A basic level of future-proof media wiring?

[Lucid]

I was going to ask the same thing, @Sureitsoff?

Triax TMDS 42C perhaps? It's about £70. https://www.triax.uk/products/satellite/multiswitches/dscr-multiswitches/tmds-42-c-dscr-add-on


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[plugwash]

Yeah, that is the one I found.

 

[martin hill]

We are already on Cat 7 tech so unless it for your usage dont bother. I have cat6 sockets in most rooms but we use them for lap top pc's gaming etc so was worth it.

 

[Lucid]

We are already on Cat 7 tech so unless it for your usage dont bother. I have cat6 sockets in most rooms but we use them for lap top pc's gaming etc so was worth it.

We might be; and Cat8 is here too. The thing is, unless someone is moving huge amounts of data within their own home network, then in reality all most people need is consistent access speeds to streaming data. In that respect then, the drive for ever faster-network speeds is being offset by advances compression algorithms.

For example, if you bought a UHD resolution IP CCTV camera, the raw data feed from is would require roughly 5000Mbps of network bandwidth. That's just one camera taking up 5Gbps of data space. Installing two of those would take up roughly the entire capacity of a 10Gbps Cat7 network with the 10Gbps network switches etc etc: Completely impractical and totally unsustainable.

Thanks to H.264 compression, the same camera needs roughly 12Mbps.

A domestic network running on Cat5e can provide a capacity of 1000Mbps.


The point here is there's a cost/benefit relationship that needs to be weighed up for domestic installs. Your point about Cat7 being available, and not bothering with data networking at all if it's not of immediate benefit for the homeowner is a good one. Probably the signal most valuable thing to provide isn't the cabling itself, but the conduit space to make running any cable easier in the future should the need arise.

 

[Keithmac]

I've not found a situation yet where our wifi hasn't coped, even with 3 laptops, Minix box 7 Sonos units in sync and both Xboxes cranking out Yotube.

I personally wouldn't add any "value" to a house for Cat6 cabling etc. Big gardens nice area and plenty of off street parking come much higher up the list..

 

[Lucid]

That could well be because the laptops will all read and store data in internal memory, same but to a lesser extent with the Android box and two XBoxes. Sonos runs on an independent 802.11b mesh network rather than using the Wi-Fi from your home router, and it's dealing with relatively small files and has 20 seconds of buffer time built in to each player.

Everything gives the appearance of seamless Wi-Fi connectivity, but in reality all Wi-Fi works by squirting a little stream of data at each device in turn then moving on to the next and the next and the next before coming back to the first device and repeating the process. MU-MIMO improves the situation if (and only if) the router and any Wi-Fi gear is compatible and there's only one device per geographic direction.

I would agree though that prospective house purchasers look first at the stuff they can understand and value easily.

 

[Keithmac]

Sonos only runs on it's own mesh (Sonosnet) if you have a device wired in via LAN port.

All mine are wireless and go through the router. Never had the need to change it over to Sonosnet as the router hasn't shown any problems.

 

[Wayneox]

Cat six is easy to run. It's cheap. 300m /30 quid. It won't add value. Just run to where you need it. I ran cables to my kids rooms a(future game consoles) and my bedroom (printer/laptop) what running CCTV.

Not worth the hassle unless the boards are up. The cables are easy to fish in the future ....

 

[Lucid]

Cat six is easy to run. It's cheap. 300m /30 quid. It won't add value. Just run to where you need it. I ran cables to my kids rooms a(future game consoles) and my bedroom (printer/laptop) what running CCTV.

Not worth the hassle unless the boards are up. The cables are easy to fish in the future ....

BIB: If you're buying 305m reels of CAT6 for £30 new then you ain't buying solid copper cable, and if it ain't solid copper then it has no right to be called CAT6 - or CAT-anything. The CAT specs don't include crappy CCA - Copper Clad Aluminium. It's that simple.

This doesn't stop unscrupulous resellers calling it CAT6, of course, but it's nothing more than a cheap knock-off imitation product.

There are several reasons to avoid CCA such as higher resistance which causes packet loss, but the two things I noticed on a job where the spark had run CCA were the cable breaks and how much of a basket it was to terminate. Because other trades had been trampling on- and moving- the cable since first fix, some of it developed breaks which then ended up buried in-wall or under floors. They only came to light when the cables were tested after all the surface finishes were complete. That's an expensive time to find that a quarter of your home network cabling is useless.

 

[Wayneox]

BIB: If you're buying 305m reels of CAT6 for £30 new then you ain't buying solid copper cable, .

Looking at listings, I think I may of got lucky with a pricing error ( I got a couple of boxes at the time. ) I see is now about 50 -100 quid. But the point still stands. No point wasting the time and effort as it won't add value.

I've still got about 2000 meters of the cable as I'm using it for CCTV installation etc.

 

[Lucid]

Looking at listings, I think I may of got lucky with a pricing error ( I got a couple of boxes at the time. ) I see is now about 50 -100 quid. But the point still stands. No point wasting the time and effort as it won't add value.

I've still got about 2000 meters of the cable as I'm using it for CCTV installation etc.

Whether it adds value or not very much depends on the householder and, to some degree, the value of the house too. As I already listed in the reply to his original enquiry, which is in another part of this forum, for someone spending say £1-£2 million or maybe more on a newly-refurbished property, it might be a feature that's expected in the same way that a Quooker tap or a steam oven or electric charging points for the cars are expected. The cost to provide it within the budget for the refurb' is insignificant when weighed against the risk of potentially losing a sale or having to adjust the price down because it's not there.

For someone in the OP's situation, where they aren't likely to use it themselves, and a house sale isn't on the immediate agenda, and maybe the house is priced more in-line with a typical three-bed family dwelling, then it's harder to make the case, and I'd agree that on its own it won't add a significant lift to the value of the property. Then again, where the boards are up and walls are open, it costs very little to add, and the network points don't need to have faceplates fitted.

 

[Wayneox]

True. My son won't need a cable in his room for a couple of years. But I fed the cable through still as I had to feed the living room anyway. (The drop is in the floorspace in his room) ... I haven't put anything on the end other than a rj45 (patch panel is connected by router, but unplugged)...

That said, I've been evicted from our main living room as he's always got his Xbox on ,

 

[Lucid]

I've got one particular customer where it's a family of 5 with three teenage kids all gaming mad or streaming and running phones and tablets too. The crappy VM wireless router couldn't cope well enough when they were playing FPS games online.

The thing is, he wasn't keen on paying for a better wireless solution because, in his mind, he already had wireless. Luckily we had floors and ceilings open to run speaker cables, so throwing in some Ethernet cable to get the kids a wired connection to each of their consoles was no big hassle and not much different in price to a good MU-MIMO router. It lifted the load off the wireless.

 

[Wayneox]

I've got one particular customer where it's a family of 5 with three teenage kids all gaming mad or streaming and running phones and tablets too. The crappy VM wireless router couldn't cope well enough when they were playing FPS games online.

The thing is, he wasn't keen on paying for a better wireless solution because, in his mind, he already had wireless. Luckily we had floors and ceilings open to run speaker cables, so throwing in some Ethernet cable to get the kids a wired connection to each of their consoles was no big hassle and not much different in price to a good MU-MIMO router. It lifted the load off the wireless.

Well the brick in my house has so much metal and crap mixed into it that its like a Faraday cage. I did have WiFi repeaters but in the long run power will cost more than the cable. I ran two feeds to downstairs rooms which can be spilt to two each . The kids bedrooms just have one, which can both be two. If need be I can fit one of my many old routers up in the rooms but I doubt it'll ever be needed.

 

[Lucid]

Yep.

Well the brick in my house has so much metal and crap mixed into it that its like a Faraday cage. I did have WiFi repeaters but in the long run power will cost more than the cable. I ran two feeds to downstairs rooms which can be spilt to two each . The kids bedrooms just have one, which can both be two. If need be I can fit one of my many old routers up in the rooms but I doubt it'll ever be needed.

You kinda hit the nail on the head there because wireless is affected by all sorts of things, some of which aren't immediately obvious. This is why end-user reviews on anything relying on radio waves such as indoor aerials or wireless repeaters get such mixed results. Someone in another forum I frequent was asking about wireless video senders. In one review I read, the buyer said the gear he purchased wouldn't work in his house, but worked just fine at a friend's place so he has given it to them.

A bit of copper cable rarely has these issues: if it's fitted right it just works, and keeps on working.