Installing wired network with a house rewire

The Commander

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I need some help in designing my home network - what are the best places to put the equipment.

I will be having a house rewire so will be asking the electrician as part of his rewire to run some additional ethernet cabling which I will contect up.

I am just looking at a simple network. So my thoughts are as follows.

1) The virgin media connection comes in to living room at the front of the property. This is where the Virgin Router will be unless I can hide it away somewhere.

2) I need network points in 2 rooms downstairs, and 3 bedrooms upstairs. The downstairs rooms can be accessed from the cellar below which runs the length of the property. I assume cabling for the rooms upstairs its easier to run it through the loft?

3) I can place the switch either in the cellar (though it is a little damp), the loft - though it can get very warm and access is only via a loft hatch, or a first floor storage cupboard which has no ventilation.

4) I would also like to wire up two ip cameras.

So to wire the network up I will need one cable running from the switch to the Virgin router. Then all the 5 points to be wired into the switch.

Shall I go for cat 6 or cat 5e cabling - from what I read - cat 5e is better for runs as its less rigid than cat 6?

What do I need?

1 Crimping tool
1 switch
6 ethernet wall jacks
100m of ethernet cable
Crimpable connectors
 
"AVF Mantra #2" is to "always run 2 (or more) cables on any route." It's highly unlikely a UTP cable will fail in service, but if it does, you are off the air until you rip and replace, with an alternate in situ you have options to get back up and running again more quickly. Of course, it increases the materials cost, but cable is cheap compared to the hassle of installing it. It's surprising one finds a use for "just one more" later on ("oh how I wished I'd installed two now that I've bought a networked printer")

A switch can go physically go almost anywhere, albeit with the humidity/temperature considerations you describe - what matters is the cabling topology and in small SOHO deployment, it's simplest to have all cable lobes fan out in a "star" from one place (including the uplink to your router) and stick your switch there.

There's two basic types of UTP cable, solid core and stranded. Permanently installed cable runs are deployed using solid core cable and terminated onto IDC "punch down" blocks as you find in sockets and patch panels. Hook up from sockets to equipment and from equipment to equipment used stranded, AKA "patch," cable and should be terminated onto plugs. Though there are lots of exceptions to this and "special" plugs and sockets for terminating anything onto anything with the correct kit.

I'll link my favourite DIY site for UTP below, it has lots of pictures of the pin-outs, plugs and sockets and describes the cables and what to use where.


cat5e is more than good enough for gigabit ethernet up to 100m (sometimes even further) unless you do a spectacularly bad job of installing it - poor termination is the biggest culprit. However cat6/6A is little more expensive, especially for such a small install, so some argue you "might as well."

However, most DIY'ers don't test their installs with the very expensive devices needs to certify them, let alone learn all the installation stipulation, so strictly speaking they aren't cat anything. But that doesn't mean they won't work - 10/100/1000 ethernet is pretty forgiving. And it doesn't go any "slower" because you give it lower cat cables and infrastructure - gig ethernet works exactly the same speed over cat5e, cat6, cat6a, etc.

Just ensure you don't knot kink or nick the cables as you install them,and ensure any direction changes are "curved" and not hammered into 90 degree bends. IIRC, minium bend radius is of the order of 4 times the diameter of the sheathing.

Beware of Copper Clad Aluminium (CCA) cable. The "cat" standards mandate the use of pure copper connectors and CCA is not allowed, but that doesn't stop some snake oil salesmen trying to pass it off as "catX equivalent" "catX tested" and other BS, or use "made up" cats such as cat5a (no such thing) or "cat6e" (no such thing.) If it looks too cheap, it may be CCA.

So you'll need some sockets and/or faceplates to terminate onto, an IDC "punch down" tool and your cable of choice - ensure the "cat" of the IDC blocks and cable match, higher cats using thicker gauge wire. A ten quid continuity tester wouldn't be the worst idea - you can alwys punt it on afterwards - though you can do the same job with battery and a lamp if you wanted to (or just not bother unless it "doesn't work.") Plus some appropriate length patch-cords to go from you sockets to the gear - it's not worth the faff trying to make them, they are cheap to buy ready made and come in various lengths.

Uniquely label each cable lobe both ends so you know what goes from where to where. You could even record it all in a book (called "patching schedule") to hand on to future owners when you move on.
 
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My virgin cable enters into my living room with TiVo box there but I have a cable running into node0 (understairs cupboard) for the modem/router, which is where I also have my switch etc
 

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