Which ethernet cable?

[L&LD]

If my router covers my whole house from the living room, should I just leave the router there, and have the switch, with all the cables in another room where it's not a visible mess to my wife?

Like I've already stated, have 6 or more LAN runs to the optimal location for your router. (The number of runs for me would be 10 or more; I plan on having an 8 port router like the RT-AC88U, eventually).

What you want is each port to have it's own cable run. These runs should still all be in another part of the home where you can add more network equipment as needed (including more switches).

Depends how you have your router and/or switches setup with how much of a visible mess it will be.

I like a customer who built a pedestal for his router in the optimum location in his office. He hid everything but the antennae inside the pedestal (which was about 7' tall) along with a fake plant which camouflaged the antennae very well. Two 16 port switches and all the electrical cables and power supplies were also effectively hidden inside too.

I would not recommend to have the living room be the termination point for all the cable runs. But I would recommend that all the ports on the main router in that room be used, if you have the wired clients to do so.

 

[KenZ71]

Being an online forum lots of opinions can be found.

For me, I searched Amazon for RJ45 Crimp Tool and bought the package deal for about $15 with a crimper, tester and a bag full of ends. The tester is the best part, no need to hire anyone.

As for phone, again my opinion, get magic jack or net talk & run phone lines or fax over ethernet. A standard phone plug will work just fine in a standard RJ45. Well labeled cables help here. For example, kitchen wall phone is plugged into Red ethernet. At the switch side Red ethernet goes to a phone splitter that is plugged into magic jack.works for me, wife thinks we have Verizon for landline.

 

[Blazerfan]

Like I've already stated, have 6 or more LAN runs to the optimal location for your router. (The number of runs for me would be 10 or more; I plan on having an 8 port router like the RT-AC88U, eventually).

What you want is each port to have it's own cable run. These runs should still all be in another part of the home where you can add more network equipment as needed (including more switches).

Depends how you have your router and/or switches setup with how much of a visible mess it will be.

I like a customer who built a pedestal for his router in the optimum location in his office. He hid everything but the antennae inside the pedestal (which was about 7' tall) along with a fake plant which camouflaged the antennae very well. Two 16 port switches and all the electrical cables and power supplies were also effectively hidden inside too.

I would not recommend to have the living room be the termination point for all the cable runs. But I would recommend that all the ports on the main router in that room be used, if you have the wired clients to do so.

Okay thanks for all the info. Much appreciated!

 

[CaptainSTX]

If my router covers my whole house from the living room, should I just leave the router there, and have the switch, with all the cables in another room where it's not a visible mess to my wife?

Yes you can do that and live happily ever after.

If I were setting it up that way I would locate your cable modem in close proximity to where you are going to locate the central cable terminations point then use one cable run to the living to connect the WAN port on your modem to the WAN port on your router. Then use a separate cable run from the living room connecting a LAN port on your router to any LAN port on your switch. If you don't want to use two cable runs then install the modem next to your router.

The main disadvantages to not locating all your network equipment in the same room is they all can't be connected to a single UPS and when trouble shooting network problems you will have to move back and forth between rooms.

PS: Another tip to maintain martial harmony if you do purchase a UPS be sure it offers the feature to disable any power failure alarms. When your wife gets woken up in the middle of the night to the beeping of your UPS it is very hard to win the argument that having a UPS is beneficial to a smoothly functioning network.

 

[hacked_up]

I vote CAT6 its cheap for a 1000ft if you need that much http://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=102&cp_id=10234&cs_id=1023401&p_id=8103&seq=1&format=2

 

[cobra_shipwreck]

If my router covers my whole house from the living room, should I just leave the router there, and have the switch, with all the cables in another room where it's not a visible mess to my wife?

Pick a closet or under stairs nook and make that your wiring center. To make your life easier merely run conduit vertically into your attic so you can run extra drops if necessary in the future to that central spot. If you run conduit first then feed cables in that with sufficient size for extra drops if needed you will have very cheaply future proofed your home.