplex performance and sub 1ms pings I will use it exclusively.

 

[alkemyst]

Wireless is shared, Ethernet is packet switched. Unless you are going back to the old coax true shared bus. Wireless is closer to thinnet with collision detection than switched Ethernet.

So yes, you are correct Ethernet is "shared" because otherwise it would be useless as an interconnection network. However there is only so much spectrum and it is a shared collision domain in the wireless world. Collision domains have been removed from the 1 gig (effectively due to the tech) / 10 gig standards (completely removed).

Wireless may work fine for iPad but given an Ethernet port vs wireless, I will always choose the cable.

Maybe when they managed to come out with an omnidirectional wireless tech that is channelized so that devices / microwaves / baby monitors don't stomp all over each other other and still gives me true 1gig full duplex performance and sub 1ms pings I will use it exclusively.

You are confusing the medium versus the devices. If you have ethernet connected to a switch you will have both a shared medium and separate traffic. If you have ethernet that hits a hub, then you are back to one big collision domain.

I was referring to the future which is well underway with 802.11ac. End users will be on wireless infrastructures...eventually we will roam from our desktop to mobile devices seemlessly.

 

[notposting]

Couple things, for the slack, it depends on....the customers requirements and your common sense. You're the customer so

Usually the racks have the overhead cable tray which is where you leave extra cable, doing something like going past the point you will go down, do a nice loopback in the tray, then back. No slack really in the rack that way (patch cables are obviously another story). At home...well, you can do something similar, bring the cables down a ways and then back up to the level of the patch panel.

You can certainly punch down in the rack, if you have room behind it OR you have the swing out panels...or if you just flip them forward and try not to get everything all crossed up

For the actual room jacks, yes the forearm length of slack is pretty common and easy. They have moved away from service coils as they are not suggested for Cat-6 A bonus is that a little bit of loose slack is easier to pull down rather than getting up in a ceiling and undoing a coil to get slack.

I would do quad-shield, everything I've seen installed whether it be Comcast, WOW, satellite, or any of the commercial/industrial/education/medical jobs I've done. Outside of security anyway...which is all going to data at this point anyway.

And skip the cables bound together, get the individuals. Up to you on the phone cable and your budget.

Also, buy some labels for pulling the cables this helps keep track of which is which.

 

[imagoon]

You are confusing the medium versus the devices. If you have ethernet connected to a switch you will have both a shared medium and separate traffic. If you have ethernet that hits a hub, then you are back to one big collision domain.

I was referring to the future which is well underway with 802.11ac. End users will be on wireless infrastructures...eventually we will roam from our desktop to mobile devices seemlessly.

I am not confused. Who uses hubs anymore? You can't even buy them anymore. You're comments seemed to indicate that you were confused. Poor ping consistency / inconsistent throughput is a fact of life with wireless unless you live in a faraday cage.

802.11ac is a step in the right direction. However it is still a shared medium using collision detection (variable pings and through put due to retries etc). It is also not finalized and not really prepared to be released until 2015. Add a couple of years for general adoption (IE for the xbox1440) to have it, you are at 2017.

Existing wireless works "well enough" for the people that are happy to watch youtube, listen to Pandora and post on facebook on their iPad. That is fine. However with the near constant stream of people here asking about repeaters and how to boost signals indicates the need for cable is still alive and well.

-PS we need to stop thread crapping we are way off topic-

 

[kevnich2]

I don't recommend quad shield coax, use dual shield instead, most of the cable companies do and the reason is that the loss from dual shield is really low and putting the ends on quad shield can be a frustrating experience without the right tools and knowledge. The loss difference with the distances in a home are not enough to justify the trouble.

For phone get 2 pair solid , just like the phone companies use, red, green, yellow, black , wire, solid. The reason I am not suggesting network cable is because when everyone sees the typical phone wiring they know it is phone, not network and the cost is less.


If you want to pull them all at once then just tape the ends together with some vinyl electrical tape, that is what wire pullers do.

For slack I use the distance from my hand to my elbow for a guide, push the rest back into the outlet or the wall.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/24-10203EA 1000ft coax $50
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/24-10527 1000ft cat6 $149
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/24-7235 1000ft telephone wire $104
Total $303 per 1000ft runs

I agree with all of this except the phone cable. I highly recommend running cat5e/cat6 for data and voice. It gives you 4 pair of wire per cable and you can simply terminate it at a central location and if you want to use it for voice, go ahead. If data, go ahead. Run 3 cat5e/cat6 and 1-2 coax to every outlet for maximum flexibility. Then terminate all cat5e cable to a central patch panel and use patch cables to either a network switch or a telephone NID. Always run a little more than you think you'll need, you will be thankful for it later

 

[E30Mpwrd]

Thanks all for the replies; some great info above! I really appreciate it. Funny--I didn't realize you could actually punchdown while the patch panel was in the rack, but it makes sense--but would be nearly impossible without a swing-out rack IMO. So, going to try to get a hinged rack, although that obviously ads a bit of cost. Anyone have one to recommend? I see Tripp Lite makes a weird looking one, and Chatsworth makes what looks like a nice one. Mid Atlantic also has one, but for some reason the Chatsworth looks nicer to me.

I don't recommend quad shield coax, use dual shield instead, most of the cable companies do and the reason is that the loss from dual shield is really low and putting the ends on quad shield can be a frustrating experience without the right tools and knowledge. The loss difference with the distances in a home are not enough to justify the trouble.

I think I'll go with quad shield; it's what I have in my current house and I already have the tools and the terminating experience. It's hard on the hands to get the ends fully on, but if you do a few and then do some punching down of the network cable, it seems fine.

If you want to pull them all at once then just tape the ends together with some vinyl electrical tape, that is what wire pullers do.

So the only question I have is how my electrician will handle dual runs? If I get 1000 ft of Cat 5e (I'm starting to think CAT6 is overkill; anyone disagree?), and he's doing a run that requires two CAT5e cables, won't he have to pull a bunch out (the max he thinks the run will require) cut that, and then run that cable with the one still in the box? That result in a lot of waste, and doesn't it risk damaging the cable? It seems like buying two boxes of 500 ft. would be a lot easier / safer for the install?

That brings me to another question; how many cables does a room really need? I was thinking two Cat5e and two coax per, plus the phone wire for the rooms that need it. My current house has 1 Cat6 and two coax, but the latter was because DirecTV TiVo's used to require two coax cables to enable dual tuners. Do any cable providers still require that? Could I get away with one of each to my rooms (aside from the office and the living room)?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[E30Mpwrd]

Usually the racks have the overhead cable tray which is where you leave extra cable, doing something like going past the point you will go down, do a nice loopback in the tray, then back. No slack really in the rack that way (patch cables are obviously another story). At home...well, you can do something similar, bring the cables down a ways and then back up to the level of the patch panel.

The racks I'm looking at don't have cable management trays to my knowledge, but that sounds like an awesome idea; can you buy something like that separately? My first go round in my current house worked perfectly, but looked rather awful; I'm trying to get it to work and look good this time!

 

[imagoon]

I have been a fan of 2 Data runs everywhere and 4-6 at the entertainment centers. I prefer to have jacks on the walls rather than network switches stashed behind the tv. My entertainment center has roku / xbox / directv boxes / ps3 already.

 

[David Massengill]

The 8 cat5e cables in my house terminate in a box outside that has a telephone 2 wire patch panel for phone use. Can i just replace the phone panel with an 8 port switch? Also the box has no access to power....so it might need to be a PoE switch.