Networking advice for new home..

madnav

madnav

Forerunner
Will be shifting to new place in a few months, currently under construction...
currently the wiring is being done and i would like to include a network cable concealed.

following is the footprint of the house..please use it only for the discussion :P


the red mark is the place in wall where all wires will have a junction and green marks are the possible application devices.

what i currently have in mind is having a network switch at red mark to serve all devices.
the green mark in living room will act as a media server for the network, preferably an HTPC of a media streamers like xtremer etc.. this would also have a wifi, external if not built in.

the doubt i'm having is whether to have the media server and wifi at the red mark or in the living room point ??!!

i have absolute no knowledge about wifi as of now so i dont know what are the constraints to consider before buying/using one.

wifi will be used only as a hot spot for laptops and pda and etc, the green marks in both bedrooms and living room will always be in wired config.

so how shall i go about it?
which cable shall i consider? cat5 or cat6 ?
which brand? it has to be durable.
 
Use CAT6 cable.

If your DSL modem will be at the red mark, then from a switch there, hook up wires to all the green points.

WiFi at the red mark should cover your full home. Which router are you looking at?
 
i do not have any router under consideration rightnow though.

i wont be using dsl most probably, will be regular lan based broadband.

the source cable would also be concealed in that case.

will get the cat6 concealed for now and look into it after painting is done.

do you have any specific router under consideration ?

or shall i dig this up when the necessity arises? (as performance/price will become better by the time ..)
 
update:

scrapped the idea of cat6 cabling.

the estimated total cable expenditure was exceeding 1.8k-2k range... simpler and manageable solution is adding wifi cards on the host computers thus will be going for complete wifi.
 
Thats a sensible idea, if you can manage wifi for all devices, that will be great. Keep one device wired as when wifi configuration goes wrong, you can oly reconfigure router/AP through physical connection. work on a strong security.
 
Madnav, you may have to spend more initially but a concealed wired CAT6 setup would be much better in the longer run. The speeds with CAT6 are absolutely fantastic and the connection is much more stable. Also, full HD streaming over Wi-Fi is not that smooth.

Secondly, many ISPs provide you with cheap (read less money :P) routers. They will be fine for casual browsing purposes.

PS: Also, CAT6 is much stronger than the regular CAT5 cable we use. So, it will be pretty stable for a longer period.
 
Sei said:
Madnav, you may have to spend more initially but a concealed wired CAT6 setup would be much better in the longer run. The speeds with CAT6 are absolutely fantastic and the connection is much more stable. Also, full HD streaming over Wi-Fi is not that smooth.

Secondly, many ISPs provide you with cheap (read less money :P) routers. They will be fine for casual browsing purposes.

PS: Also, CAT6 is much stronger than the regular CAT5 cable we use. So, it will be pretty stable for a longer period.
Click to expand...

the thing is that i would be buying a router anyways..

most probably for the downloading via usb thing.

total cable length was exceeding 75meters and the issue is that i do not plan to have a computer connected to each and every green point right from the start.

initially only the one in the living room and the bedroom one would be connected..but i would have to spend for cabling anyways.

one option i can have is a cat6 from router to the streaming server and other connections via cat5.

is there any estimated lifetime for cat5 and cat6 cables ?? im talking in terms of corrosion or physical factors.

also, what sort of speed improvements shall i expect for cat6 over cat5 ?

lastly for bandwidth over wifi...what is the maximum i can expect ? i mean.. i plan to have a budget of maximum 6k for 2cards and 1 wifi router (drt thing which can be modded to download without PC))
 
Actually it was me who requested madnav to update this thread as I am in a similar situation. At my new house (under construction), I would like to have a concealed wired network. Anyone got this done (especially in Mumbai). Please share your thoughts about how to go for this.

Thanks,

Bandu.
 
madnav said:
the thing is that i would be buying a router anyways..

most probably for the downloading via usb thing.

total cable length was exceeding 75meters and the issue is that i do not plan to have a computer connected to each and every green point right from the start.

initially only the one in the living room and the bedroom one would be connected..but i would have to spend for cabling anyways.

one option i can have is a cat6 from router to the streaming server and other connections via cat5.

is there any estimated lifetime for cat5 and cat6 cables ?? im talking in terms of corrosion or physical factors.

also, what sort of speed improvements shall i expect for cat6 over cat5 ?

lastly for bandwidth over wifi...what is the maximum i can expect ? i mean.. i plan to have a budget of maximum 6k for 2cards and 1 wifi router (drt thing which can be modded to download without PC))
Click to expand...

See, firstly you have to be sure whether you are ready for the drawbacks of going wireless.

There is always a lower speed combined with dark spots where you'll get less signals.

Wherever you are going to copy huge amounts of data or watch full HD movies off the network, your wireless network will be a pain in the ass.

Talking about CAT5 and CAT6, CAT5 offers upto 100 Mbps which translates to around 10-12 MBps data transfer speeds. CAT6 is Gigabit ethernet (1000 Mbps), though you are not going to get that much data transfer rates, but it will comfortably be in the range of 40MBps. Making an approximation here, but this is comfortably achieved. May be higher too.

Moreover CAT6, in simple words, is made of stronger stuff than CAT5. The crimping doesn't break that easily and has a long shelf life. In your case, it will run without any issues till the time wireless networks run in full glory or fibre optic cables are available at dirt cheap prices. :)

PS: Also, all your NICs (i.e. connection end points. for e.g. your LAN card in your PC) have to support Gigabit Ethernet in order to give you the speeds. That goes for Xtreamer/ PS3/XBox/PC.
 
Wireless is fine for browsing and downloading, but file sharing among connected devices is a pain. I have a hybrid network with wifi N dual band + wired gigabit. The most I have got on wifi N (both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz) is near about 9 MBps (theoretically good enough for 1080p streaming but bad for skipping/ fast forwarding, too much lag). Wired gigabit transfers easily reach 35/40 MBps. Since most rigs already come with integrated gigabit ports, it's a no brainer to go for a wired setup. Only hitch is you have to be pretty sure where you're going to place your connected devices.

Edit: Addendum to Sei's statement about wifi dead zones/ weak signals; I'm getting average 9MBps on a Edimax card with three antennas and 100% signal strength. Router's a Linksys WRT 600N dual band (one of the better N routers). I imagine weaker signals are going to make anything but browsing a real pain.
 
^ Exactly what I meant. The setup I have makes it really frustrating copying a HD movie from my wired comp over Wi-Fi to the laptop. And if I try viewing it over Wi-Fi, the playback is not smooth at all.

I've got a Belkin Wireless N series router and my ipod touch sometimes has difficulty picking up signals beyond 2 walls.. approximately 25 feet.. sad stuff but that is something you have to live with. I could go in for another access point but still, this is an issue with wireless devices.
 
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