Including Ethernet When Rewiring a House

If I understand this correctly, the desktop is somehow routed through the AC mains?

Wired ethernet would probably give you a significant speed boost.

Eliminating the wireless systems reduces your odds of being hacked. At least by someone passing by or a very close neighbor.

Yes, the desktop and upstairs equipment are currently connected to the downstairs router via a pair of mains Ethernet adaptors. I'm not keen to eliminate the wireless side completely because i still take the laptop round the house. Also phones, tablets etc.

Be a good idea. Better yet would be a raceway. Conduit that wire can be pulled thru. This is because of the ever changing state of computers. 10 years from now that Ethernet card or cable maybe obsolete.

Not only, include fibre whilst you're at it. Accommodate the Future.

That's what I did with my house: ran low-voltage conduit from the unfinished basement to the second floor to distribute CATV and Network wiring. The first floor is easily accessible from the unfinished basement, so the cable there is simply bundled into cable organizers along the beams and joists until they head up to the low-voltage box.

I can add or change anything with almost zero effort, and the phone/cable/network feeds enter the building through a single pipe and go right to the 'network center,' from which they get distributed to wherever they need to go. There's even a pegboard section for securing the cable modem, wireless router and ethernet switches to, so the house wiring is simplicity itself: each room has a single cable that heads to the network center, any network maintenance is done at one location, no need to track down which ethernet switch splits off the feed from the kitchen to feed the upstairs back bedroom, any problems are either at the computer or at the network center, everywhere else is just dumb cable that can be replaced if/when it fails/becomes obsolete.

The rooms also look clean and tidy since the wiring is inside the walls, no surface-mounted raceways that need to be concealed. (I recomend using 'keystone' style faceplates, that way you can change configurations by simply swapping the keystones in the slots, instead of trying to find a faceplate that has the exact layout you need. They even have HDMI sockets in Keystones now, they didn't have that when I was laying out the initial wiring for the house.)

Yes, by all means. Use Cat 6 cable and you'll be ready for 1000X speed.

Wires are better in all cases, except going room to room while on-line.

Yes and I would use multiple CAT6 cables coupled with multi-use outlets so that your home is wired for cable TV, phone land line, and any other entertainment systems you might want to use.

Better try Li-Fi technology

Dunno if it's on the market :D

Been there. Done that. Regretted it.

A contrarian view. Look on this post as a kind of engineering opinion hedge fund. All of the answers so far are technically correct but remember Voltaire's dictum "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Based on experience, I'd stick with wireless.

When I was renovating my current house I had cat-5 installed for just the reasons you, and others, mention. The first contractor wasn't used to cat-5 in a domestic environment and there were a number of wire rubs and tell-tales on the examined wiring. That came out. Contractor #2 laid it properly, tested, working..... apart from the links that didn't work and needed replacing. Eventually, it all worked. Then the plasterers went in, after which some of it didn't work. After more hacking out wire and re-plastering (it had become something of a mission by now) the system worked.

It wasn't cheap though and in addition to the more complicated cat-5 installation itself there were things like chrome Cat-5 covers rather than the white plastic, a hidden patch panel, some electrical re-routing, extra chasing in the walls, more plastering and decorating.

And do you know what? I was the only one who used it. And when I did I got complaints that I was being irresponsible by leaving trailing cables to my laptop. Everyone else in the house just used the wireless network. With time, and as rooms were rearranged as spouses are wont to do, the cat-5 boxes were no longer in the optimal place which meant running wires along the skirting. That didn't go down well either.

After other occasional faults in the system I just gave up on it. The boxes have come out and been plastered-up, the patch panel went on eBay. Was it technically a better solution? Yes, definitely. But not enough to beat the convenience and ease of wireless. There's no noticeable speed difference for anything that we actually do: son on xBox live, partner streaming a movie, me on the laptop, all simultaneous, no difference.

So IMHO, you can install a great wired system in your house. But it will be expensive and inflexible. Sit down and ask yourself how much installing wire will actually add to what you want to do because that's kind of the point of any installation. Is it the best way of meeting your needs? And don't get seduced, as I did, by the 'perfect' way of doing it.

My house and workshop are all wired with Cat 5e and Cat 6 and I have never regretted it. I have used Homeplug powerline adapters to reach my workshop before burying ducts to cable it, they got me out of a hole, but they are not as reliable and the latency increases. Of course you will still need wireless for portable devices.

I would use Cat 6 for any new cabling but Cat 5e will still support 1Gbps Ethernet with the shorter cable lengths in a typical home. Cat 5 installations often have a lifespan of more than 20 years if installed correctly and many are running 1Gbps Ethernet and other services that were never envisioned when it was installed.

People have been saying copper is obsolete and fibre is the way to go for at least 20 years but this has not been the case. There is still no sign that copper is about to become obsolete and fibre is not viable to the desk except for the most exceptional applications.

Actually, to hedge your bet, run multiple cables instead of just one from room to room. That way, if some doofus drives a nail into one of the cables, you can just switch to an unaffected line. It may be cheap insurance, but redundancy frequently has significant advantages.

Wireless is OK for some things, but occasionally it will freak out security software and mess up your connection. If you connect to a Domain that has high security, you are likely to be bumped off. With a cable, this is not a problem.

I have an Ethernet cable to my DVR so I can stream movies to my telly! OK, that's one line, now what?

It may be the Chicago Boy in me talking, but I've never found the idea of any sensitive or vital cables just being burried in a wall to be a good idea. Run it in conduit and you have flexibility and ease of maintenance.The only wires I've got running through walls unseen and unprotected are the doorbell wires, and those are set up with terminal blocks so I can easily replace a section if it gets damaged, or reconfigure if the new doorbell works diferently from the old (such as replacing the basic 'bing-bong' solenoids with a 'musical' doorbell that now wants its 12v direct and it will power the button circuits itself, thankyouverymuch, or switching from the musical back to the solenoid-based system it won't stop playing 'take me out to the ball game' (especially when I know it was set for 'Westminster Chimes')).

I am most grateful for all your responses. My inclination is to go for copper cable in conduits, as the cost of all the media converters associated with the fibre choice remains prohibitive.

Sounds like a great choice to me.

The conduit will protect the cables, and if fiber-optic drops in price to where equipment stops having the copper cable connections, you can just pul the new line through the pipe to upgrade, no need to even mar the pain on the walls. (Unless, of course, you painted over a junction box cover between then and now.)

1. HDMI requires 2 x CAT5e cables - Unconfirmed information

2. Data requires 1 x CAT5e cables

3. Spare requires n x CAT5e cables

It maybe cheaper to run internal fibre to each termination. (Offices are know running fibre to 2 and 4 desk cluster.) Media convertors are down to $10 - $20 each.

Early HDMI interfaces needed 2 Cat5e cables but there is now a widely accepted standard - HDBaseT which operates over a single cable. The consortium's web site is: http://www.hdbaset.org/

This is the only Cat5e standard for HDMI that is interoperable between different manufacturers. In its latest form it now offers 5Play capability over a single cable up to 100m long.

• Video - HDMI supporting uncompressed 4K and HD
• Audio - via HDMI including most forms of surround sound
• 100m Ethernet including fall back to Ethernet only if an ordinary Ethernet device is connected
• Control via USB, RS232, CEC and infra red codes
• 100W dc power

Yes!

If you are re-wiring the entire house, then YES!!! run CAT-6 cables to all the rooms that you can afford. Also, in the areas where you may have more than one computer, lay in an extra line or two for future equipment additions. I have never regretted running CAT-5 and CAT 6 through my entire house and shop.

Here's a GOTCHA......... If you are going to have cameras or video running over your network, try to run them off a separate network and cabling. I have 2 PTZ cameras on my network and even at lower frame rates and resolutions I have severe latency issues. I will be working on putting the cameras on a different router or switch that is not on my computer / laptop network. Run all the data cabling to a specific closet or area in your house that wont be disturbed by you constantly moving cables and equipment. Mine is in the laundry room.

Use a mixed network with wired and wireless, that is my recommendation. Secure your wireless also! My system has had 100% up-time for the last 4 months since I finished all the cable installation and the wireless is the same.

If you have HDMI components, you may want to run some cabling for that too?

It's just money!!

Install it, configure it, utilize it, don't mess with it! This is my motto for data networks.

Good luck