Hi All, As we are having an extension built, I am taking the opportunity to add a wired network to the house. As such i'm looking at setting up a patch panel - does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions on what to go for (and where to buy). Ideally looking at something not too bulky, i will obviously have to co-locate a switch and router/modem, but not sure i want to go full on rack... I will need 22 ports, inc. 2 PoE. Any help would be appreciated!
If you're not constantly patching & unpatchng, are using solid cable (& can terminate cable) then any 19" panel will be find. They're less than £20 on ebay. If you're terminating on RJ45 then there's keystone pass-through panels on Amazon for £25 or so
If you have the choice, forget about having the builders run any network cable through the walls. RUN. CONDUIT. Saves an enormous amount of headache (if you install network cables like you do power cables, you get dead cables or crosstalk issues or intermittent faults from minimum-bend-radius violations, etc). Makes upgrades and replacements trivial (tape new cable to end of old cable, pulling out old cable pulls through new cable). Defers choice of CAT5E or CAT6 or fibre or whatever until when each drop is actually needed. As for cable itself, if you're just running regular CAT5E or CAT6 UTP then pretty much any patch panel is fine (get a decent Krone or 110 punchdown, the cheap ones look identical but are just an endless headache to use). If possible, buy new, second-hand is a false economy: it may be possible to remove and reterminate an IDC punchdown, but they're not designed for that and nobody wants to spend half an hour punching and repunching the same damn connector because one of the blades was knackered by the previous owner. If you need shielded cable (probably not) or want to go full ham and use CAT7/Class F, then probably best to go with keystone jacks and a keystone frame instead. If possible, borrow or rent a Fluke (or equivalent) cable tester and verify your runs after you've punched everything down. Peace of mind that any weird network issues you may get in the future are not down to the cabling.
That was a good idea 15 years ago, but now it's easier and cheaper to just run multiple drops everywhere and be done with it. I did a reno a couple years back and just ran cable everywhere, with 3-5 runs in critical areas (TVs, home office, etc). I stuck with cat5e as it's far cheaper and easier to terminate and should work with 2.5/5gigE if it ever makes it down to consumer hardware. As for patch panels, I have both of these (ended up with 28 drops) and they work great: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=7253 + https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=8623 https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=7304 Not sure if you can get monoprice stuff in the UK though?
Just running cable is certainly cheaper, but I would not call it easier. Even if your builders happen to not mangle it during install and actually know how to comply with minimum bend radius limits and do not crush the cable by using nail-down cable clips, you still have the issue that any problems mean you now have an unreplaceable dead link. e.g. if you have any issues (e.g. need to recrimp a mangled socket and don't have enough slack, PoE Weirdness burns a conductor, etc) or need to add drops for future expansion and upgrades. And if you builder does not know how to properly install ethernet and just runs it like every other domestic electrical cable they're used to (power, telephone, bell wire, etc) you've pretty much just flushed money down the toilet. And if you just run it yourself to do the job right (and it doesn't get mangled by second fix treating it like any other cable) then you've already taken on the hassle, and may as well run the conduit yourself instead and have all the benefits.
I installed CAT6 (shielded) when I had the house rewired nearly 10 years ago, I supplied a reel of cable and the electrician supplied the conduit and channelled it into the brick parallel, but away from, the power wires (also in conduit). It is very difficult to retrofit conduit in a house that would allow you to replace the cable in future. Unless you are going back to bare brick (or walls), fitting conduit with a smooth run is hard. My recommendation is to choose a high spec cable (CAT 6 or 7 shielded) and run it inside conduit to protect it inside the walls. I wouldn't worry too much about upgradability, CAT 6 or CAT 7 will be fine for donkeys years. I was lucky that my electrician understood my detailed instructions regarding bend radius. The cable itself wasn't expensive so it all worked out well. I did supply a detailed plan of where the runs were to go and how many sockets (and exact location) for each room. I ran 17 cables from under the stairs, hooked into a 16 port patch panel that wasn't expensive. The extra cable runs to an external box outside the back door, in readiness for the planned run to a garden office via underground armoured cable (I planned a LONG way ahead) - this will plug direct into my router. I tested all the cables myself as soon as it was installed, I installed all the connections with a Krone tool, apart from a couple of bad crimps that I had to redo it was all fine. It has been perfect for 10 years, no issues. Edit: I used kenable.co.uk to source all the bits, a 300m reel of solid copper shielded CAT6 is only £114, not much more than I spent 10 years ago. I still have about a third of a reel left!
It depends on the house construction. A lot of US houses are drywall construction, that's not always the case in the UK and running cable through cavity wall or solid stone isn't necessarily the best/cheapest method.
This is very true. Things i have done in other houses (rented) are run all the LAN cables in the ceiling crawlspace, then drop it down in each room inside a plastic conduit blutacked to the walls, was easy to make good when moving out. You can also buy skirting board with pre-cut channels in the back to run cables, you can even make your own channel with a cheap router, an easy solution if you are going to be putting new skirting in anyway.
this is what i would do, when we had our place done up, i had 10x cat6e cable going to each room due to the guy putting up plaster boards up so damn fast plastering even faster i never got the chance to fit conduit either for either the network cables or the av cables i was running. tho only had 1 cat 6e fail so far and hdmi all are b0rked either dropped picture or no sound.
