Planning my panel and wiring...

(Long time listener, first time caller.)

Background
So we have baby #2 coming the end of December. We live in a 3BR townhome (2 story, 1850 sq. ft., no basement/on a slab, 2nd floor laundry). We both work from home, and I use one of the bedrooms as an office. The other day, while contemplating how to handle the lodging of the pending family addition, she says, "Why don't we swap your office and the kids room?" Well, that room has no cable/telephone.... so...

As Tim Allen said "So I rewired it!"

Blah, blah, blah, I have approval from the committee to do a structured wiring panel.

Main Considerations
- Panel will be in the 2nd floor laundry room. Going to do a flush can (probably the leviton 42" with the premium cover... WAF, my friends)
- Basic services only (i.e. Cable, telephone, networking). No audio distribution, no security, fire protection, etc... No Elk... I'll do that when we move to a house in 2-3 years.
- We get our broadband / cable / internet from one provider which makes it a bit easier
- My wife and I both VPN to our work networks
- In addition to our cable-provided telephone service, I also use Vonage for my home office number, as I am remote from my company and can have a number that is local to my company's headquarters
- the MBR and BR1 have both cable and phone connections, and my office is currently in BR1.
- BR2 (current kids room and my future office) has no connectivity whatsoever.
- I have a linksys wrt-350N for wireless in the house, but I prefer the hard-wire for VPN. My wife is fine with wireless, but she likes hard-wire connectivity when she does webinar presentations for her colleagues, which ends up kicking me out of my office. (So the usefulness of having network jacks throughout the house is significant for me.)

I'll post here as I progress, and as I have questions...

So here is my first question.

I am mapping out the cabling needs, and I am wondering about the home office. I have four things to connect (at a minimum):

- Laptop
- Network Printer
- Vonage PAP2 router
- Linksys WRT350N Wireless Router

In the other rooms I think I am going to do 2 cable, 2 phone and 2 network. Clearly in the home office I need more than that (network jack wise).

Should I (option1):

- only run the 2 ports to the home office, and connect the linksys and the vonage device to them, and then connect the printer and laptop to the linksys?

Or should I (option2):

- run four cat6 to the room and have a direct connection for each?

The more I think about it, the more I think it is just whatever my preference will be, but I am just not sure. Looking for opinions on how someone else would approach it...

I don't really see the use of running more than 1 network cable to a room. That's what routers and switches are for. Now, there's always a good arguement for burying some extra cat5 in a room, because that can be repurposed for all kinda of fun HA stuff later....but pure for PC network, I'd just run 1 wire.

The only room in our house we ran 2 cat6 was our loft where our computers were going to be....but the only reason I put a 2nd one in there is because I had concerns that the first run got kinked during the pull, and it was too important to take a chance. Turns out they both work just fine.

Yeah, that was my original thought, but I think I am going to build a media server, and I'd rather that have a direct connection modem-router-switch rather that modem-router-switch-router.

I guess it really doesn't matter though, now does it?

Ideally you won't want your laptop and computers connected to the wireless router, or even your printer sharing the same cat-5 as your Vonage adapter. You should really have it connected as close as possible to your cable modem and if it is behind a router, set up Quality Of Service if the router has that option. I had a lot of problems with my Vonage phone at first.

You will not notice a speed difference if the laptop and other devices connected to the wireless router are browsing the internet with that setup. It won't even matter if you have the Media Server close to the cable modem and then access it from multiple computers sharing 1 cat5, or multiple computers each on their own cat5 since there is still only one cat5 between your router/switch and the Media Server.

Hi beelzerob:

Any problems termianting the cat6?

For my house i had conduit put into the wall and 1 gang LV mudrights, I call them 'media oulets'. As soon as I close on the house i need to put some wiring through these tubes since otherwise we only have phone/cable/internet in the basement.

I'm contemplating cat6 vs cat5. From what it seems cat5 350 will also do gigabit speeds...since the wiring is in tubes i can always replace it when newer technology actually requires more than gigabit.

Not sure about the price difference in the cables, but i know the keystones are expensive and it's more of a PITA to terminating from what i've heard.

can you share you experiences?

Cat6 was about 50% more expensive than Cat5e. You could argue for a while if it's overkill or not, but I thought "Hey, I'm getting one chance to do this right, if cat6 is in anyway better, I'm going to do it.". From what I understand, Cat5e may or may not give you gigabit, but cat6 undoubtedly should because of it's higher manufacturing criteria. Of course, I've also heard Cat6 is a lot more picky about things like bend radius, so *shrug*. I'm probably at dialup speeds because I screwed up the install somehow.

As far as terminating....those EZ plug things, where you feed the wires all the way through the RJ45 male connector before terminating? Those are great. It is STILL a pain to line those wires up and make them stay that way all the way through the connector...but you won't get a bad connector as a result of wiring order.

As for the keystone/RJ45 females...I screwed up there. I went with some "toolless" Cat6 connectors from monoprice.com, because they came in pretty colors and were cheap. But they are a pain in the ass to work with. Toolless = useless. However, with enough cursing, they are working for me. I don't recommend them, though.

The toolless cat5 connectors aren't quite so bad....but I had some old Leviton punch-down type keystones for cat5 laying around, and those are a lot easier to work with in my opinion.

Cat6 is a tad harder to terminate than Cat5, as it is wound tighter and has a plastic spacer running down the middle you have to snip off...but I find terminating Cat anything to be a major pain, so....I don't consider the relative difference in difficulty to be enough of a reason to have gone all Cat5e.

I'll probably go Cat5 for most, if i find a specific device needs a gigabit (like my upstairs PC) then i can pull a cat6 to that conduit if the cat5 isnt giving me the gigabit to start with.

I'm not sure how much more expensive it was, but i'm happy i had them put the conduits in. Especially since i couldnt do any of the LV wiring myself since it's a developer. Additionally apparently for alarms and other LV you need a license here in Connecitcut.

I have thousands of terminations and Cat5e and even Cat6 runs under my belt just from my day job, and I designed and manage the infrastructure for all of our offices throughout the US... just for background...

I run Cat6 in my new offices just for expandability in the future - but only because the cost isn't that different when you figure the labor involved in pulling and terminating and entire office - it's already 50% supplies and 50% labor - so a 10% increase in cost is relatively insignificant in comparison to having to fly out to an office, engage vendors, and go through all the hassles of ever re-wiring an office. That said, I've yet to come across a situation where Cat6 is remotely required - and in the last office I did, it actually caused issues in some tighter conduit paths because it's considerably larger than Cat5E - and when bundling 20+ cables that size difference becomes exponential.

My headquarters datacenter was wired almost 6 years ago, when Cat6 wasn't much of a discussion point, and I run gigabit all over it to key stations over Cat5E just fine - no issues. In my IT building where my staff works, nearly every workstation is a powered gigabit port to support phones and gigabit for the team - again, over Cat5E - non issue. In some places where I'm desparate, I even run these over Cat5 (non-enhanced) and it tends to do OK.

Cat6 isn't even a discussion point until you're talking about going 10GB over copper. It's smart planning today if you're worried about what you can support in 5-10 years, but otherwise insignificant. Not until 10GB over copper becomes so commonplace in business will it even come near residential. So while I'm not saying don't run it - I'm saying that there's absolutely no reason why you need it over Cat5e for any application you'll be doing in the next 5 years - and realistically, I'd betting it's more like 10 years. All the current baluns out there today work over Cat5E, and gigabit works just fine for it. The other potential concern is cost - it'll add a percentage point to every piece involved, from the wire, to every keystone jack and every RJ45 end.

The other reality is that gigabit still isn't even widely in use. It still hasn't replaced 100bt - I think you're looking at another solid 5 years before that happens. In that time, gigabit switches are getting less expensive and most decent PC's come with gigabit, so it's getting easier - and in the small scale of a home, it's even easier since an 8-port gigabit switch is under $100 now. My entire home is gigabit and 802.11n just because I could.

That said, Cat6 is what I typically have laying around these days, so that's what I used when I wired my M1 in a few weeks ago... and I did notice that it's considerably more difficult to work with because it's stiffer and more tightly wound, and it does have the plastic dividers (some larger than others - depends on brand).
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So - longwinded way of saying that there's absolutely no defining reason to use Cat6 other than because you can - there's nothing you'll be doing in the next 5 years minimum that needs it. But, if the cost is insignificant enough and you'd like the peace of mind knowing that in 10 years when 10GB is commonplace or they have the next new video standard out, and you don't want to rewire then - then go for it.

As far as how many to run - Personally I like 3 to a workstation or termination point. 1 isn't enough - even with a switch at each desk, what if you want a phone or fax there too? 2 is pretty safe, but since I'm there and don't have the luxury of conduit, I do 3. Usually one is empty, and 1 is phone, 1 is network. If I need a second network drop, takes seconds to patch out - and if I need more, I drop a switch in. Or, you can always use baluns to send audio and video over Cat5. It's nice to have options.

Also keep in mind - gigabit does nothing for internet browsing - it only comes into play for sharing between PC's. In a multi-media driven house with sagetv and file sharing going on, absolutely do it in a heartbeat - just don't think it matters for 100% web-brosing, as it'll make no difference.
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Not to be long-winded, but there's a lot of uneducated misconceptions out there about some of these topics, so I had to jump on my soapbox there for a minute so you really know what you're getting into.

Well said, Todd B. If you can future-proof the cabling for a very small premium then go for it. CAT6 cost me $25 more for a spool of 1000' ... it was a no-brainer to go with CAT6.

I terminated the cables with CAT5E-rated connectors because, at the time, I couldn't justify the premium for CAT6-rated gear. If I ever run something that demands CAT6 end-to-end, I'll just replace the CAT5E connectors ... the CAT6 cable will already be in place (and I left sufficient slack).

FWIW, I ran two cables to each wall-plate and, in a few spots, left a pull-string (just in case).

Todd B said:

because you can

Click to expand...

That certainly sums up why I did it.

1 isn't enough - even with a switch at each desk, what if you want a phone or fax there too?

Click to expand...

True, for a given location, it'd be important to have extra runs for OTHER than PC network...but I thought his original assertion was to run multiple lines just for PC networking, which I couldn't think of a very good reason to do (other than the "you can" principle).

good info and post, Tood...makes me feel even more confident that I'll be good to go for networking speed. (I loves me some overkill).

What about intercom/whole house audio?

If you plan to do that I would make two runs to each control location, one for intercom and one for whole house audio kepad. then run the speaker wires in and out of this box.

this way if you use something like a russound commpoint it can cut off the whole house audio when you fire off the intercom.

Even if something does call for Cat6 down the road, it's so unlikely that the connectors would make it not work... The difference between Cat5 and Cat6 has to do with attentuation, crosstalk, noise, etc - as a complete package. The connector isn't going to blow it for you. And rpiatt is in the best place of all - having the conduit.

And 123 brought up a great point. I bought a bucket of poly-line from home depot last weekend - 6,500 feet of poly line for $40. We've always used it in the office environment - but it's the best thing ever for residential too if you have a future need. If you need to pull another length of wire, just tie the wire and a new strand of poly line and pull it through at will. You'll find it in the electrical isle.

Sorry everyone. Had company over tonight...

I am still building my B.O.M., but...

My WRT350N has a Gigabit switch in it. It has been great for transferring files and connecting the printer, etc. etc. Plus, I can get that Netgear FS116 for only $39 (after a $25 rebate) from JR.com...

I don't have the conduit in places I want to have it. If I want to use the conduit, I have to use existing locations, which, candidly, are very poorly thought out. So I have some extra work (probably making it for myself).

I am making a spreadsheet this weekend with my drops for each room. I'll post a PDF of it when I get it done. Feedback would be great.

I only have a few weeks to figure this all out and then execute, so I appreciate how prompt you guys all are...

My next question...

I have been looking at pics of others panels in the forum, and I see the usage of the grey PVC to bring the wire into the top of the panel. I am thinking in my case this PVC should be extended up through the wall top cap. Do I cut it off flush with the board in the attic? Or do I extend it past a bit and clean up the edges so as to not damage the wire?