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New home, to wire or not?

T

TMPadmin

Golden Member
I am in the process of having my house built. Before they add the drywall I was planning on getting in there and wiring up the place for network connections in each room. But with wireless becoming more and more popular and quicker I'm wondering if it is really worth my time, money and effort to wire this building. I don't even think that when I am ready to sell the network would be a selling point or even useable since it will probably be a good ten years before I would want to more, maybe longer. But then again I would hate to wait too long and miss my chance and regret not being able to plug in my notebook at the kitchen table or bathroom.

Anything thoughts? Anyone do this already? I'm sure it's great now but what about the future?

TMP
 
Cat5 is going to be in use by a lot of people for some time to come, I'd wire it !
 
wireless is far slower than a cheaper wired network right now. 11Mbps v 100Mbps. with 11Mbps you have to wait for something to copy at about 1 MB/s from computer to computer. that might sound fast until you decide to back up 6GB of mp3s to another computer.
 
Even if you don't wire up a network at your home, at least wire up your living room or entertainment room with speaker wire.

That's what I did.
 
I work with a guy that got his house wired with cat5 cable when it was being built, and he loves it now that he got a cable modem and a router. He can go into any room and just plug in the laptop. The wireless solution is great, but I don't know enough about it to give a good opinion. It's more expensive to go wireless, I think, but you can do it after the house is already built.
 
a lot of people are installing cat-5 cabling instead of regular phone wiring. It's not much more expensive.
 
I'd go ahead a wire it up. Most of the time/expense of wiring a house is having to fish the damn stuff through the walls. As you don't have drywall up yet, this isn't a hinderance. I say go for it.

Fausto
 
wire it!

Heh, in my apt. we have 50-ft. lengths of cat5 running up and down the halls... the hub is right outside my door

college students can handle stepping over cables.. if I had a house I'd definitely wire it. The speed thing is one thing against wireless, then there's security, then there's the expense, then there's the fact that if you wire now, there's nothing stopping you from adding wireless in the future...
 
Wire it up!! do it now even if you might not use it, tust me, it is seroulsy more expensze to do ti later. Heck, you can even do it yourself!
 
I would say to wire it also. Even though i love my 802.11a 54-megabit wireless I still plug-in to the wired network when moving very large files.
Wiring a house is not going to be very expensive and it's much easier to do it now while the walls are open than to regret it later

DnetMHZ
 


<< I'd go ahead a wire it up. Most of the time/expense of wiring a house is having to fish the damn stuff through the walls. As you don't have drywall up yet, this isn't a hinderance. I say go for it.

Fausto >>



I agree.

I'd definitely wire it at this stage in the construction process. If you don't do it now and decide to later on, it can be very VERY annoying and time-consuming.

Edit: Where's the poll! 🙂
 
It's a cheaper investment to do it before the drywall goes up. If your house is on a raised foundation, it's still more work to go crawling under it after construction is completed. If it's on a slab, your choices get down to ugly and uglier.
 
Wire it up.

My friend's parents were in this same situation. They recently had a home built and their son went out and bought a few hundred feet of A/V cables, CAT5, phone lines, etc. and wired everything up. It's really nice because every room in the house (except for the bathrooms and garage) have an outlet which has 2 Ethernet ports, electricity, AND 2 phone lines. It only cost them the cost of the cables since their son installed it as opposed to a contractor doing it.

Definitely wire it up.
 


<< I don't even think that when I am ready to sell the network would be a selling point or even useable since it will probably be a good ten years before I would want to more, maybe longer.
TMP >>



although more expensive.... gigabit? fiber? 😉

Just wire it already 😛 😀
 


<< I would hate to wait too long and miss my chance and regret not being able to plug in my notebook at the kitchen table or bathroom. >>

I agree with everyone else here, wire away, but how much time do you spend on the can that you need to wire your bathroom?
 
I just wired up our house that is about 60 years old and I had no clue what problems I would run into. Fishing wires is a big pain and then guessing where to drill and cut is also another pain. Do it now and save yourself the trouble. Radio shack has all the outlet covers and inserts you need.
 
I just wired my new office 🙂

I used cat 5e, 350MHz gigabit rated cable. Should be good for ten years! I'm using 100BaseTX right now, but nothing is stopping me from moving up to gigabit once switches get cheaper.
 


<< << I'd go ahead a wire it up. Most of the time/expense of wiring a house is having to fish the damn stuff through the walls. As you don't have drywall up yet, this isn't a hinderance. I say go for it.

Fausto >> >>




My thoughts exactly. W/O any drywall up, I could wire an entire house in half a day. Beer breaks included. 🙂 Don't even think about it...just DO IT!!!!! Go-go-go-go-go!!!! OOOOOOOO-RAHHHHHHH!
 
wire it up.. it'll be cheap doing it yourself since the house is still being built.. and if you decide to go wireless later on, that wont be a prob. but if you go wireless and screw wiring with cat5e, and decide later on to add cat5e, it's going to be more difficult to install, or if you get someone to install it, cost more..

my parents got their house wired after being built about 3-4 years ago, and cost them $75 an outlet.

edit: their house only has cat5.. but i thought you can run gigabit over regular cat5?
 
Alright already! I had planned on bringing all the wires into the basement where I would have my cable modem, and router installed. I'm thinking I'll have to put in the cat 5e just incase. Any thought on cat 6 instead? I don't think I can swing the cost of the fiber. As wbwither & dakata24 said, I can always throw in a wireless hub later. I also want to wire for a central sound system. I walked through a few houses that had that installed and it really was a nice touch.

I know I'd regret not doing it as soon as I moved in, when it's too late.

Thanks for the kick in the butt everyone!

TMP
 
cat5e, don't bother with that cat6 junk, it is just harder to pull bundles of it. and for the love of god, label your wires carefully, that could save a lot of time
and headachs later 🙂

btw, grats on building a new home 🙂
 
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