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wireless vs. wired opinions

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DeadSeaSquirrels

Senior member
I recently moved into a small apartment and I decided to go total wireless. Wireless computers, and print server. One benefit I find is just the lack of mess. I hate having a crap load of wires everywhere, and I don't just mean in my apartment but also just behind the computer. I have speakers, mice, PDA, cell phone, etc. and it adds up so getting rid of one more wire is good. Also it gives a lot of freedom.

Needless to say wireless is far from perfect, it breaks up sometimes and the speed just isn't there.

But in your opinions, if you had to do rewiring in your new place (where you can behind the walls) would you install a wired LAN? Is gigabit really catching on, because if it is I can see the benefits of that with a media server and video streaming from multiple rooms in your house, but if it isn't then I would think a lot of people would just wait for improved wireless service. Once it gets to 100Mbits or so I would presume that would suffice for almost any application, even as a media server. Also to get your home wired well, I would say you need at least 2 ports on at least 2 of the 4 walls in each room, that's a lot of damn wires, and you'll need a helluva router/switch. It's just so much easier with wireless, what do you guys think?
 
Originally posted by: DeadSeaSquirrels
I recently moved into a small apartment and I decided to go total wireless. Wireless computers, and print server. One benefit I find is just the lack of mess. I hate having a crap load of wires everywhere, and I don't just mean in my apartment but also just behind the computer. I have speakers, mice, PDA, cell phone, etc. and it adds up so getting rid of one more wire is good. Also it gives a lot of freedom.

Needless to say wireless is far from perfect, it breaks up sometimes and the speed just isn't there.

But in your opinions, if you had to do rewiring in your new place (where you can behind the walls) would you install a wired LAN? Is gigabit really catching on, because if it is I can see the benefits of that with a media server and video streaming from multiple rooms in your house, but if it isn't then I would think a lot of people would just wait for improved wireless service. Once it gets to 100Mbits or so I would presume that would suffice for almost any application, even as a media server. Also to get your home wired well, I would say you need at least 2 ports on at least 2 of the 4 walls in each room, that's a lot of damn wires, and you'll need a helluva router/switch. It's just so much easier with wireless, what do you guys think?
Click to expand...


If I was building/remodeling, I would punch Cat6 (or cat5e) down into the home. You don't "need a hell of a switch", you need a punchdown block.
 
Yup, I really don't think wireless will ever be good enough to only use it. I would most definately wire a place up if I had wall access.
 
Am I confused or wouldn't I still need a pretty expansive switch to actually have each port on the punchdown block live. Granted I won't be using 10 computers at once (I don't think at least). And I can just go into a utility closet and switch some plugs around, but if I wanted them to all be live at any given moment, I would have to have a switch to actually connect it to, correct?

Well I'll definitely consider doing in wall wiring. I did it for my old place across 3 floors, but not having access to all the walls meaning there were still some computers that needed long stretches of wire. I'll keep this in mind. Thanks.

P.S. Any good articles about jack locations in the room? I just figured the 2 jacks for half the walls in the room from my own personal experience, but if somebody else put some thought into it I'd like to know. Thanks
 
I never can understand why simple functional thing are turned into Big principles argument. After all it all about pieces of Plastic, Silicone, and a little Copper.

The ?Plumbers? would defend their bastion to the end, while light users, Cosmetic oriented people, etc. might have different approach.


Get/Borrow Whatever! Some Wireless stuff and see how hospitable the environment is to Wireless.

If it is not hospitable than there is No question. You have to Wire.

If it is Hospitable make an inventory of what you want to do and evaluated if Wireless Bandwidth and Stability is Good enough for it.

If the Wireless is Not good enough Wire.

I have places with Wireless only, and other places with a combination. The differences depend on what the Network is used in each of these places on not on Big Philosophical issues.

:sun:
 
DeadSeaSquirrels, wired all the way. It's faster and more reliable. Wireless is really neat, but it's just not 100%.

Also, in most owned properties (houses, etc.) wired cat5e is a desirable feature and pretty much standard on new construction. So if you retrofit cat5e into an existing place, you can recover some or all of that expense in the selling value of that property later on. It's not all sunk cost, it's partially an investment.

If building a new place, put two jacks in each room, and in opposite corners. I find that maximizes the liklihood of being able to get to a jack without too much cable running around outside the walls.

You generally don't make every switch live. Just connect from the patch panel jacks to your switch for the ports you are currently using. That's a one minute task. But run a whole lot more jacks than you expect to use, so you have the flexibility to move things around.
 
you know wiring a small apartment or house is not hard
and could save a great deal of time of fvcking around
with lost connections, but my wireless router ain't bad
i got it in my basement and play cs in my room upstairs
not one problem to date, little higher ping so i am going
to wire the house someday, might be a one day project
nothing too complicated
 
I am using 5e where I can get it and I have wireless up for the wifes laptop when she wants to connect to the office or where I cannot get a cable run. The wire is a lot more dependable.

 
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