Re: Home ethernet

If the drywall hasn't yet been hung, by all means pull the extra wires
now.
I have never heard anyone complain they had too many network drops.

- Mike Scott


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [LUNI] Home ethernet
From: Larry Garfield <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, March 13, 2011 5:45 pm
To: [email protected]

Thanks, guys. I don't know that I would make use of any of the coax
tricks 
Trev mentions but at least I know there's a reason for them to assume I
would 
have wanted it. 

I've checked and according to the contractor the ethernet lines are
Cat-6a 
(which is what I had told him previously was likely best, so that's
good) but 
there's no conduit, it's just "drilled through". Each wall-hole has one 
Cat-6a and one coax running to it now. Each room has 1-2 wall-holes, 
depending on the room.

My thinking is that it should be done with PVC conduit and a pull
string. 
That way I can get 4-port faceplates and use only two of them for now,
then if 
I decide I need another coax or ethernet or phone at any location I can
just 
pull another line through myself. (My cabling skills are good enough for
that 
at least.) If it's not conduit, though, I can see that being much more 
difficult and possibly out of my skill range.

In that case, my next step would be to push back on the contractor to
get him 
to run conduit to each location with pull string (with or without
re-running 
the existing lines).

Does that make sense, or would the conduit be too much hassle/cost in 
practice, do you think?

--Larry Garfield

On Sunday, March 13, 2011 1:16:55 pm Trev Peterson wrote:
> There's no xtalk between UTPs, they can be run in large bundles
> together. The reason a coax in each location is nice is that it is
> better/cheaper to use for some applications. Some examples off the top
> of my head are: cable/sat TV, cable internet, external antenna's, audio
> (SPIDF-coax or RCA stereo), CCTV (security cameras). You often can use
> cat5e to carry these signals but the balans / converters needed to do
> this usually are pretty pricey (hundreds of dollars). By having 2x coax
> and 2xcat5e/6 you have a lot of flexibility especially when running to
> one centralized patch panel.
> 
> A couple real world examples of things you might want to do with a
> system like this:
> 1. A client of mine had a small TV in the kitchen but had no space for a
> sat box in the kitchen. Since the kitchen and living room are open they
> wanted it slaved to the living room TV box. We took the coax output of
> the TV box split it and sent one through the patch panel to the kitchen
> TV then the other to the local TV. Problem solved but needed 2 coax
> jacks at the living room location.
> 
> 2. You have an antenna on the room and want to feed a MythTV HD backend
> in your bedroom. The coax running from the antenna on the roof
> terminates at the patch panel and you can patch it to whatever outlet
> your mythtv backend is on in the bedroom. Later if you wish to split
> the frontend from the backend and move the server downstairs just
> repatch then connect both to the house network and you're done.
> 
> Even though coax is decreasing in usage for many things it is valuable
> enough to have and the cost is really low enough to make it worthwhile.
> I should also point out that because it is an assumed infrastructure in
> many houses (do to cable and satellite TV mostly) it is not unlikely it
> will be used for some new tech as well (like SPIDF did).
> 
> Lastly, I should point out that you probably want to patch down all the
> cat 5e/6 runs in EIA/TIA 586A on the panel. Then your faceplates can
> contain 1 phone (RJ11) and one ethernet (RJ45) for most plates and any
> combination for special locations (places you need 2 eth or 2 phones).
> Changing between a phone and eth jack is all done at the faceplate so is
> a fast and cheap change if you need it later.
> 
> I REALLY hate to see people stuck with terrible LV systems in their
> house and for Linux geeks it's SO much worse. Nothing like from Telco
> to Cable with a 5 minute patch at the panel or throwing an asterisk
> server on a particular set of jacks for testing or full VOIP replacement
> of AT&T.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> 
> On Sun, 2011-03-13 at 11:51 -0500, Larry Garfield wrote:
> > - Is there a crosstalk problem running coax and UTP that closely together
> > in parallel? I know you can't do that for electrical lines, but I don't
> > know about UTP and coax.
> > 
> > - Why, exactly, is everyone so big on coax? :-) I've never used it for
> > anything other than cable TV or cable-to-modem service. Ethernet strikes
> > me as far more useful, so I am at a loss for why the contractor just
> > assumed I wanted coax jacks coming out my ears, or why Ian below is
> > suggesting a 2-coax plate. Does coax have some use that I don't know
> > of? My inclination would be single coax to a room and then multiple
> > ethernet jacks all over the place, not vice versa.
-- 
Linux Users Of Northern Illinois (Chicago) - Technical Discussion 
http://luni.org/mailman/listinfo/luni

-- 
Linux Users Of Northern Illinois (Chicago) - Technical Discussion 
http://luni.org/mailman/listinfo/luni