Home networking

[Crocuta]

There's a couple of networking geeks hanging around here, right?

I'm getting ready to undertake a project and I'm hoping to get a little insight.  A remodeling project has exposed enough space for me to pull new cable to my office with a minimal investment of time.  I'm thinking that we'll be selling this house in a few years and I want to plan for the future.  I currently have old four wire telephone cable running throughout the house and I want to pull CAT5 for improved DSL performance.  I've been looking at a product that is bundled with two CAT5's, two RG-6 shielded coax and the option of a pair of fiberoptic cables.  The fiber almost doubles the price, and I can't decide if it's worth it for the long term benefit (not to mention the possible increase in perceived value to the right buyer.) I can also get the same cable with CAT6 without the fiberoptic for less than the CAT5 with fiber (but more than CAT5 without fiber.)

Any thoughts?

[error]

I think you should move to New Hampshire.

Oh, you mean about networking in the house. Sure, you can pull cable if you want. It's cheap and it might even increase the resale value when you move to New Hampshire.

There's little point running fiber inside a home today, that you plan to sell. Almost nobody's home computer is going to be able to take advantage of it.

[aries]

I only deal with the software side of networking!

[KBCraig]

I've partially wired my home. If I was doing it all over, I'd go Cat-6, for gigabit ethernet, instead of Cat-5.

I'd forget about the fiber. There are few current applications for home use, plus you have to worry about bend radius and accidentally breaking the fiber. Two coax (RG-6) and two ethernet cables at every outlet point, with every cable bundle home-run to a wiring closet with patch bays and a 3-into-8 (or more) multi-switch for digital satellite.

Kevin

[slim]

If I was running wire I would run CAT6 and if you can afford it fiber also but I think CAT6 is going to be used more then the fiber. With CAT 6 you can get Nic cards and switches for gigabit connections to your PC's and devices also 10 gig has been talked about and proposed which would run over copper. Wireless has been evolving quickly also I have seen the new 802.n standards which will allow for 30o MB/s. Those are just my feelings but you need to weight the cost vs. benefits.

[error]

Talked about? There are already 10Gbit cards on the market.

[Crocuta]

Thanks everyone for the input.  For the record, I already have a wireless network in the house to run the computers, PDAs and AirPort Express station, but there are speed advantages to getting the desktops running on fiber.  Also thinking about what someone else might want to do down the road, and while we don't bother to subscribe to satellite TV now, someone might like the drops in the different rooms.   I think I'll run the dual CAT6 and RG6 cables and call it good.  The fiber's just too expensive for something that I have no use for.

Now I have to figure out where to shoehorn in the wiring harness.  I know it's traditional (and cheaper) to locate it centrally, but the garage is mighty tempting.

[mvpel]

The perceived difference between switched 100Mb and Gigabit for most home applications is minimal.  But if it makes you happy, more power to ya.

I'm having to run another ethernet line here, but only because I don't want to deal with a wireless bridge for my ethernet printer.

[aries]

what's the point of a 10gb nic? doesnt that exceed hard drive write speeds?

even if you were just using it for a server/router, how many clients will there be?

[error]

You can send uncompressed HD video over a 10Gbit NIC. Probably a 1Gbit NIC, too. That needs not be stored.

[Crocuta]

The perceived difference between switched 100Mb and Gigabit for most home applications is minimal.  But if it makes you happy, more power to ya.

I'm having to run another ethernet line here, but only because I don't want to deal with a wireless bridge for my ethernet printer.

I'm thinking along the lines of "I'll never use the bandwidth", but when I sell if I get a suitably geeky potential buyer, having the better drops might increase percieved value.  Eventually I want to run drops to most of the rooms.  I'll just slowly work on it until selling time comes.

[mvpel]

what's the point of a 10gb nic? doesnt that exceed hard drive write speeds?

It exceeds the PCI bus bandwidth, too.

The key here is aggregation of lots of lower-bandwidth clients, such as on a metropolitan ethernet.

[error]

what's the point of a 10gb nic? doesnt that exceed hard drive write speeds?

It exceeds the PCI bus bandwidth, too.

That's why there's PCI Express.