New Build - CAT6 Wiring

Kristian

You may feel I'm being pedantic, but this is no reason to use Cat6 as it's all based on Ethernet, e.g. 1Gbps networking.  If you mean HDMI over CatX then yep, Cat6 is better than Cat5E.

Advice from the retailers/manufacturers of the baluns/converters say that for HDMI over CatX is to not terminate the cable into the patch panel/module but terminate direct to a plug at each end to minimise any joints.

I've not heard that before. POE is fine over Cat5E afaik.

Use as large a size as you can get away with .  You don't say it you mean round or rectangular but at first it'll look massive until you try to poke cables down it.

I've done this a few times in houses and it's easier at build/renovation time, much more difficult once walls are plastered etc.  Also done it for years at work...

As above, UTP will be fine at home.  I've used cablemonkey for cables before.  Do you have enough cables planned if you're going to be using HDMI converters?  Do you have enough in the living room?  There's plenty of possible network attached devices around a TV (TV, amp, DVD player, streamer (e.g. KODI on a Pi), games console etc).

Puntoboy

Sorry yes I mean HDMI over Catx.

I have read from several sources that whilst CAT5e is fine for PoE, there is more power loss than with CAT6. It's not a huge amount but means any switches will need to work slightly harder to deliver the voltage.

I was thinking 40mm round but it doesn't make much of a difference to me. I think it might be slightly easier to install than square.

I wish I could have put this all in at build time but the developer wanted £860 for 6 cables (the minimum I wanted). That's a crazy amount and I think they just wanted to put me off the idea so they didn't have to do it.

I think I have enough, they'll be four in total for the living room as one is installed by the developer and I'm adding three. AV receiver, Xbox One and Sky Q leaving one spare. Shouldn't need any HDMI to the living room but I could add a couple more if I need them.

In our current house everything is in two places, the living room and my office. I have a 24 port switch in my office for all my computer equipment and a single CAT5e cable running down the stairs to the router. In the new house my servers will go out to the garage as they are noisy, my NAS will go into the ground floor cupboard and everything else will stay in the rooms they are in now. He different being I want to extend the HDMI output of the Sky mini box to the second bedroom.

At the moment I can't see any reason why I wouldn't choose CAT6 cable.

I'm also toying with the idea about having a speakers in the ensuite playing audio from the TV and installing the same cable in the walls in the living room for surround sound but at the moment these are just ideas.

Kristian

I've got a mix of Cat5E and Cat6 at home as I did it in stages as we decorated rooms (I chased out walls.)  If you don't mind spending that bit of extra cash then I can't see why not to go for Cat6, but as Mick says above, what are you future proofing for... (rhetorical).  From a networking pov, Cat6 will give you 10Gb Ethernet to 35m or 55m, according to the specs and it's better for HDMI stuff.  As people say, "you pays your money and take your choice..."

Regarding your HDMI, would you want to be sending it from your sources, e.g. amp or sky box, and therefore need more cable?  I guess Sky Q might make that moot though nowadays.

That price from your building is impressive, for the wrong reasons!  Have fun with it...

Puntoboy

I have a couple of more standard networking questions.

We'll be getting 300mbps BT FTTP broadband and the ONT will be placed in the central ground floor cupboard. The builders have installed a single CAT5e (I assume) cable from this central cupboard to the living room so that you can connect the BT home hub in the living room. I'm not keen on that idea as that's at one end of the house, I've also never been a fan of BT equipment. I would like to install one, maybe two, Ubiquity APs.

So I'm wondering if

A) I should swap out the BT home hub for a better router (with or without wireless) and locate it in the cupboard instead of the living room.

B) how many Ubiquity APs I'll need. The house isn't huge, about 10m x 5m. Would one AP on the first floor be enough to cover the house? Or would I need one on the ground floor as well.

Puntoboy

Anyone?

rs6mra

Your best option would be to have the BT router installed and then do a test and see what areas in the house struggle with wifi coverage. An App such as wifi Analyzer would assist you in doing this. You may not be a fan of BT equipment but you will not know for sure if the equipment would serve you or not until you try it out. I would suggest you do the channel checks also so find that ones that are least used by your neighbours. If you want to compare routers then have a look at the website Smallnetbuilder.

mrmrh

Yeah, what I will eventually do is keep the provided modem (because we don't have a lot of choice here) and buy separate Wireless Access Points and litter them throughout the house.

Oh yeah... I'm leaning towards Ubiquiti too.

Kristian

I would setup an AP/wifi router and test the wifi from the various locations you mention (living room/TV, cupboard) and also from a more central location.  If needs be then you can buy an AP )and disable the wifi on the router) and run a network cable to right place along with all the others.

I would have thought in a house that size one AP will be more than enough, the caveat being it depends on what walls and floors are made of.

RS6MRA speaks sense above as I've basically just rehashed what he said .

Puntoboy

Thanks guys. I'll guess I'll have to wait and see what the new routers are like and go from there.

Puntoboy

I ended up going with CAT6 cable but didn't do all the runs I wanted. It was just too time consuming and required cutting more holes in the walls that I could be bothered to repair. I started off with the BT HH6 and BT Whole Home Wi-Fi and now are using a Ubiquiti ER-X and 3 UAP-AC-Lites. Really happy with it all.

3 years on and we are moving house. Another new build on the same estate but a fair amount bigger. New house means new cabling, but this time I am hoping to get into the house before they finish the walls and get some conduit installed so I can run all my cables once we move in (I'm pushing it with the conduit, I doubt they will let me actually cable the runs as well). The house is currently at concrete slab level.

Once little upgrade I would want to make having 6a cable out to the garage, unfortunately it's over 55m and I would like to add 10GB Ethernet for a future project, so I need at least 150m of CAT6a just for that run, I'm thinking that I may as well run 6a everywhere rather than 6. The problem is price as 6a is around twice the price of 6 for 500m. I need to decide if I want to spend that money. I don't have a current need for 10GB elsewhere in the house, only between the central point in the house (where the comms cabinet will be) and the garage so maybe just 6A for that run.