Spec my network cable

Author
Discussion

Chucklehead

Original Poster:

2,729 posts

207 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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I'm having a house built and I need to supply the cable runs that I need.

The plan is to run two lines from three rooms up to the loft where I'll install a switch. The main purpose is for a hard line connection for my office, a hard line for the alarm, and future connectivity for cctv possibly.

I think I need 100m of Cat5e FTP LSZH solid core cable. I'm not doing Cat6 because I'm concerned that the runs will prove a challenge and the installer won't get me full Cat6 spec once complete.

I'm finding it hard to get a cable of that spec.. Cablemonkey do 305m worth, but I don't need that much.

Am i over-spec'ing what I actually need?


megaphone

10,694 posts

250 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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Do you need LSZH? (low smoke zero halogen) Only needed in a commercial environment. Take that out and there are more options. CATx usually comes in 305m (1000ft) boxes, you can get 100m reels, but again limits your choice.

Also FTP is more expensive than UTP, do you really need FTP?


Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 1st March 08:23

Andehh

7,107 posts

205 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
Run double what you need! Two per room is woefully insufficient.

I made the mistake of running 3 to the TV in the lounge. Due to congested wifi network my TV struggles to maintain a stable WIFI connection, so that got plugged into one (fixed the problem). Next was my Kodi box, again it struggled to stream full HD over the wifi so it took the second cat6 cable (fixed the problem). Third able is spare, but plug into it with my laptop to transfer big files onto my NAS due to the speed benefits vs doing it via wifi (it transfers 3-4 times the rate)

Now, should my HDMi cable (runs to sky box under the stairs) fail, I will need to rejig my setup to allow me to use one of the cat6 cables to transfer the HDMI signal.

None of this is a massive burden, but for the sake of an extra £10 and maybe a few minutes of extra time I could have just ran a 4th cable to ensure I had adequate for my needs & spares for future.


305m of quality CAT6 cable is only £80-90odd, a small price to pay for guaranteed future proofing & a guaranteed quality of cable.




sjg

7,444 posts

264 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
megaphone said:
Do you need LSZH? (low smoke zero halogen) Only needed in a commercial environment. Take that out and there are more options. CATx usually comes in 305m (1000ft) boxes, you can get 100m reels, but again limits your choice.

Also FTP is more expensive than UTP, do you really need FTP?


Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 1st March 08:23
Agreed, regular UTP for home use.

Buy 305m and put in 3 runs everywhere you were planning one.

Too Late

5,092 posts

234 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
megaphone said:
Do you need LSZH? (low smoke zero halogen) Only needed in a commercial environment. Take that out and there are more options. CATx usually comes in 305m (1000ft) boxes, you can get 100m reels, but again limits your choice.

Also FTP is more expensive than UTP, do you really need FTP?


Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 1st March 08:23
I would almost say run 2 or 4 Cat5 to every location which has a plug....

I ran 2 per room.
I wish i had matched the sockets with Cat6 runs for my home!

Andehh

7,107 posts

205 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
Too Late said:
megaphone said:
Do you need LSZH? (low smoke zero halogen) Only needed in a commercial environment. Take that out and there are more options. CATx usually comes in 305m (1000ft) boxes, you can get 100m reels, but again limits your choice.

Also FTP is more expensive than UTP, do you really need FTP?


Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 1st March 08:23
I would almost say run 2 or 4 Cat5 to every location which has a plug....

I ran 2 per room.
I wish i had matched the sockets with Cat6 runs for my home!
yep, me too! Cat6 cable though. Neatly terminate it into wall sockets & your laughing.... next time!

Flipatron

2,089 posts

197 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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I'm in the process of re-wiring my new home. The downstairs has three bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. I'm installing approx 20 LSOH Cat6 cable running back to a 9u 600mm deep wall cabinet and patch panel. By the time the first floor is converted I'll probably end up with 30+

Each location that I think will require a TV has a double data and double coax (one for Sky, one for standard TV aerial) which will also be routed back to the comms cab. I've also run data for wall mounted TVs (kitchen) and down in the hallway where my Hive is going (not sure if it'll be used but there just in case). Oh and I've also fitted a couple for Wifi. And for luck I'll probably stick a double for kitchen worktop use.

Don't worry too much about the regulations for the fitment of the cable (obviously try and get it as close to spec as possible) , Cat6 will still out perform Cat5e even when slightly out of spec. Not sure who's installing and terminating your cables but just take 5 minutes to educate yourself on the correct methods and check that whoever is doing it is doing it correctly. You wouldn't believe the amount of badly installed sockets and patch panels I've seen over the years installed by so called professionals. Only yesterday I was on a site where the contractor was running Cat5e cables for us to later terminate. As I walked the site I notices around 50x cables in a 15 metre run neatly strapped to a three phase power cable... genius!




cashmax

1,099 posts

239 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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Flipatron said:
As I walked the site I notices around 50x cables in a 15 metre run neatly strapped to a three phase power cable... genius!
Not sure why you think this is a problem. It's not in the real world.

Dave_ST220

10,288 posts

204 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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Flipatron said:
Cat6 will still out perform Cat5e even when slightly out of spec. Not sure who's installing and terminating your cables but just take 5 minutes to educate yourself on the correct methods and check that whoever is doing it is doing it correctly.
(1) Badly installed CAT6 is WORSE than badly installed CAT5E, it's much less forgiving. CAT5E is more than adequate for home use and much more forgiving on installation practices.

(2) The only way to check the installation 100% is with a (very) expensive cable certifier. Without that you have no idea whether the network is functioning as it should. Granted a simple pair continuity checker will tell you the wires are in the right place & it will "work".

chasingracecars

1,696 posts

96 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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Dave_ST220 said:
(1) Badly installed CAT6 is WORSE than badly installed CAT5E, it's much less forgiving. CAT5E is more than adequate for home use and much more forgiving on installation practices.
Mmm where did you get this from????

Chucklehead

Original Poster:

2,729 posts

207 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
i assumed LSZH would be required because i had heard similar for running speaker cable for ceiling speakers, so I assumed i'd want the same for data cables.

I'm also already running double what i need by having two runs per room! We are 2 people in a 5 bed house, so i don't need data in a dressing room, a spare bedroom, our utility room etc. Living room, office, under stairs beside the alarm will be fine and if i ever need to expand then i'll be breaking out the fish tape or using existing runs to pull through more cable.. Wi-Fi is more than capable for anything else we need, and with the switch in the loft i can easily expand upstairs and cover cctv in the eaves.

I appreciate the advice, and if it were not being built by a developer i would have more freedom, so my request as it stands now is already pushing it. I'll be dropping in on the site manager with a reel of cable and saying "hey, can you just run that up there please?"!!!

I would have thought FTP would be sensible given the potential proximity to electrical cable, especially under the stairs where my alarm and consumer unit would be.

megaphone

10,694 posts

250 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
I doubt the electrical cabling is LSZH, so you don't need to worry, but it won't hurt if you go for it. LSZH cable is usually purple colour.

I'd also advise installing a cable for a ceiling mounted WiFi access points, one on each floor, maybe in the hallway for good coverage. New builds can be a bad environment for wifi, lots of metal and foil back insulation kill the signal.

Also think about where your modem/router will go, I assume the loft? Can BT/Virgin get a cable to it? If not you'll need to make provision. Also think about phone lines, you can use Cat5.

Harry Flashman

19,283 posts

241 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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I used Cat 6. It's pretty easy to run and terminate, frankly. Unlike Cat 6a, which is thick, heavy and cumbersome.

That said, our house is a 1930s solid wall house, so even during a complete strip out, running cable to exactly where you want it is a complete sod. If you are building a new house, run the stuff absolutely everywhere, and terminate it next to sockets, in a couple of different locations per room. I also had some high level ones done for wall mounted TVs/Sonos etc. Kitchen island has ports, so I can sit at it and work on a laptop. Have a good think about where fast data would be useful to you in the future: imagine you don't have wifi, and where you need stuff to work.

I ran 2 cables to every room, and up to 8 to heavy use rooms where TVs and other devices are planned. I terminated them by plug points. I could have run more but frankly the server/router cupboard already looks like spaghetti junction with 50 or so cables in it, all going into 2 x 24 port POE switches. Most aren't actually connected yet - been doing them as I use them.

In rooms where you eventually need more than 2 cables, a small network switch will do just fine.

I use ethernet to run the TV, and for running my laptop when working from home. Both work very well, but we have good broadband (London) and decent wifi, so the benefits aren't showing yet. In the future, if we have a family who pound the wifi, or start streaming 4k TV and HD music, I'm sure there will be a benefit.

I also have one of the Sonos players plugged into ethernet - it makes the whole setup run much better.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Wednesday 1st March 11:39

Harry Flashman

19,283 posts

241 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
Oh, and the people I used for bits are Comtec. Great service (they gave me some good advice), and a pretty good price. They make their own cable, so it should be pretty good.

chasingracecars

1,696 posts

96 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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Poorly installed or kinked Cat5 is quite likely to break.

Cat6 is thicker and equally should not be bent if you terminate correctly and use correctly then is far better to run.

To me cost difference is nothing for the added future usability.

If you treat Cat5 in the same way you describe poorly installed Cat6 I very much doubt the Cat5 would work at all.

Mr Pointy

11,146 posts

158 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
But that's not what you wrote originally. You said that if both CAT6 & CAT5E were BADLY installed then the CAT6 would then perform worse than the CAT5e. That's unlikely given that if you negate the CAT6 advantages (the physical separator & maintaining the pair twists) it's still going to be as good as the CAT5e.

Alucidnation

16,810 posts

169 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Agreed.

chasingracecars

1,696 posts

96 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
No it was DAVE_ST220

Craikeybaby

10,369 posts

224 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
I'd also make sure you get one network point (2 cables) to where you BT/Virgin line will come into the house, so that your internet connection can be sent to your switch in the loft.

Chucklehead

Original Poster:

2,729 posts

207 months

Wednesday 1st March 2017
quotequote all
I ended up buying some Cat5e solid copper core LSZH unshielded cable, seeing as shielded didn't seem to be so important.

All points taken on board regarding cat6 and putting in as many places as possible!

Thanks