Network a house

[nvening]

Im buying a new house which will need a complete refurbe. I would like to use this oppurtuniutry to net work it both wired and wireless, what do i need? How much would i be looking at?

[jon bda]

Get the Cat5 cable from somewhere like Maplin when its on offer, i got a 100m roll from there for £12 iirc. Apart from that you'll need the tools (RJ45 crimper and Krone tool, cheap off ebuyer) and wall sockets if you want to do a nice job, say budget £60 > £100 for the wired network depending on the size of the house and how many rooms you'll be doing?.

[nichomach]

Don't forget containment for the cables; yes, you can just run them through eyelets, but trust me it looks awful. Consider getting some trunking for the wires to your wall sockets.

[unrealrocks]

If your doing a total refurb I'm guessing the cables will be running under the plaster and in floorboards? in which case you shouldn't need any trunking

Don't forget that if your putting a socket in every room, all of those ports needs to be wired into a switch, so your probably wanting minimum of an 8 port switch. A router will be required. Wireless you could use a wireless router with an 8 port switch but it'd be quite hard to find, you might be better off buying a single port router, AP and 8 port switch, or variations on that. Depending how big/insulated the house is you might need two APs, in which case simply find two places to stick them and mount them accordingly

[nvening]

Is this the cable i need?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...13230&doy=28m6

Does the cable just go like a train, the cable just stops for an enthernet socket and then carrys on to the next socket? Or, does each socket have to go back to the switch?

[nichomach]

That's the right cable, and Cat5-based ethernet is physically a star topology with each wall socket (or floor socket) forming the tip of one of the arms, so basically each has to go back to the switch (or more conventionally in terms of premise wiring, back to a patch panel and from there wired through to either a switch or maybe a phone system). Your "train" model is what used to be used for coaxial-based ethernet ("thin" ethernet or 10BASE2), and was usually referred to as a "bus" topology. Damn awkward; you needed a T-Piece (basically a 3-way coax junction) for every device, and if one got unhooked, anything further down the chain lost its connection. Plus each end of the cable had to be terminated. Us old folks remember REAL networking, laddie...

[ikonia]

if your asking questions like

Does the cable just go like a train

you may well find it better to use contractors. Simpley because doing this now in a house refurb is not the time to be learning as once its done its a pain to go back an retro fit.

if your serious about doing this right, which you sound as your doing it at the right time in a house refurb just lash out a couple of hundred quid extra (in the grand plan of a refit not much more) and someone will come and do it for you design wise, and layout etc, then just ask people like your plasters to plaster trucking into the walls or under the floors.

The reason I say use trunking is

a.) it makes walls look more even when plastered over
b.) make all your trunking meet at central places (the loft is always a good one) and then if you have a cable failure you can take the wall socket off, unplug the cable and pull it out, then lay a new cable down the trunking in the wall and plug it in at the socket and your done.

It will make life easier.

[nvening]

lol, i have to learn somewhere. I having actually exchanged contracts yet, the survey just come in good.
there has to be a first time for everything.

[nichomach]

It also might be worth sticking a very small cabinet with a patch panel for the cables to terminate in; you can label them up properly, it keeps them tidy, and if (for instance) you were to get your BB connection terminated there it'd keep all the cabling completely out of sight. Stick in the cellar or under the stairs or something, then you can rackmount a decent switch, plus any other kit you need - say a NAS box or other server, a media server, whatever.

[ikonia]

your right you do have to learn somwhere, but you have a blank canvas of a house infront of you, on this occasion paysomeone to do it right, and learn from what they do. Its VERY rare you get this sort of oppertunity to it right first time (trust me you will stuggle to go back and re-do once your in and living in the house)

[nichomach]

All true; we're running Cat5 through a new extension to our offices here, and unfortunately aesthetics have overridden practicality to a certain extent. Ulp. If you're not used to cabling, start with making up your own patch cables; get used to using the tools and identifying appropriate components before you think of getting into premise wiring .

[noah]

one thing i'd think about that i didnt realise until a recent LAN at a mates house is that if you are going to use gigabit switches and cards (well worth it i think) that the cable must be a particular standard length between switches if you are using more than 1. we didnt realise this and is showed, the next time we used a different cable of a specific length and it was fine. i cant remember exactly what lengths but one of these more knowlegable chaps may be able to help there.

[Matt1eD]

one thing i'd think about that i didnt realise until a recent LAN at a mates house is that if you are going to use gigabit switches and cards (well worth it i think) that the cable must be a particular standard length between switches if you are using more than 1. we didnt realise this and is showed, the next time we used a different cable of a specific length and it was fine. i cant remember exactly what lengths but one of these more knowlegable chaps may be able to help there.

???

Are you saying like when trying to use a patch 5e or crossover for distances over 100m it slows it all down

[ikonia]

I think he means for non fiber uplink cables between switch there is a max distance to maintain gigabit uplinks

[Trippledence]

I mean how big is your house!!. Unless your going to wire in more than 5 or 6 sockets i cant see it been a problem. We stuck two netowrk points in the walls when we had our garage made into two rooms. It counld of been easyer. The same as laying any other cableing, as long as your competent in your DIY then youll be ok.