Networking the home

[net_bh]

I live in a 3h+k apartment. I would like to run ethernet cat-5 cables throughout the house. Does anybody have experience with this?

Can this be run through the electrical 'junction' boxes present at the top of the walls in various locations? I would like it to be concealed. I could run it through the skirting strips along the walls, but it doesn't seem efficient.

Also, what is the Finnish word I should be looking for in the Yellow pages to look for people who do this sort of stuff?

TIA.

[network_engineer]

Hi!

Short reply: There are minimum best practices while laying cables alongside power cables, and running data cables thorough the same duct in the same proximity (as I imagine you are talking of) is not one of them. Nor is it efficient to run skirting strips along since there is are guidelines for the wire-bend of these cables.

Is there a particular reason that you need the wired network for (such as for connecting routers or non-standard equipment)? Keeping the above in mind, you can still achieve the goal (as I understand it) for a networked apartment, i.e. an easier and cleaner solution to this would be to set up a wireless network. Wireless cards are also available for older desktops (PCI cards haven't checked for an ISA yet but *most* PC today would have PCI). Depending on the size of the house, you can get "wireless range extenders" and high gain antenna, but I really doubt if you would need it. I have my networking gear set up in my work room downstairs and we get good coverage all over the house and beyond with a decent standard setup. If there is something that concerns you about a wireless networks, feel free to ask.

Kind regards.

[Hank W.]

Yeah, new flats have sometimes the cabling built in, but for example I just have cables snaking behind the sofa and bookshelves. Isn't "neat" but if I was renovating I'd still contemplate against wiring the skirting boards - unless I wanted to spend silly amounts of money... The wireless is the best option... I mean there are now a few routers you can "plug in" to the electricity outlets but thats still a bit iffy - and again we are talking about silly money. The wireless these days is faster and cheaper and far more practical when it was first introduced. I am just being cheap and lazy (and had leftover cable)

[jay.233]

Yes wireless router is the best solution. As far as range is concern. U need not worry. we have one friends in the 1st floor and mine in the 2nd floor where the router is located and we have no problems regarding the signal.

And yes u have USB external wireless. Hope ur system supports wifi.

[net_bh]

Thanks for all the replies.

Wireless is not an option for the following reasons:

1. Bandwidth - I have a mediacenter that streams music and videos to PCs, laptops and handheld gadgets throughout the house. Yes, I have several of each due to the nature of my work. It also acts as a fileserver. For videos, I have found wireless to be unreliable at best, unusable at worst. Even with 802.11g, inspite of what is advertised, the practical maximum is 20Mbps, and you rarely get more than 10 with all the interference.

2. Flexibility - While wireless might seem very flexible, it requires an adapter on the clients. Unfortunately, my network printer and scanner don't have those. Nor does the Xbox. So I would have to keep it plugged into the router. Which means it can't be 'anywhere' in the home. Running ethernet to every room will allow me to spread these things around.

3. Cost - I will have to buy a wireless adapter for every PC and the Xbox.

4. Reliability - I don't want to depend on a network that barfs everytime the microwave is turned on, of if a neighbour configures a network on the same channel, or weather conditions.

5. Bandwidth - Did I mention bandwidth? Several times a day, I sync/backup stuff across the local network. This kind of data transfer slows down all other local network and internet access significantly. Switched ethernet is great for this stuff since the other nodes don't get afffected.

BTW, I already have a wireless network for casual surfing and range is not a problem.

Thanks.

[Jukka Aho]

I live in a 3h+k apartment. I would like to run ethernet cat-5 cables throughout the house. Does anybody have experience with this?

We wired my parents’ home for CAT-5 almost ten years ago. They’ve been very happy with their high-speed reliable wired home network. There are 8 Ethernet outlets around the house (actually, 16 Ethernet jacks, since we bought outlets that had two jacks on them): two jacks in each bedroom, two jacks in the study, two jacks in the kitchen and four jacks in the living room (two and two on roughly the opposite corners of the room, or so.)

We had the benefit of installing it under the floor, in dedicated PVC conduits, though... (the house was being repaired because of water damage: the old floor slab had been dismantled and was being reconstructed at the time, so we had free access under the floor... and figured that it’s now or never!)

Can this be run through the electrical 'junction' boxes present at the top of the walls in various locations? I would like it to be concealed. I could run it through the skirting strips along the walls, but it doesn't seem efficient.

Running CAT-5 in conduits and boxes that are occupied by electrical cabling is not recommended. (Is that even legal?)

If you do the installation “by the book”, there’s a certain minimal distance you should adhere to when running CAT-5 parallel to electrical cabling. It is also recommended that CAT-5 should cross electrical cabling at a 90° angle, if possible, and there are other restrictions and recommendations as well. See the following links for more information:

• Structured Cabling for the Home
• Installing Category 6 – the new pitfalls
• Structured Home Network Wiring Project
• Home Wiring Project
• Wiring your network

Also, what is the Finnish word I should be looking for in the Yellow pages to look for people who do this sort of stuff?

Lähiverkkoasennus, lähiverkkoasennukset, sähköliike, sähköasennusliike, sähköasentaja, sähköasennuksia. Any company dealing with electrical installations, basically, although some of them are probably more experienced with LANs than the others. Here’s a Finnish company that specializes on LANs: Tietosähkö. (It’s perfectly doable as a DIY project, though, and there’s lots of information on the web as you can see from the above links.)

Edit: To whet your appetite, see this site and keep clicking on the “skip this image” link located on the navigation bar below the picture.

[network_engineer]

Hi!

You can get a wired network done, but to be honest, it is not the easiest. No, you should not run it alongside electrical cables. If you want it all hidden, then I assume cost is not a major factor, i.e. not sure how cheap it would be. Do you have walls that you can take apart? If so, remove the walls and then create new ducts for laying the data cables. Preferably use cables (Class F) suited for 10GBASE-T.

Sorry, but its been almost a century since I worked in the cabling area, but if you have specific questions on laying the cables or reducing the EMI and crosstalk, I can try and help. Hope it works out for you.

Cheers.

PS: As regards the network printer and scanner etc. there are certain options, such as a wireless printserver. For the XBox, maybe something like this?

[net_bh]

Hi!

You can get a wired network done, but to be honest, it is not the easiest. No, you should not run it alongside electrical cables. If you want it all hidden, then I assume cost is not a major factor, i.e. not sure how cheap it would be. Do you have walls that you can take apart? If so, remove the walls and then create new ducts for laying the data cables. Preferably use cables (Class F) suited for 10GBASE-T.

PS: As regards the network printer and scanner etc. there are certain options, such as a wireless printserver. For the XBox, maybe something like this?

I was hoping that it would be cheaper to run cable through existing ducts with 'proper' shielding. Looks like it might be cheaper to buy wireless accessories. Suggestions about ripping out walls aren't going to go down well with the spouse.

I live in a 3h+k apartment. I would like to run ethernet cat-5 cables throughout the house. Does anybody have experience with this?

We wired my parents’ home for CAT-5 almost ten years ago. They’ve been very happy with their high-speed reliable wired home network. There are 8 Ethernet outlets around the house (actually, 16 Ethernet jacks, since we bought outlets that had two jacks on them): two jacks in each bedroom, two jacks in the study, two jacks in the kitchen and four jacks in the living room (two and two on roughly the opposite corners of the room, or so.)

We had the benefit of installing it under the floor, in dedicated PVC conduits, though... (the house was being repaired because of water damage: the old floor slab had been dismantled and was being reconstructed at the time, so we had free access under the floor... and figured that it’s now or never!)

That is exactly what I was hoping to achieve. I understand networks, but I am ignorant about construction and wiring. Looks like I have to wait 10 years to do this.

Can this be run through the electrical 'junction' boxes present at the top of the walls in various locations? I would like it to be concealed. I could run it through the skirting strips along the walls, but it doesn't seem efficient.

Running CAT-5 in conduits and boxes that are occupied by electrical cabling is not recommended. (Is that even legal?)

If you do the installation “by the book”, there’s a certain minimal distance you should adhere to when running CAT-5 parallel to electrical cabling. It is also recommended that CAT-5 should cross electrical cabling at a 90° angle, if possible, and there are other restrictions and recommendations as well. See the following links for more information:

• Structured Cabling for the Home
• Installing Category 6 – the new pitfalls
• Structured Home Network Wiring Project
• Home Wiring Project
• Wiring your network

Thanks for these links. I am not sure about Finnish electrical laws. I will google around for recommendations for running electrical lines and CAT-5e.

Also, what is the Finnish word I should be looking for in the Yellow pages to look for people who do this sort of stuff?

Lähiverkkoasennus, lähiverkkoasennukset, sähköliike, sähköasennusliike, sähköasentaja, sähköasennuksia. Any company dealing with electrical installations, basically, although some of them are probably more experienced with LANs than the others. Here’s a Finnish company that specializes on LANs: Tietosähkö. (It’s perfectly doable as a DIY project, though, and there’s lots of information on the web as you can see from the above links.)

Edit: To whet your appetite, see this site and keep clicking on the “skip this image” link located on the navigation bar below the picture.

Nice website. I think I will ask a professional to come down and make a recommendation whether Cat-5e can be installed in the current setting.

Thanks everyone.

[Jukka Aho]

I was hoping that it would be cheaper to run cable through existing ducts with 'proper' shielding. Looks like it might be cheaper to buy wireless accessories. Suggestions about ripping out walls aren't going to go down well with the spouse.

There are special hollow skirting boards which can be used for hiding the cables. See this and this Google search for more information and discussion, or contact your local carpenter shop. Also, even a surface-mount plastic cable raceway of suitable color (johtokouru or johtolista in Finnish) can make things look neat and tidy.

If it was a rowhouse or a detached home, you could possibly route (some of) the cables via attic, but that’s probably not a possibility in this case, since you said it’s an apartment. (Sometimes ventilation ducts can be used, too, and some apartment houses have had a house-wide LAN installed later through the outer wall, as a part of some kind of house-wide renovation and refinishing project. If any such improvement project is looming in the following years – i.e. if they’re going to install new plumbing, new RF cables for distributing TV signals, etc. – LAN cabling could be installed in each apartment at the same time cheaply at almost the same cost.)

You could possibly re-use the conduits installed for telephone wiring, though, since CAT-5 or CAT-6 cable can be used for old-fashioned phones, too (should the need for that ever arise again.) The problem with this approach is that the topology of the existing wiring / conduits is probably a “rat’s nest” of some sort, and not a neat “star” as required by twisted-pair Ethernet, so you’ll have to improvise.

Can this be run through the electrical 'junction' boxes present at the top of the walls in various locations? I would like it to be concealed. I could run it through the skirting strips along the walls, but it doesn't seem efficient.

Running CAT-5 in conduits and boxes that are occupied by electrical cabling is not recommended. (Is that even legal?)

Thanks for these links. I am not sure about Finnish electrical laws. I will google around for recommendations for running electrical lines and CAT-5e.

Couldn’t find an authoritative source, but according to the FAQ of the sfnet.harrastus.audio+video newsgroup, the regulations don’t allow low-voltage signal wires in the same conduits as high-voltage electrical wiring.

[Jukka Aho]

(Removed a duplicate post. Where’s the “delete” button these days?)

[raamv]

I suggest going to cat-6 instead of cat-5. Give you a gigabit ethernet backbone.
Also, Have you tried the possibilites of using the Electrical outlet as an Ethernet connector?
http://www.netgear.co.uk/wallplugged_et ... hdx101.php
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Mod ... &U=strat15
and more here :
http://www.myshopping.com.au/PT--42_Net ... s__fs_p4_e__

[Jukka Aho]

I suggest going to cat-6 instead of cat-5. Give you a gigabit ethernet backbone.

Yep, if one is going to pull cable, it’s reasonable to use the best category there is... so you don’t have to rip it out and replace with another type in a couple of years...

Also, Have you tried the possibilites of using the Electrical outlet as an Ethernet connector?

There’s also the HomePNA... which was originally about building a LAN over the existing phone wiring, but now caters for coax cabling, too. (The speed of a HomePNA network is pretty low, though... and both the HomePlug and HomePNA are only interim bandaid technologies for those who want a LAN but don’t want to actually wire their home for one... just yet. :)

[raamv]

There’s also the HomePNA... which was originally about building a LAN over the existing phone wiring, but now caters for coax cabling, too. (The speed of a HomePNA network is pretty low, though... and both the HomePlug and HomePNA are only interim bandaid technologies for those who want a LAN but don’t want to actually wire their home for one... just yet.

yes but no.. Unless there are Phone sockets in every room, then the homePNA option is not that good and combine it with its speed, makes it more ineffecient than the wireless option..but then there are also Dual antenna wireless-G router that increases the speed to 108MBPs..if that is enuff or not depends on the traffic..