Re: Home Wiring Advice Sought

["Mark Harrison (Groups)" <mph@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 2005-11-27 at 15:05 +0000, Anthony R. Gold wrote:
> I'm about to wire a new home and the installer will order a custom
> molded
> cable bundle.  So far I've asked for two satellite grade 75ohm coax
> (suitable for Tivo) and also two Cat6 data cables for ethernet and/or
> phones) to run to all points.  The question is whether to add an
> optical
> cable into the bundle for some unknown future use.  The cables are
> being
> run radially from a single point in the house and many of the runs
> will be
> difficult to upgrade later without damage to walls and decorations.
>
> Thanks for any advice on the benefits of having unused fibre available
> throughout the house for the future.

Anthony,

I think that you are putting in nothing like enough CAT5/6 cable.

If you are utterly convinced that ethernet/phones is all you're ever
going to use the cable for, then you should be fine. If, however, you
are interested in distributing multi-room audio, video distribution,
CCTV, or for that matter, a whole bunch of applications that haven't
been developed yet, then you need more CAT5/6.

It's worth noting that CAT6 is a pig to install. Don't waste your money
on the cable and expensive patch panels unless you are going to get
things like inter-termination distances and bend radii correct -
otherwise you'll end up with a CAT5 install that happens to use a high
grade of cable - CAT6 is about far, far, more than just the quality of
components.

In my own bedroom, say, I have the following CAT5s:

- Ethernet to the Rio
- Ethernet to the MVP
- Ethernet to the amp controller (a xAP device)
- Ethernet to the IP phone
- KAT5 feed from the nursery for "nurserycam"
- KAT5 feed to the dressing room for audio zoning

You could argue that I could manage with 3 sockets, rather than 6 (out
of 12 available), by using a local switch, however, I'd rather have all
my switching done centrally.

M.