Does it make any sense to have telephone jacks in every room of the house?

[steppinthrax]

I decided to rip them out. I honestly didn't see the need for RJ-45 in every room. The only benefit I see is if I need to send a massively large file (internally) from one computer to another (that is if I'm using desktop machines LOL). I will probably get rid of my only desktop pc soon. I imagine we will maybe have only one laptop and the rest being tablets. I don't see any need for a "jack". Apparently 802.11ac gets 1.3 GBps.

I only really see a need for Coax in every room now.

 

[Mixolydian]

A couple years ago I did the rewiring in the house and ran 2 drops to each room (1 cat5e for telephone, 1 Cat6 for Ethernet).

Lots of people still use landlines. Don't services like AT&T U-Verse also use the regular telephone jacks?

If they're already there, why remove them? Just leave them alone.

 

[mnewsham]

I only really see a need for Coax in every room now.

Lol, RJ-45 in every room with CAT 6 or 7 is WAYYYYY more important than Coax. I could do without Coax everywhere but the basement and i'd be totally fine. Just don't take away my RJ-45 dammit.

Also, while 802.11AC CAN reach 1.3Gbps, it is still a wireless connection and subject to any number of interference from strong radio signals to having large metal objects in the vicinity, or certain interior walls.

Wired connection is ALWAYS going to be superior to wireless for ping times and reliability.

 

[nageov3t]

Lol, RJ-45 in every room with CAT 6 or 7 is WAYYYYY more important than Coax. I could do without Coax everywhere but the basement and i'd be totally fine. Just don't take away my RJ-45 dammit.

Also, while 802.11AC CAN reach 1.3Gbps, it is still a wireless connection and subject to any number of interference from strong radio signals to having large metal objects in the vicinity, or certain interior walls.

Wired connection is ALWAYS going to be superior to wireless for ping times and reliability.

what are you plugging into the RJ-45 connections in every room of the house?

outside of my home office, I'm struggling to think wtf I'd plug ethernet into in my kitchen or bedroom.

 

[JimKiler]

Lol, RJ-45 in every room with CAT 6 or 7 is WAYYYYY more important than Coax. I could do without Coax everywhere but the basement and i'd be totally fine. Just don't take away my RJ-45 dammit.

Also, while 802.11AC CAN reach 1.3Gbps, it is still a wireless connection and subject to any number of interference from strong radio signals to having large metal objects in the vicinity, or certain interior walls.

Wired connection is ALWAYS going to be superior to wireless for ping times and reliability.

Agreed, also wifi is only half speed, not full speed (sending and receive at teh same time) like wired switches so your wireless just got slower.

At the suggestion of this forum i installed dual CAT6 in every room of my house while it was built and one Coax. We have fiber and they use the CAT6 for TV over fiber. Now that I am doing the basement with the main TV I am use conduit and putting 4 CAT6 cables in there for the TV, PS3, receiver and whatever else needs it in the future.

 

[JimKiler]

When wiring this house for connectivity is the most pressing thing I have to do (so...5, 8 years away?), I will undoubtedly include phone jacks out the ass, and terminate them on a 66 block again like I did at our townhouse. Whoever moved into that unit (apartment complex) scored big time. Dual Cat-5e and quad RG-6 to each bedroom, 4? coax to living room, few more Cat-5, replaced the wall phone locs with Cat-5, left the patch panel, the 66 block (pre-wired for 2 lines) and the splitter array (divided for cable/antenna or whatever) on the plywood backboard. Everything neat and labelled.

Of course, I'll probably just run some conduit here and then run as needed. Maybe fiber :sneaky:

Of course, that is/was my day job, so...

Do you have a suggestion for a simple phone switch which is less complex than a 66 block. They have something at the hardware stores but it $30 bucks and seems like overkill as well. I only have 4 phone outlets in teh house and only one line to support. They just twisted the wires together and capped them but i would prefer some sort of block.

 

[steppinthrax]

Lol, RJ-45 in every room with CAT 6 or 7 is WAYYYYY more important than Coax. I could do without Coax everywhere but the basement and i'd be totally fine. Just don't take away my RJ-45 dammit.

Also, while 802.11AC CAN reach 1.3Gbps, it is still a wireless connection and subject to any number of interference from strong radio signals to having large metal objects in the vicinity, or certain interior walls.

Wired connection is ALWAYS going to be superior to wireless for ping times and reliability.

Coax for TV, that would make sense for future owners. But I"m planning to stay in my house for long term. I'm in my 30s, so I imagine 10 to 20 years down the road coax may even be irellevent.

802.11ac is in the 5ghz range (quiet). I also live in the country. I have 1+ acre of land.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I suppose it doesn't make sense to put jacks in every room of a new house, but if they're already there I wouldn't mess with them. Even in a new house I would be running ethernet for sure anyway, so I might run telephone lines while I'm at it just to have them.

 

[JimKiler]

I suppose it doesn't make sense to put jacks in every room of a new house, but if they're already there I wouldn't mess with them. Even in a new house I would be running ethernet for sure anyway, so I might run telephone lines while I'm at it just to have them.

Sure it does unless you are paying the builder to do the runs in each room. But if you get 5 friends to help, you can do 2-4 runs in each room in one afternoon before sheet rock goes up. You can leave the cables unused but at least they are there when you need them. Of course you have to guess on how you will use your house before it is built and guess where the optimal jack location will be for each room. So far i have picked locations that work in my house but my wife was looking at an unused bedroom asking why we did it in one corner. I told her she picked that corner. Women!

 

[notposting]

For everyone wondering why/if they would use this stuff -- yeah, you would, you post on AT. Some linked up gig outlets and you find reasons. Just offloading video streaming and your local network transfers off of wifi alone makes a huge difference. At our old place I had a few cheap gig switches spaced out (living room, basement hub, office area) for more ports and any transfers between would still fly.

When we do this place, I'll just run ENT everywhere (probably 2 drops in each bedroom), keystone jacks, and decide what we want at the time. Set up any security, sound, intercom, etc at the same time (same idea though -- run conduit everywhere).

Do you have a suggestion for a simple phone switch which is less complex than a 66 block. They have something at the hardware stores but it $30 bucks and seems like overkill as well. I only have 4 phone outlets in teh house and only one line to support. They just twisted the wires together and capped them but i would prefer some sort of block.

www.amazon.com/Leviton-47689-B-Bridg...dp/B0002V8572/ <--that should work, you can just mount it right on the wall

 

[JimKiler]

www.amazon.com/Leviton-47689-B-Bridg...dp/B0002V8572/ <--that should work, you can just mount it right on the wall

thanks, I sent you a PM but the control panel does not show it was sent. Is setup as simple as putting the phone company wires on the first column and then putting my home lines on each column after the first one?

 

[ISAslot]

I've been thinking about removing mine. But they're retrofitted boxes that attach at the base board. The house is old, so they drilled through the floors and put the little boxes in each room. When they redid the floors the sander damaged most of the wires anyways.

 

[rh71]

Just have the main one to plug the main base's cordless in and the rest of the house's cordless phones are good with just a power plug for their base. Yay for cordless? It's only been around since I can remember.

My old house did have RJ45 outlets in every room which was nice, but who wants to deal with wires anymore? Who wants to deal with bulky laptops even? Tablets and smartphones obviously don't need the RJ45 outlets, just a main desktop / fileserver. Invest in a good wifi router and call it a day (I have to follow this advice too).

 

[Midwayman]

I'd replace it with cat6. I've already wired most of the rooms in my house for ethernet. Wifi is fine for casual browsing, but pushing video around or gaming really needs a more reliable system.

 

[nageov3t]

this thread actually has me thinking about looking into MoCa for my new apartment.

we'll have the router in the home office where our 2 desktops are, both hard-wired in, but I'm wondering if I'd see any difference with MoCa out to the living room connected to a hub with XBox, PS3, and the SmartTV plugged into it.

it's an apartment, so running ethernet through the walls isn't an option and I don't really want to be tripping over cables on the hardwood floors... every room is already wired for coax, though.