How many cable runs per room for new construction?

[Ed L]

Thanks for the kind words, Ed. I hope to restart reviews next month.

That is really great news.

I'll say the same thing to you that I said to Bill & Rebecca of RadioParadise.com (another heritage internet site): I pray you do this for as long as you want to - and exactly no longer. But for as long as you do, there will be people out here grateful for it.

btw, I'm in the process of building a house. So if you're looking for article ideas ;-), something about state of the art (but bang for the buck) network design for new house builds in 2021 might valuable to a decent audience and even for some time to come.

Thanks again!
Ed

 

[thiggins]

Best advice I can give you for new home design is to not skimp on CAT6 cabling. Make sure it is run (two cables are better than 1) to any location where you want high, reliable bandwidth. Make sure all cables terminate in a room adjacent to an outside wall at the point where cable/fiber service will enter the home. This is usually near where power enters.

Something I wish I'd done was to install a PVC pipe running from the eauipment room to the attic. Would have been helpful when I needed to install an OTA antenna in the attic.

 

[L&LD]

And I would add that four cable runs are better than two for maximum network placement and optimization flexibility.

If anyone has the chance to run their own cables and have a 'professional' only properly terminate and test them, the additional cost of running 4x vs. 1 cable run is negligibly small vs. the cost of the overall project. The network flexibility gained is enormous and the network can be configured exactly as needed (for the current and any future owner too).

 

[thiggins]

And I would add that four cable runs are better than two for maximum network placement and optimization flexibility.

Could you give me an example where you would use four runs?

 

[L&LD]

Anywhere the homeowner would want the main router at a certain location. Or, if there is a need to segregate the backhaul from the main network's traffic (via a separate switch at the main panel in the basement/demarcation location and where all runs go) if the main LAN is heavily used.

Just the option of getting dual WAN (anywhere) or LAG to specific devices without needing to run more cables is more than worth the small cost of the cables themselves. Particularly when you can do so and keep the equipment in the room(s) where you want it.

 

[RMerlin]

Four runs is incredibly wasteful and unnecessary. You are talking very, very rare niche cases here.

 

[L&LD]

When a customer pays even one hundred grand to a quarter-million or more on a new home, the cost is negligible, even if they run 4 or more cables to every room themselves. I'm not suggesting that each room needs 4+ runs, but 'media rooms', 'offices', 'dens', etc., and anywhere that the router can be centrally placed for the areas to be covered are all candidates.

No one knows how the rooms will be used a decade down the road. But they do know that ripping out all the walls will cost almost as much as the house they built today and won't' look half as pretty. Networks are not a side consideration today. They are the main thing.

And of course, the cost isn't fixed, depending on the size of the home.

People call me to move their office around to 'freshen things up', even within the same space. Options are never wasted or unnecessary when the cost to do so is also reasonable.

 

[RMerlin]

When a customer pays even one hundred grand to a quarter-million or more on a new home, the cost is negligible,

It's not purely a matter of money. If you spend 5$ on food and you throw half of it away, it's still wasted even though it costs you the same regardless. It's a matter of wasting materials and resources. Current society is wasteful enough as it is.

Having more Ethernet runs than you have electric outlets in a home makes no sense. An average home room has two outlets, maybe three if it's an especially large room.

And nobody is going to re-open a wall 5 years later to bring down out one of those extra wires. This isn't an office with suspended ceilings. And terminating all of them means you'd need to have a 24-48 ports LAN switch to connect them - again, not something an average home user will want to have.

1-2 is what everyone else goes with. Beyond that, use a network switch.

 

[ricky124]

Interesting views on cable runs. I hope I can run just one cable for my home but wireless performs about the same for my use cases. If I build a home, I would definitely consider the two cable approach as suggested. However, I wouldn’t see a use for four, but hey, never say never.

 

[L&LD]

@RMerlin, I don't want to belabor this point, but food spoils and I agree that is a waste. Everything else can be used, reused, and eventually recycled as needed.

I am starting from the point that 2 runs will be available everywhere, by default. That is only an additional 2 runs to make specific 'important' locations 4 runs total.

With $500 (easily) buying you 1000' quality Cat6a cable, you're able to wire up to 5 more locations with 4 Ethernet runs total. This is what makes the cost so negligible. And makes the home network backbone so much more useful long after the walls are sealed, painted, and finished.

 

[dosborne]

Or simply a decent sized conduit top to bottom, one end to another. No need to pull wires you may or may not use as specs may change

 

[RMerlin]

With $500 (easily) buying you 1000' quality Cat6a cable, you're able to wire up to 5 more locations with 4 Ethernet runs total. This is what makes the cost so negligible. And makes the home network backbone so much more useful long after the walls are sealed, painted, and finished.

Add labor to that, as I assume you don't want to leave those cables hanging behind a closed wall, and will want to terminate them into wall plates. And you'll have to deal with a cable bundle that will be twice as thick at your concentrator location, and a patch panel that will need to be able to handle twice as many connections, and these will all need to be punched in then tested individually.

I used to do cable runs for my own customers, so I have plenty of first-hand experience doing it. I can tell you that running more drops isn't THAT simple. To run four drops to a room you'd need to have four separate boxes of cable to pull, or re-run them multiple times, which will double the work time. I highly doubt that the average installer will bring four separate boxes of cable on site when cabling just a simple house.

So from a purely financial point of view, it will cost more than just the extra cable. And it's still a waste considering how unlikely you are to ever need that. Let's face it, homes are increasingly moving to wireless, not Ethernet. And a 5 ports Ethernet switch costs about 20$ these days.

 

[L&LD]

For the labor to run the cables and secure them, I'm assuming most homeowners are capable of that. The termination too, some of them can do.

Even with a single box, you can pull 4 runs out before snaking them through where they need to go.

The cost, even with all the above not optimally performed, is still negligible overall and in view of the increased flexibility in how a home network is set up. Even for mostly wireless uses.

For example, with greater than 1Gbps ISP speeds becoming increasingly available, and the latest routers such as the RT-AX86U offering 2.5GbE Ports for backhaul use, multiple runs are more necessary than ever if anyone wants to get those higher speeds without their backbone becoming the pinch point.

Switches are great to add client devices with, but they don't work so well when the highest speeds are also needed and 1Gbps ISP speeds are contending with LAN requirements too.

And L3 switches and VLANs? More complex, less stable for the average homeowner, and much more expensive than a roll of cable they can pull themselves to critical points in the home.

 

[dev_null]

As a homeowner whose current and previous houses were wired with structured wiring at the time they were built, I'd offer my opinion.

My current house has structured wiring to every inside wall - two network connections and two coax (the network double as phone, depending on how they're connected in the basement panel).

My previous house was also structure-wired, but with only one set of two connections per room.

In the previous house the setup the original owners had was not compatible with ours, so we had cables running along several walls (tucked under baseboard), whereas in our current house, connectivity is but a few feet away in every instance.

My recommendation is to wire every inside wall with at least 2 of each type of connectivity. Structured wire bundles mean you can pull these through in a relatively easy manner.

One final observation: in my current house, the builder/original owner had the foresight to put this same connectivity *in the hallway* in two locations, alongside an electrical outlet. This enabled me to put the router centrally, thus nearly eliminating the need for a mesh/extension. At the previous house, I had to "borrow" one of the connections from a bedroom to accomplish this.

Lesson: put connections in the hallway too (and for that matter, in the kitchen in a couple of places, the laundry room, all the inside walls in the basement, and last - coax connections in the bathroom in case you want to put a TV in there... um, for catching the weather in the morning... (that's my reason and I'm sticking to it).

Too many is never enough, and you're not going to remodel just to pull more cable.

 

[Clark Griswald]

15 years ago, I had an electrical/telco company design and install a 2-RG6 & 2-Cat 5e bundle to all bedrooms and both FR/LR. My only regret is that I didn't have drops to the kitchen, cabana, and like @dev_null suggested the master bathroom, yet not for weather, rather for The Wife's bath time.
If I were to do a home wiring, I suggest Cat 6, a quality server rack, and a dedicated space to accommodate your equipment.
EDIT: Understanding that most devices are wireless, being hardwired is flawless for streaming to multiple TVs and computer use/backups.

 

[L&LD]

With a customer having 1Gbps symmetrical Fibre ISP to their newly built home, they thought they were set. When I asked to tag along the next time they were going to see it so I could recommend them a few wiring options, they thought I was just being polite and curious to see their new home (yes, they told me this, earlier today).

Today, I am called to their finished home and am supposed to figure out why Wi-Fi isn't 'great'.

4 stories, with basement. ISP connection on the 'wrong' end/side of the building. And almost behind the furnace/water heater too.

No Ethernet runs anywhere.

Putting in a wired 'AiMesh Router in AP mode' on the first floor helped immensely, but I wouldn't call how it was done pretty or elegant though (I don't do that part of the job).


But the regret of their failure to realize what I had (tried to) offer them just mere months before was discouraging for me.

They were pleasantly surprised that they could return 3 'extenders' that the ISP was charging monthly for (the RT-AX86U will pay for itself in mere months).

And even more surprised that the speeds and latency were far better with a single 'extender' (the RT-AX86U) than the three ISP-provided units that I disconnected and put in a box for them.



Wireless is the future. (If they needed wired connections at this point, Media Bridges would be used as required).

But wired backhaul is still the only way to get there for the highest speeds, the lowest latency, and the fewest 'APs' needed too.

Did I make this work? Sure.

Could it be better?

Ask the users on the 3rd and 4th floors.

 

[Techaj]

Here is my approach to laying a home infrastructure in 2021, which varies based on three key items. I also have several other things that I consider (construction type, location, weather, phones, multiple structures, etc.), but I am going to focus on the key items.

1. Budget - What is your overall budget? You can always upgrade hardware later, but infrastructure is key at the time of construction, as cost/time/effort goes up if you install later.
2. Size of the home
3. ISP and Functionality required


The first item is your ISP and/or Cable provider.
1. Check to see what speeds are available in your area, and what your budget will allow.
2. Decide on how you plan to deliver television content to each of displays - Set top box or online service. Most of the large cable companies are getting away from set top boxes, and moving to an APP.

Laying out the primary network in your home.
The first spot is your MDF (Main Distribution Frame), which typically consists of a wiring rack that connects your internal cabling with the private lines or services coming into the home. I also recommend installing a patch panel opposed to using crimp-on ends.

Install Cat6 cabling to the following locations, and label all connections. You will have some locations with a single drop, and others that will need more than one.
1. Location of wireless access point(s) or wireless router(s) (WAP(S) or AI-Mesh) to provide proper coverage inside and outside the home (garage, patio, pool area, porch, etc.)
2. Location of all stationary displays (TVs)
3. Location of all game consoles
4. Location of all camera's (PoE (Power over Ethernet) is highly recommended)
5. Location of all IoT devices that can be wired - Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings Hub, Door Access, Surround Sound Systems, Apple, TV, etc.
6. Location of stationary computer systems -- Office, Bedrooms, Breakfast nook, etc.
7. Location of printers (Recommend hard wiring printers)
8. Location of any other network devices -- NAS, Work out equipment, Appliances, etc.

Install Coax cabling to setup top box locations if required by your cable or satellite provider. I just moved away from set top boxes in 2020, and no longer have a need for Coax in my home.

Primary Equipment
1. Router - Make sure your primary router can support your Internet speed.
2. Install a Gigabit network switch to support the connections above -- Switches are typically 5, 8, 24 or 48 port. If you are planning to install WAPS, camera's, VoIP phone(s), or devices that support PoE, make sure you purchase a PoE switch.
3. Build out your home network from here....

Wireless is nice to have, but I prefer to hard wire all my primary equipment.

 

[Clark Griswald]

@Techaj
Thank you for the great advice, pic & +1 on the LABEL All Connections!
I would suggest 10Gb hardware. When I did my house, people said gigabit wiring was overkill, yet now I am adding Cat 6 drops to enhance my NAS backups/transfers.

 

[Greg72]

And I would add that four cable runs are better than two for maximum network placement and optimization flexibility.

If anyone has the chance to run their own cables and have a 'professional' only properly terminate and test them, the additional cost of running 4x vs. 1 cable run is negligibly small vs. the cost of the overall project. The network flexibility gained is enormous and the network can be configured exactly as needed (for the current and any future owner too).

A 100 grand would not even be much. There is no need to run four ethernet lines to each room. A unmanaged switch will do the job just fine where you will have multiple devices connected to Ethernet.

You will find the majority of homes in the price range you mentioned if lucky to have one single Ethernet and multiple coax runs in the house. A quarter Million house is not anything and would not be wired for Enterprise applications.

I have only had one case that I had two rooms with two runs, all other rooms that had Ethernet ran was a single. In my current place I have one, one run with a rt-68u in AP mode without the radios on to have it act as a switch. Our front room is the Gateway and. switch with the one run going to the wall for the other.

ain other words, the rest of my place and future places will be 99.99% wifi and only those devices in the Living Room will be wired.

 

[Greg72]

Interesting views on cable runs. I hope I can run just one cable for my home but wireless performs about the same for my use cases. If I build a home, I would definitely consider the two cable approach as suggested. However, I wouldn’t see a use for four, but hey, never say never.

I see around 700mbps on my wifi on the Comcast xb6 that I have and have no problems getting wifi to all rooms for decent speeds. Location, location, location and understanding the environment.

A room that may be a home office, the Living Room or Family room and if needed, you put one or a couple of AP’s on the ceiling that are powered by POE. Location of the equipment can go in the laundry area, Basement or Utility room.

I would never let the builder just throw in Ethernet or Coax without specific instructions and have them use Octopus Cables for each drop. Even with just coax, MoCA is the best distribution.