Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 16, 2020 9:26 pm Hi all, I am in the process of a knock down rebuild (design phase). Need to start thinking of networking options and which cables to use. Has anyone used fibre rather then cat6/7a or are there any other options more suitable to future proof the IT side of things. Hoping to hear peoples feedback with regards to setups and best ways to do it, pros and cons and if possible how much a typical fibre setup will cost vs standard cat 6. Thank you Re: Home networking future proofing 2Aug 16, 2020 10:03 pm At the current stage, or near future, there wont be any use putting in fibre, you'll be forced to use copper->fibre media converters everywhere. If you need 10GBe+ for some sort of high data rate home office there might be a need but general connectivity no. Stick to CAT6 (if runs are under 30m) or CAT6A and you'll be fine even for 10GBe copper. Some newer equipment comes with 5GBase-T copper in it now, so you can always shell out for a fair bit more expensive 5GBe switch. Re: Home networking future proofing 3Aug 17, 2020 12:43 am Just go all the way with reliable wireless mesh set up. Cables becoming pretty much obsolete, it is 21st century out there. The main bottleneck will always be your ISP uplink/downlink, which still will be much lower than e.g. 1-5 Gbps (what some hi end Wi-Fi 6 routers can handle). There is really no streaming requirements for the residential households which would require to handle more than 1 Gbps bandwidth, e.g. one 4K stream is only requiring 25Mbps. Re: Home networking future proofing 4Aug 17, 2020 8:32 am We went with Cat-6, it's fine for the foreseeable future. We have 1Gbps internet and have no issues reaching that (minus overheads) using the cat-6 points. 90% of our devices don't have ethernet anyway, so are running off a UniFi network and it's rock solid. In fact, I have to run my TV off WiFi rather than ethernet, as even though it's a 2019 LG OLED TV it only has a 10/100 NIC built in. Re: Home networking future proofing 5Aug 17, 2020 3:27 pm alexp79 Just go all the way with reliable wireless mesh set up. Agree with this. I used to think wired was the only way to go but a good mesh wifi network will surprise you with how reliable it can be. I'd be inclined to just get a few hard wired Cat-6 runs to a few areas (office, theatre room) and then wifi for everything else. Follow my build here: https://www.instagram.com/ivy5custom Re: Home networking future proofing 6Aug 17, 2020 8:03 pm Monty85 I'd be inclined to just get a few hard wired Cat-6 runs to a few areas (office, theatre room) and then wifi for everything else. Whilst I kinda agree with that (personally I'd wire anything that is permanently fixed in place and needs to use voice or video streaming or file transfers), I'd suggest the OP should consider running CAT6 at least for the repeaters, so that the mesh backbone can be wired. Mesh networking was designed as a post though fix for lack of cabling in residential housing; you shouldnt start that as your default position. Wired cables gives you another cheap avenue to take if you mesh experience is less than stellar. Re: Home networking future proofing 7Aug 17, 2020 8:15 pm Callifo Monty85 I'd be inclined to just get a few hard wired Cat-6 runs to a few areas (office, theatre room) and then wifi for everything else. Whilst I kinda agree with that (personally I'd wire anything that is permanently fixed in place and needs to use voice or video streaming or file transfers), I'd suggest the OP should consider running CAT6 at least for the repeaters, so that the mesh backbone can be wired. Mesh networking was designed as a post though fix for lack of cabling in residential housing; you shouldnt start that as your default position. Wired cables gives you another cheap avenue to take if you mesh experience is less than stellar. Yeah dont disagree with that. It's why I said i'd still get a few Cat-6 cables wired in to select points. More was pointing out that in the past i'd always thought data cabling to every room in the house was the way to go. Now however, with the advances made in wireless technology, its not nearly as necessary as is it was before. Follow my build here: https://www.instagram.com/ivy5custom Re: Home networking future proofing 9Aug 20, 2020 10:31 pm kinigo270 Reason for going wired is to add some high end IP cameras (more secure than WiFi). Is cat7 or 8 better for new home network or not needed as speeds will be sufficient with 6a? Thanks Re: Home networking future proofing 10Aug 20, 2020 11:29 pm kinigo270 Reason for going wired is to add some high end IP cameras (more secure than WiFi). Is cat7 or 8 better for new home network or not needed as speeds will be sufficient with 6a? Thanks Its no better. Whilst CAT6 isn't officially rated for 10Gbe, from my experience, it is fine to 30M (which usually will suffice on most homes). Go 6A if you want guaranteed 10Gbe but even then you really only need it on certain runs; e.g. your TV and security camera is unlikely to need to read or write at 1000Mb/sec. And no, never seen fibre in a house, except where they wanted to run a connection between buildings without needing separate conduit. Its pretty cheap to buy pre-terminated runs these days. You'll just pay a bit for media converters / switches on each end. Re: Home networking future proofing 11Aug 22, 2020 8:37 am Cat6A is your best bet in terms of future proofing and upfront costs. And you're right, if it can be wired, it should be wired. Especially a TV. No matter how best your router is, WiFi has inherent limitations and is best for lighter applications such as mobile devices. Re: Home networking future proofing 12Aug 23, 2020 9:46 am chennaiite Especially a TV. No matter how best your router is, WiFi has inherent limitations and is best for lighter applications such as mobile devices. Not really. If you wire most TVs you will get worse performance than if you had a good 5Ghz WiFi network connection. Most models, particularly LG TV's, only have a 100Mbit NIC. So 5Ghz WiFi is far better. Just chuck it on a dedicated 5Ghz WiFi network if possible. If you're hardwiring you'd be better with a set top box like an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield. Re: Home networking future proofing 13Aug 23, 2020 9:58 am dga chennaiite Especially a TV. No matter how best your router is, WiFi has inherent limitations and is best for lighter applications such as mobile devices. Not really. If you wire most TVs you will get worse performance than if you had a good 5Ghz WiFi network connection. Most models, particularly LG TV's, only have a 100Mbit NIC. So 5Ghz WiFi is far better. Just chuck it on a dedicated 5Ghz WiFi network if possible. If you're hardwiring you'd be better with a set top box like an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield. Sorry I wasn't clear enough. The reason to wire devices where you can is to keep as less devices connected to WiFi as possible. The impact on wifi performance when 4 devices are connected VS say 15 devices connected simultaneously is well documented. Then there's latency and interference from other appliances (microwaves and such). Although it's true there are some commercial grade routers out there I know of that won't degrade even with 100 simultaneous connections. To your point of 5ghz, I don't think there's any type of content out there that would require more than 100mb of speed. Re: Home networking future proofing 14Aug 23, 2020 10:20 am chennaiite To your point of 5ghz, I don't think there's any type of content out there that would require more than 100mb of speed. That's what the manufacturer says, but my Plex server doesn't listen to them.... there are a number of occasions where the bandwidth required exceeds the amount available when using a wired connection (which results in buffering). That might not be the use case here, but it could well be a consideration. I'm not suggesting cable shouldn't be run to the location (I did it for all mine) and it is used for the Xbox and Fetch TV. Just not the TV because it's not capable enough (due to the inherent limitations of the TV). Re: Home networking future proofing 15Feb 16, 2021 3:39 pm dga chennaiite Especially a TV. No matter how best your router is, WiFi has inherent limitations and is best for lighter applications such as mobile devices. Not really. If you wire most TVs you will get worse performance than if you had a good 5Ghz WiFi network connection. Most models, particularly LG TV's, only have a 100Mbit NIC. So 5Ghz WiFi is far better. Just chuck it on a dedicated 5Ghz WiFi network if possible. If you're hardwiring you'd be better with a set top box like an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield. This is my current setup now after a network refresh due to COVID work from home arrangements. Upgraded to UniFi Dream Machine Pro, 16 port USW PoE switch, 2 x 8 Port UniFi Poe switches, FlexHD and a UniFi AC Lite access point upstairs. We’re only a family of four but with around 45 devices connected at one time on average we needed a bit of bandwidth. All of the above with only two data points in the house from the NBN handoff. It’s hard to future proof anything, but you can always come up with a solution based on your needs. Re: Home networking future proofing 19Feb 19, 2022 7:57 am dga chennaiite Especially a TV. No matter how best your router is, WiFi has inherent limitations and is best for lighter applications such as mobile devices. Not really. If you wire most TVs you will get worse performance than if you had a good 5Ghz WiFi network connection. Most models, particularly LG TV's, only have a 100Mbit NIC. So 5Ghz WiFi is far better. Just chuck it on a dedicated 5Ghz WiFi network if possible. If you're hardwiring you'd be better with a set top box like an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield. This post makes so much sense. I have all my Tv's CAT 6 wired ( have 7, including LG, Samsung and Hisense) but have been haveing problems with my 2 Lg's and the high speed we get with the NBN. We often clock 200-300 mbs I got a Mesh Wifi for christmas and it has been amazing at solving the issues. Dont know why buy your post helped me Thanks Simeon Architectural Homes & Duplexes - specialising in custom designing homes to your budget Get a Free Onsite Consultation Today or send a PM for information, questions or advice. Re: Home networking future proofing 20Feb 19, 2022 12:27 pm Ashington Homes dga chennaiite Especially a TV. No matter how best your router is, WiFi has inherent limitations and is best for lighter applications such as mobile devices. Not really. If you wire most TVs you will get worse performance than if you had a good 5Ghz WiFi network connection. Most models, particularly LG TV's, only have a 100Mbit NIC. So 5Ghz WiFi is far better. Just chuck it on a dedicated 5Ghz WiFi network if possible. If you're hardwiring you'd be better with a set top box like an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield. This post makes so much sense. I have all my Tv's CAT 6 wired ( have 7, including LG, Samsung and Hisense) but have been haveing problems with my 2 Lg's and the high speed we get with the NBN. We often clock 200-300 mbs I got a Mesh Wifi for christmas and it has been amazing at solving the issues. Dont know why buy your post helped me Thanks Simeon It's not great advice. Nothing you're going to be streaming on a tv requires more than a 100mbit connection, 25mbit is reccomended for 4k 30hz. The few things that might exceed those, 4k 144hz+ game streaming such as on a Nvidia Shield will by far benefit more from the reduction in latency from going wired than the extra overhead. You also run into saturation issues, the more things you put on Wi-Fi, the more congested the spectrum gets and the worse everything performs, stuff that doesn't need to be on the Wi-Fi shouldnt be on it. Eg don't stick tv's and fridges etc on Wi-Fi as you'll just end up with worse performance on phones, tablets and laptops. The point about Apple TV etc is good advice though, devices like the Nvidia Shield, Roku etc are far better than the crap software on most tv's. I've added cat 6 to all of my tv points, but it will be to run off Nividia Shields, especially given tv's are all starting to push ads in their ecosystems now. Scientists have used random matrix theory to demonstrate theoretically that the neutrino mass hierarchy can be explained mathematically. When a substance is fragmented… 21 20677 Brass fly wire, you will need to cut it, shape it and jam it into brick slots 1 7488 thanks Chippy, i hope they have applied sealer but i am doubt to be honest, so i am gonna do this job after handover. 8 16304 |