I will be buying a house later this year with the ability to totally redecorate top to bottom. I have one question to ask. As far as future proofing goes what would be the best network cable to use? Bear in mind I wish to future proof for a fair amount of years. So what would be best to use? Cat5e, Cat6? Fibre? Your input is greatly appreciated.
I usually run 4x cat 5E/cat6 sockets & 2x fibre to every room. Cat 5E/6 is going to be fine for the near future with fibre handy for my SAN storage.
I'd be happy with CAT6. Doesn't cost an arm and leg, and gets the job done. Ofcourse if you plan to stream absolutely everything and move around terabytes of data then fiber might make sense.. If you describe your use as anywhere near "normal", I'd say the CAT6 will be just fine.
cat5e is okay for gigabit ethernet provided you buy quality stuff. I am running cat5e in every room + 16 port gbit netgear switch and it works quite well so far (there's like 14 sockets total) i can stream anything to my ps3 from wherever around the house without any issues whatsoever. In fact i could probably do that over 802.11n anyway (laptop to n router to ps3 via gbit ethernet)
how long do you intend to stay in the house ? id also say Cat5E/cat6 is good for now especailly on just something like a home network
I did this during a full rewire of the house in the summer. I used CAT6 FTP (foil shielded) and saspro helpfully pointed me at this: http://www.network-cabling.co.uk/st...m-1445.html?osCsid=nmfvgtjgd03depoiah6h390k17. This was the best price I could find at the time. It comes on a huge wooden spool and I have about 1/3 left over after wiring 3 bedrooms, a loft (multiple sockets), double reception (multiple sockets), kitchen, conservatory, stairs cupboard (for NAS) as well as a spare for running an armoured cable across the garden to my new shed (future project). I have still to get the 16 port gigabit switch and patch panel to hook it all up (the Netgear GS116 is a good buy @ £135). Think about your telephone wiring as well. I got the electrician to run a telephone extension cable under the floorboards from the stairs cupboard to the reception so I could hide my ADSL modem as well as hook up the alarm in a much neater fashion. Don't forget to add power sockets to wherever you want to install a switch & any potential NAS, I put some extra under the stairs cupboard for this. The additional cost for the rewire was a pittance - the sparky was running new cables anyway. He even made sure to keep loads of distance between the power cables and the CAT6 to prevent any potential interference. I purchased the wallplates and CAT6 sockets myself (cheaper than getting the sparky to do it), I just got him to put the wall boxes in. I haven't started the mammoth patching job yet. If you get the right company, they could rewire the house as well as do all the CAT6 wiring for you and fully test it afterwards. This will cost more though.
I've recently helped a friend decorate his new house, we ran CAT5e to each room (2 ports in all bedrooms/kitchen/lounge). An argument against using CAT6 was the increased radius for any bends. The rest of the network is made up of 2 8-port switches connected by the router.
future proof , hmm let me think cat7, and/or fibre. cat 6a and 7 capable of 10Gb, we might get there one day, lol
Its not as expensive as i thought it would be! Its pricey, but if you were connecting 2 servers together or a nas to a server it would be worth it i recon.
£3.40 per metre...ouch. I'm not sure I would be wiring the whole house with that. NAS/server to a fibre port on a switch maybe...
I would go with cat 6A and stay away from FTP (shielded) as this might introduce noise in the cable unless all equipment connected is properly grounded. The shield might act as an antenna instead, lowering the capacity of the network.
If the only equipment connected to the FTP is a properly grounded switch and PC NIC's, surely no problem?
Personally I think cat5e will be plenty for the long term. Cat6 is a pain to run due to curve radius, additionally other thAn file transfer you will rarely flatline on 5e. You better off putting the money into a decent switch that really exploits to structured cables, you can get a cisco 2960G layer 2 switch for under £500, then grab a couple of pci-e dual port PT nics and you'll see it was money well spent. Really no point making the cables future proof unless your going to squeeze all the performance out of it. I'd take the above over cat7 with a mainstream 10gb in the future!
To be honest, if you are redoing an entire house and want futureproofing there is only one way to go: Tubes/pipes. If you install wall boxes in every room and run tubing to a "server room" you can easily replace the cabling as the technology develops and become affordable.
