CAT 6 or 7?

ChrisSU posted:

Simon, I'm curious as to how you think this move to fibre LANs might be implemented. To most people, a home network and WiFi are one and the same thing, and improvements in WiFi from 802.11ac to Mesh systems cater for this, not to mention the dreaded Powerline stuff that the likes of Sky are building into their hardware without even telling us it's there. Personally, I'm all in favour of a move to fibre, but I wonder how the idea would be sold to the general public?

Chris, although this is crystal ball gazing and looking at trends, then i predict for many in 15 years time it will be Wifi or increasingly 5G (including IoT) access on IPv6  (Wifi will start to fade out).. and infrastructure such as connecting access points where requires etc may well be fibre.. as this will be faster and cheaper than copper.

I would argue in my experience with many younger people that Wifi and broadband/internet access is the same thing..   For most consumers in the future I really see little need for wired/fibre infrastructure .. it will be mostly all radio.

[@mention:1566878603876589] :

Hi Simon,

I posted a message on your wall 

Tom

Responded 

I am using mainly Audioquest Forest CAT 7 cables. It can be bought for a decent price pre terminated, or in custom lengths off a roll, with a choice of terminations. It's more expensive than regular ethernet cable, but still much less expensive than speaker cables and interconnects.

For peace of mind I just paid a little more, even though it might not have been absolutely necessary. For the price of a lavender Naim DIN interconnect, I got a 28 foot long cable terminated with telegartner connectors. It's a small expense compared to the money I've spent on other cables and accessories. 

Isn't cat7 much more future safe? It is better shielded against noise. And AFAIK the price difference isn't much today, is it? So if the less flexible cable is not a problem I would go for CAT7. The minimum would be CAT6 because maybe you want to transfer 10GBit in some years and do not want to replace all the cables.

The minimum for 10 Gbps link speed is Cat 6A not Cat 6.. but I would be tempted to use aggregated 1Gbps links if you need higher throughputs for structured wiring, which allows parallel flows.. but yes if you can buy Cat 7 or 6A for not much more than 5e then by all means go for it.. otherwise for structured wiring I think it’s wasting money. If you need very high speed it’s usually more cost effective, reliable and greater performance to use OM4 fibre that support 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps. 10 metres of terminated 100 Gbps OM4 is only a few pounds.

The re-wiring is fast approaching, and today I had a chat with my electrician about the location of the cabinet with the wires coming from the different room. The cables will join the consumer unit cupboard under the stairs. There will be enough space to keep the ethernet away from the powerlines (at least 20cm).

The electrician mentioned the installation of a “patch panel” — haven’t heard this term about this before but recognised it when I was a picture. Learning step by step... However, thinking about this on the sofa, I wonder whether a small home network installation (10 ports) really needs a path panel. Naively (?), I thought I would have wall-to-wall sockets — with three wall sockets in the consumer unit cupboard (one socket for each floor). And then put a switch into the consumer unit cupboard, and the switch connected to the router through wall-to-wall socket, as the BT master socket is not in closest proximity.

Does this sound okay? [Maybe it wouldn’t even work...] Or are there strong reasons for sticking with a patch panel?

Cheers!!

A patch panel is nothing else than a big wall socket. It is highly recommendable to have the cables sorted IMHO.

Your average electrician has usually undergone three or more years of training as much as any degree added to that if he is doing home installations and so able to sign his own work off then he has had to go through another round of studying and exams. Remember this is the man you trust to install electricity into your home electricity that can catch fire or possibly kill you if done wrong and so I'm quite sure he can be also be trusted to install a bit of internet cable

An accredited structured wiring fitter is quite different from an electrician. However if doing it simply then simply do it yourself or use a decorator, sure many electricians can do this and do but are not typically trained or accredited on network structured wiring and so I certainly wouldn’t pay a premium.... proper structured wiring should consider your home network topology and even Wifi ... and as said really for home infrastructure one really should, in my opinion,  be looking at fibre between switches now, not copper. Ethernet cabling is a world away from mains wiring.... but to be fair a close family friend has their own electrical contractor business and are quite interested in certain types of home networks, specifically  home automation and zoned audio... good money in it..

My son has been a fully qualified ‘sparks’ for almost 10 years. He rewired our last 2 houses, and  put in all the hard wired internet connections I wanted. He made the point that his college studies included basic network wiring, and he has been involved in quite a few major domestic av wiring projects for some very rich individuals. I guess it’s like everything, you need to talk to your contractors and establish their knowledge and confidence levels as well as, hopefully, taking them on recommendation of others.

I would agree with your electrician to put in a patch panel before the switch. Did you say you were only getting ten runs? Are you committed to this exercise ?!

If you really mean an Ethernet patchpanel and not simply a multiple wall plate socket, you need to ensure the bandwidth of your patchpanel matches your structured wiring.. many patch panels are Cat5e specified.

Personally for most homes and small offices  I advocate direct switch connections, with cable labelling, and naming the port appropriately within the switch configuration (switch permitting). This reduces points of wiring failure and fatigue and allows easier problem diagnosing  without often needing more advanced equipment.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

If you really mean an Ethernet patchpanel and not simply a multiple wall plate socket, you need to ensure the bandwidth of your patchpanel matches your structured wiring.. many patch panels are Cat5e specified.

Personally for most homes and small offices  I advocate direct switch connections, with cable labelling, and naming the port appropriately within the switch configuration (switch permitting). This reduces points of wiring failure and fatigue and allows easier problem diagnosing  without often needing more advanced equipment.

Re direct switch connection, do you mean the cable runs from the individual wall plate sockets in rooms directly going into a switch, which is then connected to the router? Thanks Simon! 

Re wall plate sockets vs patch panel, I thought this would allow me to have one piece of kit less in the cupboard. I saw a YouTube window with a guy (in the US) converting his CAT5e telephone network into an Ethernet network by changing the wall plate sockets; and he then put a switch into the cupboard where all the cables arrived. Since the router was in a different place, he had another cable run with wall plate socket to get the internet to the new switch. That is where I got my idea for dropping the patch panel from.  But maybe that's too much of a DIY solution?

Hi, withdirect connection I am referring to the connection between the RJ45 switchport on your switch to the RJ45 port on your streamer. The connections in between like wall sockets are not really instrumental to the benefits a switch like 2960 can bring.

As far as telephone wiring and Ethernet wiring.. we shouldn’t forgot Ethernet wiring physical design is based on telephone extension wiring.. however typically in the UK our telephone extension cabling use 6 wires, and duplex 1Gbps Ethernet uses 8 wires. You can certainly use telephone extension cabling if you know what you are doing, upto 100Mbps duplex which uses 4 wires.. effectively like a Cat4 cable... but I wouldn’t recommend it really.

I found with cat6 that it’s so tough often direct connect to switch was difficult hence the patch panel. Also bear in mind that cat 6 rj45s have an additional step in the form of a tiny cable separator.

from the patch panel perspective I buy the patch cables, excel ones as in my experience these are good quality cables

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Hi, withdirect connection I am referring to the connection between the RJ45 switchport on your switch to the RJ45 port on your streamer. The connections in between like wall sockets are not really instrumental to the benefits a switch like 2960 can bring.

As far as telephone wiring and Ethernet wiring.. we shouldn’t forgot Ethernet wiring physical design is based on telephone extension wiring.. however typically in the UK our telephone extension cabling use 6 wires, and duplex 1Gbps Ethernet uses 8 wires. You can certainly use telephone extension cabling if you know what you are doing, upto 100Mbps duplex which uses 4 wires.. effectively like a Cat4 cable... but I wouldn’t recommend it really.

 

Thanks Simon!

Sorry I wasn't clear. The Ethernet wiring will be new -- not using any telephone wiring (we don't have telephone sockets throughout the house like many Americans appear to have...). It's just the set up of wall plate socket to wall place socket and then switch I thought about copying.