Hi y’all,

I’m getting a new house built and builder has asked me if I want cat 5 connections installed. I am thinking of having these cat 5 ports installed where the tv’s will be and where my office will be. Wifi for rest of the devices. It’s a three story house. Would cat5 wiring be run separately from each port to a central location in the basement? Im guessing that my main internet line to the house will come into basement.

Would I install modem in the basement and individually connect all these cat5 wires into the modem? Do I require anything else from the builder side? Does a wifi booster need a cat5 port? Anything else you guys foresee I should get before the drywall goes in?

Sorry for the noob questions. House is in Canada if it matters (we have optic)

Thanks!

  • rkeet@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Cat6e minimum and shielded twisted pairs for permanent installations. You may not have interference from other things today, but it makes sure you don’t have it tomorrow either.

    There is 1 starting point to which all things return, a main router/switch somewhere, could be your basement however, from there you can have multiple switches following that. It means you don’t necessarily have to cram 30 cables in 1 pipe.

    For me, I have a Unify router with wifi downstairs which is immediately connected to a 16-port switch. From there it feeds the ground floor (TV, front door, few other things). From there a single cable connects to an 8-port switch in the attic. That switch connects the room in the attic, but also goes to the 1st floor through the roof to connect all those rooms. The office (through roof from the 8-port attic switch) has a pair of switches, 1 per sit/stand desk to keep them as much cable free as possible (only power + LAN).

    BTW, based on how you formulated your question. Cat 5/6/7 are cable standards. RJ45 is the plug, which you find on hardware and in wall sockets.

    Cat6e is the minimum you want nowadays, but better even is cat 7, but it’s also quite pricey still.

    When it comes to the question of “how many wires to run?”, it will depend on your use cases where they terminate.

    For example, I have one terminate are the front door. The use case is the came doorbell. It needs only 1 cable for ample capacity. Heck, capacity left over for another camera, maybe even 2.

    Another example is the office/gaming room. Multiple screens and gaming, so more cables would be beneficial for both capacity and lag reduction with dedicated cables.

    Note, for most “home” use cases, having 1 cable with at least 1Gbps throughput should be plenty. Less is plenty for only home automation products such as relays, lights, motion, and many other sensors. You should pay attention to throughput requirements for home security (video),as video does take a lot of bandwidth.

    Another thing to note, just in case it applies to you. If you have the need for say 3Gbps throughput, but only use 1Gbps cables, some routers/switches allow the bundling of ports to be 1 (virtually fused to be 1). Meaning 3 ports of 1Gbps on a swiftch can be connected to 3 ports on a next switch and configured to be 1 connection. If this is something you need, make sure you get hardware that supports this feature (not standard on most hardware). This feature is called a channel group.