Re: wiring for the future

[Lewis Gardner <lgardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I wonder how many people prewired houses with
> 10 meg ethernet cables a while ago and are wishing it
> was gigabit now?

Very few.

Cat3 had a very short life as the preferred wire for computer
networking. Cat5 was specified for the first twisted-pair network I
installed almost 15 years ago. Before that coax ethernet and token ring
networks were all the rage.

BTW, you have to be very careful with flexible plastic conduit (smurf
tube) since wiring tends to jamb in it. I have gone to installations
where it was used and been unable to remove the existing wires to
replace them. The rule with rigid conduit is no more than 360 degrees of
bend with out a pull box. I venture to say most flexible plastic conduit
installations have more bends than that. Anyway 1" is a decent minimum
size for HA conduit. You can barely get 3 RG6 and 2 cat5 through a
installed 3/4" conduit, not to mention getting them out in the future.
Since smurf tube is not very sturdy there a limit to how much force you
can apply to the old wiring before the tubing pulls out of box
connectors, support fasteners or is otherwise damaged.

While it is true the future will bring all sorts of wonderful new wiring
technologies the installed base of cat5 will create a market for ways to
run new technologies over existing cat5 for quite some time to come.