Re: Structured Wiring Questions.

[adykes@xxxxxxxxx (Al Dykes)]

In article <113uapcf2ru1i52@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Matias Silva  <matt@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>I am looking to run the following throughout the house:
>
>1. Coax for cable tv.
>2. Coax satellite tv.
>3. Cat5 for an analog phone line.
>4. Cat5 for Voice-over-IP phone line.
>5. Cat6 for Ethernet/Internet
>
>I'm planning it so that all the cabling comes into a control center located on the 2nd floor.  The house is a two story house and it was built in 2000.
>
>My questions are:
>
>1. What is the best way to run wire from the attic through
>    the 2nd floor ending up at the bottom floor.  Do I make 1 ft.
>    diameter holes in the walls to drill between floors?
>
>2. How do I navigate around/through firebreaks located on the
>    exterior walls?
>
>3. Would you recommend that I run 1" - 2" diameter pvc piping so that
>    I can run the wires in the piping.  What this allows is for
>    me to add or remove wiring easily at a later time.  My only concern
>    is that I will weaken the structure of the house by running pvc
>    through the walls and between floors.
>
>4. In terms of the list above, should I add anymore type of wiring?
>    I was thinking of an intercom.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Matt


Seperate CAT5 for VOIP and "ethernet/internet" is redundant and
unnecessary for any "house" smaller than, say, a hotel.  100Mb
ethernet will carry lots of phone calls while every PC in the house is
using the ethernet.  Your bottleneck is the upstream speed of your
broadband connection. For DSL this can be as low as 128kb/sec.  For
cable broadband it's a a couple Mb/sec or so. Use a switch in your
wire closed and most enternet users won't even see each other's
traffic.

Anything faster than Cat5e has no payback.

In addition to your copper, calculate the right number and location
for WiFi Access points for good coverage. These can be in crawl spaces
or closets and out of site.  They get power over the CAT5 cable (Power
Over Ethernet aka POE) so they can be tucked almost anywhere.

I'd look for a new multistation home phone system that included an
intercom function rather than run dedicated wire and seperate
wall/desksets.







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