Wiring ethernet

[Grimis]

I am wiring a new house, and I wanted to put ethernet jacks through out the house, probably 8. Would I just buy cat 5, cat 5e, or cat 6 cable and run that in the walls. How would I connect it to a jack? do the jacks have female end on the back? I plan on putting wireless in the house also... but the house is very large and I don't think that a wireless system could spread through out the whole house (correct me if i'm wrong). Thanks for the help

 

[audiorookie]

I have both in my home, I ran cat 5e 350 mhz cable and it works greate cat 6 is overkill IMO.
Ive been running cable for 12 years now and Cat 6 is never used Cat 5e works fine but cat 6 wont hurt, its your dime lol.
It sound like you want to run patch cords with ends but you dont want to do that.
You want to run un-terminated cable, make sure its solid not stranded cable you want SOLID.
Then terminate both ends with Cat 5 e or cat 6 jacks, Leviton is a good product and insert them into modulare Leviton faceplates.
Now you need a puch tool with a 110 blade to terminate the jacks.
You can find this all at Home Depot.

 

[MDS]

I agree with audiorookie, but skip purchasing a punch down tool. The plastic one that comes with the Leviton jacks works perfectly and you don't run the risk of punching down too hard and bending the jack (trust me...you will if you've never terminated an rj-45 jack before).

Ideally you want to run all the cables to a central location and install a patch panel there. Leviton makes those too.

You have to decide if you want to use the 568A or 568B wiring configuration. It doesn't matter as long as both ends are the same, but you should pull extra cables to use for phone service. Using the 568B wiring scheme puts the white and blue/white wires that are traditionally used for phones on the correct pins where the rj-11 jack of the phone expects to find them.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Look online at the pricing of cable. I believe that Cat-6 is designed around gigabit ethernet which is the direction I would go. I'm not sure you can even find non Cat-5e cable anymore (cat-5).

The price difference really shouldn't be that great on a box of 1,000 feet of cabling.

eBay has 1,000' spools for about 100 bucks. So, I would definitely go the cat6 route.

For punching down the cable, it is pretty darn easy and you can find numerous online sites that can walk you through it... But, like I said - it is easy. I picked up a metal tool that works better than the freebie that comes with some terminals for about 7 bucks at Home Depot. Not as nice as a real punch down tool, but works fine for my VERY limited needs.

I would go with 568B wiring inside a home. If you Google 568B you will find more than a few places to let you know what exactly we are talking about.

 

[agarwalro]

IMHO, a wireless repeater/ extender is the way to go. It will cost you way less than buying cable and running it. In addition, you avoid the risk of faulty punchnig of cable connections, fishing cables, installing sockets, etc.

Place the router in one end, lowest possible location. At the point where you have approx. 50% of max signal place the extender.

This is what I am talking about, Extender

 

[jonnythan]

Look online at the pricing of cable. I believe that Cat-6 is designed around gigabit ethernet which is the direction I would go. I'm not sure you can even find non Cat-5e cable anymore (cat-5).

5e was designed for gigabit ethernet. Cat6 is overkill IMO.

 

[warhummer]

Not entirely correct...

Cat 6 is designed for gigabyte ethernet and backward compatible with other network protocols. Cat 5e was (is) an improvement on normal Cat 5 cable to help reduce crosstalk over longer cable runs. The IEEE 802.3ab standard requires at a minimum Cat 5 cable however it is far less tolerant of poor cable quality and installation.

Bottom line, if I were to be running cable, I would spring for the Cat 6 to ensure a true gigabyte capability.