Going Gigabit wired - some advice please

[directhex]

Gigabit Ethernet over copper is right on the edge of what is possible. The main limiting factor is the quality of the cable, so you need to buy quality Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable from a reputable supplier.

technically 10gige is possible over copper, if you're using premium cat6 and are helluva careful with your cabling (e.g. not using cable ties, not bundling more than a few cables next to each other

[Lourdes]

I think you mean jumbo frames

Doh, yeah. I was up too late.

[chrestomanci]

I think it would be a good idea if you did some research and found out about commercial best practice, and then picked parts from that that you think you can do, but don't feel obliged to follow commercial regs to the letter, when you have much less space, money, and you are not willing to rip your house apart.

For example, when cabling offices, especially longer cable runs it is considered a good thing to run the cable in ducting, and not to attach the cable with ties or the like, so that when technology improves you can run new cable thought the same ducts, (using the rope you left in the duct), and upgrade quickly and easily without having to rip up the floor again. The downside is that the ducts take up a lot of space, and need much planning.

I have a college who's house was wired with network cable, there was at least one network point in every room. Great you might think, except that it was done about 15 years ago with 10-Base-T Coax, that only supported 10Mbit, and needed large and obsolete ISA cards that did not fit in most modern PCs. It was good enough for sharing a broadband connection, but useless for sharing files between PCs, or network gaming. She ended up replacing it with wireless and using the old cabling for TV.

Your network will be just as outdated in ten or 15 years, so it would be good to have a plan on how you will upgrade it as technology improves. If your cables are buried in the plaster, or stapled to the floor joists you will not be able to replace them without redecorating.

[Funkstar]

I'm planning on using 'ducting' in my flat I'm on the ground floor sodirectly under the joists is dirt. I don't want the cables on the ground and i don't want them tie wrapped to the joists, so they are all going in some drain pipe

[b0ned0me]

Your network will be just as outdated in ten or 15 years, so it would be good to have a plan on how you will upgrade it as technology improves. If your cables are buried in the plaster, or stapled to the floor joists you will not be able to replace them without redecorating.

Good call. If only the twerps who did the original plumbing in my house had done something similar. Reconfiguring central heating - not difficult. Reconfiguring central heating when copper pipe is concreted into floor - very difficult.

Another tip while planning your network - get some odds and sods of network cable and put them together in various combinations so you can see exactly how much room 4 or 6 or however many runs of cable will take up, and how easy they are to bend into a given radius.

[Skinleech]

Thanks for all the advice peeps, it's really appreciated.

I realise the cable will be outdated at some point, but with the usage it's goint to get I don't see that it'll be an issue - I'll only be sreaming HD content from the NAS to the HTPC.

I'll do some digging closer to the time, and see what's gonna be possible re; cabling, and routing the cables, as well as the costs of good cables.

Thanks for the tip on flat cables, will steer clear.

Also, jumbo frames? Have never heard of that. As the C2D system (i.e. the main PC in the box room) and the HTPC are both gigabit LAN onboard the mobo, how do I check these things?

[burble]

Basically jumbo frames allow for more data to be sent in a packet of data. Normally you'd get upto 1500 bytes (I think) in a packet but with jumbo frames you can get upto 9000 bytes although some networks cards, switches and routers may not support jumbo frames at all or may not work with the full 9000 bytes so you may run into problems if you enable jumbo frames when something doesn't like it.

[Funkstar]

further to burbles post. The idea behind jumbo frames is to give you a better ratio of protocal information vs. data. Also as the equipment doesn't need to process as many frames for x volume of data, things are usually faster.

[killie99]

I realise the cable will be outdated at some point, but with the usage it's goint to get I don't see that it'll be an issue - I'll only be sreaming HD content from the NAS to the HTPC.

In several years time you'll be saying "why didn't I relaise I'd be wanting to stream SuperH3D video on a Terabit CAT9 network and now I'll have to rip out at that CAT6 junk!"

I can clearly remember asking one of the design engneers I worked with in 1985 if he ever thought he'd fill the new 20Mb hard drive that he'd just bought ...... We can't begin to imagine what we'll be using computers for in 10 years time.

[peterb]

In several years time you'll be saying "why didn't I relaise I'd be wanting to stream SuperH3D video on a Terabit CAT9 network and now I'll have to rip out at that CAT6 junk!"

That is true, however at the moment the cost of fibre NICs and fibre swiches is still high, and will probably fall overthe years. Terminating fibre is also harder than terminating copper. It would be feasible to run fibre the long runs at the same time as Cat5/Cat6 with an eye to the future. The question is how long do you plan staying in the flat, would it add anything to its desirability at resale time. So it probably doesn't justify the expense. In five or ten years - maybe.

(A 100MB/s fibre NIC costs £125 from Amazon - compare with a 100MB/s utp card!)

[Funkstar]

I can clearly remember asking one of the design engneers I worked with in 1985 if he ever thought he'd fill the new 20Mb hard drive that he'd just bought ...... We can't begin to imagine what we'll be using computers for in 10 years time.

I disagree. We have seen the exponential increase in processor speed, storage space, and usage of personal computers. Even if we don't know what we will use petabytes of storage or multi gigabit/sec bandwidth for, we do know we will have it at some point and there will be something out there for us to justify the technology spend on

There are countless rediculous quotes from history, like Bill Gates and 640KB RAM being enough for anyone. I can't see poeple making such rash statements these days.

[b0ned0me]

It would be feasible to run fibre the long runs at the same time as Cat5/Cat6 with an eye to the future. The question is how long do you plan staying in the flat, would it add anything to its desirability at resale time. So it probably doesn't justify the expense. In five or ten years - maybe.

Plus which, when it's time to put in that Petabit LAN, whoever is doing it will probably need to lay quantum-bonded aluminium wire with integrated holographic DRM in order to get their Xbox to connect to GameSpy reliably.

[chrestomanci]

Plus which, when it's time to put in that Petabit LAN, whoever is doing it will probably need to lay quantum-bonded aluminium wire with integrated holographic DRM in order to get their Xbox to connect to GameSpy reliably.

Exactly. I don't think there is any point in trying to future proof the cables themselves, as fibire optic or whatever is to expensive and hard to obtain now compared with the price it will be when it is mainstream. The other factor is that you don't know what sort of cables will be used in the future, so even if you do spend lots of money laying fibre, you have no guarantee that it will be used. We may end up going back to coax, (The coax cable from your satelite dish to your Sky set top box carries about 20 Gigabit) or waveguides for microwaves, or just a different grade of fibre from what you laid.

About 15 years ago the school I was in had 10-Base-T networks in each building and fibre linking the buildings. The computing manager showed me the fibre and told me how in ten years there would be fibire to every desktop as coax did not have the speed or range needed. Instead we have unshielded twisted pair for both WAN connections of up to 1000 feet between buildings and between desktop PCs.

Instead I think it is important to design the cable runs so that the cables can easily be replaced when the time comes, so don't attach the cables to anything, make sure there is enough space to pull new cables, and there are no tight corners or sharp edges to catch or damage the cable, and to leave a thin rope in place to pull cables with.

Alternatively, if you plan to sell your flat in the next 5 years or so, feel free not to bother.