Wiring Your House for Networking

Since I know a few things about this:

1. You probably want to run Cat 6.

It’s only a little more expensive than Cat 5e (ours is $180/1000ft for Cat 6 vs $140/1000ft for Cat 5e). The connectors are basically the same price. But Cat 6 will support 10gbps at lengths that cover basically all single family residential. The problem with Cat 6A is that it’s more expensive and doesn’t get you more bandwidth, just the same 10gbps, but to longer distances (up to 100m). Fiber is relatively inexpensive for the cable, but terminations are very expensive and you need adapters for most devices.

2. Don’t buy copper clad aluminum (CCA)

Amazon is filled with Ethernet cables that have copper clad aluminum conductors. The reason is that aluminum is cheaper. Don’t buy it. Aluminum is an inferior conductor, but more importantly, it’s a brittle material that will corrode. This is the number one complaint on CCA cabling. That the cable stops working at some point after being installed.

3. Buy cable that is UL Listed/Certified and CM or CMR rated.

The CM/CMR ratings are for fire safety and are required to be up to code. Either rating will work, but the key is that the cable has that printed on the jacket. The other key is that the cable is UL Listed/Certified (either wording is fine). UL should also be printed in the jacket. There are lots of Ethernet cables for sale on Amazon that claim to be CM or CMR rated, but they aren’t listed. Which means they’re fraudulently claiming the CM/CMR fire rating because a cable can’t carry a fire rating without being listed.

And then you specifically want a UL listing because they’re very active at enforcing quality standards at the factories in Asia, whereas ETL, who is the other major testing lab, is not. There’s a reason that all the cheapest offerings are ETL Listed and all the most expensive ones are UL Listed: basically the factories are sending in one sample for testing and then producing something different. UL’s enforcement prevents this.

You might not care about being strictly up to code, but UL Listed and CM/CMR are marks of quality, which you probably do care about.

I wire my houses with cat6A that's shielded, and either CMR (indoor) or direct-burial CMX (outdoor-rated).

Why shielded: actually my personal reason isn't primarily for reducing EMI (though it's nice), but the shield makes the cable ever so slightly sturdier that it is more protected, so it reduces the risk of being accidentally damaged. I have had contractors doing work on the house who have accidentally damaged unshielded cables in the past, crushing them or pinching them I don't know how.

Why direct burial: for the same reason, they are sturdier and less likely to be damaged. I buy that even if I don't bury the cable.

Why CMX for outdoor locations: it's waterproof & UV resistant. In some spots I have no choice but to have a cable running along the exterior wall of the house. A cable that's not outdoor rated will see its jacket penetrated by humidity and broken down by the sun's UV. A conduit might help for UV, but not for humidity, see: https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/selecting-the-...

Why cat6A: the cost increase is marginal over cat6 or cat5e. I have very long runs, for example a large property with outdoor wifi access points or security cameras. It gives me more flexibility in terms of locating network switches knowing I can run 10Gbps over 100m, instead of 55m (cat6), or less (cat5e).

Why not fiber: lack of POE. All my wifi access points and security cameras are POE. This is a huge pro for cost, flexibility, and reliability. No need to run a separate power line. Can locate the equipment truly wherever the network cable is. And with a battery-backup POE switch, all my hardwired security cameras continues recording during a power outage.

I did a hack job to rewrap my house with Cat6a a few months ago (three drops, all ran outside). Part of me is interested in fiber, and saying "next time, we'll do that", but it seems like the termination stuff is non-obvious.

The equivalents of "cut a 3.75 metre cable that's a perfect fit for this space, then crimp on RJ45 jacks" and "run the bare cable through the wall and then punch-down on a keystone jack to snap into a wall plate" involve much more expensive tools and far more skill.

There's probably a market for a "boxed kit" designed to reduce footguns-- steering someone into a specific range of cables and connectors that make sense together, and perhaps offering the fusion coupling tools on a rent-and-return basis because most home users are not going to need them more than 3 days every 5 years.

I wired my condo with Ethernet. I ultimately settled for 5e over 6 and higher.

The reasons were a few: 1. 5e was dirt cheap

2. 6 and higher cost more

3. 6 and higher were harder to bend and made doing the runs way harder.

4. 5e speeds are more than sufficient for home use.

5. It doesn't add significant of any resale value to a home because most home owners don't know how to get it set up correctly or what a switch actually is.

I recall topping out at 2.5gBit/s. Cost and ease were more than enough for me and were getting to the point where faster home Internet speeds get donishing returns. I'm also app with 1080p streams and don't need or want 4k or higher.

The only true benefit was being able to set up multiple wireless APs which blanketed my condo with good connectivity and forced all of the misbehaving wireless access points onto my three 2.4ghz acceptable wifi channels or face poor reception .

I rewired and went with fiber since cables are much smaller and could replace one cat6 cable with 6+ fiber ones that go all over the house and outside.

That leads to one main switch connecting to everything in the house, no matter where they are and one router/firewall in front of it with a dual fiber pcie card that connects to ISP via fiber as well.

Other endpoints are either fiber via thunderbolt adapter or pcie card, or switches/access points with sfp ports and regular rj45.

I could get very cheap mellanox pcie cards off ebay. The sfp modules and fiber cables aren't that expensive either considering 10gbit bandwidth.

On the other hand, other the slightly lower latency and higher bandwidth when needed (800-900MB/s) day-to-day gigabit would also have been fine.

> Similarly, everyone puts 1 GbE ports on their hardware but very few things will come with 2.5 Gbps or 10 Gbps Ethernet ports.

My gaming rig and my Mac Studio both came with 10Gbe. My laptop thunderbolt dock also has 10Gbe.

There's a lot of really reasonably priced switches with 2.5Gbe. For example a 10 port for $90 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CT2F3ZDM

It seems silly to be so limited to 1Gbe right now. All my switches are 2.5 and I wouldn't do less on a new install.

For short hops wifi6 is very viable for gigabit. Mine is regularly showing a link rate north of 2000mbps so the bottleneck is the GbE wiring. And that's with 4 year old gear.

Other thing to note is that you can now get really cheap 8x 2.5gbe fanless switches that have a 10gig SFP+ uplink. So we're finally seeing some good options in this sort of space. Paid like 72 GBP for one incl shipping.

Once the wire is in place, what are the reasonable hardware/software suggestions for the home network that might support half a dozen users?

We may want some network storage, some low-maintenance firewall to keep the kids out of trouble, and so forth.

Update for 2024:

Step 0. Don't bother with obsolete Cat 6 or lower cable because it's just not worth the effort over Wi-Fi. If you're going to do it, buy a 1000' spool of CMP Cat 8 UPoE-rated premise wire (~$1000-$1500 USD), punch down tool, J boxes, punch down receptacles, semi-flexible plenum large conduit that doesn't have ridges, cable fish tape, wall-mounted quarter 19" rack, 90 degree drill and hole saw with various lengths of extensions (usually from about 1' to 10' or longer for tall walls), and a punch down patch panel.

Step 1. Run conduit and J boxes first to a central closet or to a garage in most instances. This is the labor-intensive, hard part but it makes running multiple cables through it much easier. Larger homes may need a second closet or second conduit hub area and more conduit to a main patch panel.

Step 2. Easily slide wire in using a fish tape, 1 to 4 cables per box depending on the location. It's so much easier with semi-flexible conduit.

Step 3. Test each cable using iperf3 with an RPi and laptop, or borrow a commercial 10GbE cable tester like a DSX2-8000.

Step 4. Drop in a 10 GbE U/POE++ switch that doesn't sound like a jet engine.

Option: Instead of, or in addition to, Cat 8 wiring, run fiber.

>Sometimes this means you get very silly products like this

This link seems to be broken, it just redirects to the from page. Maybe it's dependent on region

First off, if you want to do this right, I recommend pulling something like hoses/ pipes that are made for the purpose with the inner diameter of at least 25 mm (~4 Cat6A cables) to each outlet where you want to connect any data cables. Of course, as you collect the cables, use larger pipes, e.g. 32 (~8 Cat6A cables), 40 (~12 Cat6A cables and a bit of headroom) or even 50 mm. Each second 90° bend make sure you can access that easily, e.g. by having a box there or an easy to remove ceiling panel or whatever. Especially in European homes that are literally made of bricks and concrete usually placing pipes/ conduits/ wires is more or less a one-time thing that is extremely time consuming, dusty etc. you don't wont to redo anything if possible.

In these pipes or whatever you used you can usually pull any cable. If it gets stuck, you have at most 1 bend to pull back even if you lost the thread/ wire with which you can pull the wire, you can probably push the sturdy Cat 6A cable through with a bit of wrapping and soaping the end of the cable. If you later decide, you want fiber, it can be pulled through this with relative ease. Just make sure you don't pull harder than the spec of the cable says. Armored cables are thicker but you can pull on the much harder. Soaping the cable beforehand usually makes the pulling easier. Soap does not leave stains like oil or similar lubricants do, just use the most basic yellow hard soap there is a bit of water to make it soft.

Use shielded cables, ideally Cat 6A. It's a one-time investment. Yes, the cables are thicker and harder to bend - therefore the pipes and bend radiuses. But thanks to the, usually per pair and per cable shielding makes it much easier to push. I many cases, especially if you can buy the 2x cables that have their jackets welded together, you can just skip the pull-wire. Always pull two wires to a socket and use Cat 6A keystones to terminate them. I like to have 3 sockets per room. Like the living room, office etc. I have one wall (usually the one with windows) without a socket, on the wall next to the window wall I have a (dual-)socket nearer to the windows. Usually about 60 cm from the end of the wall nearer to the windows. On the wall opposite to the window wall I tend to have a (dual-)socket in the middle of the wall. This triangular setup tends to work well even if you move furniture a lot. In case the socket is in a way, you can just stick the keystoned cables back into the wall a bit and place a cover there. I also like to have a cable or two in the ceiling. Usually above the door isn't the worst idea. Placing an AP above the door works well and usually want be covered by some furniture. It tends to be a good place for a camera/ alarm whatever sensor you need too. If you know, in a certain place you will have definitely all ports filled from the start, make another dual-socket there.

Buy a small rack in the central place where you collect all the wires. Use 24 port per 1U patch panels with key stones. Try to have grounding for the rack. All the cable shields can collect a lot of charge. You can have an electrician measure that you don't have some ground loops or whatever. Also, if you have a wireless antenna for internet access on the roof, you want to have a fuse coupling where it enters the house. Terminating this in the rack that is grounded is another safety feature. Run power to the rack on a separate circuit if possible. Make sure there is some space left for a small UPS and a switch. Try to place the cable/ fiber modem in here if possible or create a run to the place where you have the ISP socket. Usually, you can just plug in a longer cable on the ISP side of the modem and have the modem be plugged into your UPS, nicely stashed in the network cabinet/ wall mounted rack or whatever. If that's not possible you can at least have a solid ethernet run into your rack from there. For flats or small homes a 7-8U wall mounted rack is minimum. Try to have at least 45 cm of depth, ideally 60 cm or more, especially if you think about some server gear. I don't think you can get a wall mounted rack with a depth of more than 60 cm. Try to leave some space on top of the rack for easier cooling and manipulation.

Each cable should probably have about 1,5 meters extra in the rack. You can make a loop there or something. If you damage a socket for some reason or you need to take the patch panel out of the rack for easier installation/ placing key stones or just need a bit of slack for better cable management, you will need the extra length. You will thank me later when you can comfortably install or adjust things.

Number all cables on each end on the jacket with a unique number. Also write that number on the socket and the patch panel. That can be generic, like A-1 (patch panel A, first connector). You should have a floor plan where each sockets ends and what cable that is. It is not a bad idea to test every connection that it actually does at least a stable Gigabit connection. (Just dd a big random file like a video over ssh to the other side and back over netcat.) There should be no errors on the interface (check with ethtool -S eth0)

In general, don't be cheap on these things if you are building your family's residence or something. You will never use all cables, you will certainly have a place where you wish you had more cables. That happens. But you will be generally able to solve most problems with this setup sufficiently without much work once it's done.

Experience: I did some retrofitting of this setup in a flat with brick walls. Ran the pipes in the walls about 20 cm under the ceiling. I used sockets and a patch panel without keystones, just directly punched in the fixed ports. In another flat I ran on-wall guide rails/ white cable holders with covers also under the ceiling but the cables were terminated with nice keystones. I helped a then-friend make the wiring for their whole home when it was in complete renovation or basically rebuilt the house. I have assisted some company/ enterprise wiring projects.