Wired ethernet or Wi-Fi ?

[admin_exported]

Hello all,

I am about to start some home renovations and have the opportunity to install wired ethernet around my house. However, this represents a not insignificant cost and I would like to seek the forum's views on whether it is worth it.

The performance benefits of wired vs wi-fi ethernet are pretty clear (improved stability, throughput etc). Although many network-enabled home entertainment devices are currently both wi-fi and wired ethernet enabled, I'm guessing that the majority of end users will connect them to wi-fi home networks as not everyone has the luxury of wired ethernet in their living room.

My concern is that this will ultimately lead to manufacturers not bothering to install wired network connections on their devices, leaving my expensive network installation redundant....espacially if wi-fi technology improves over the coming years.

I intend to use my network to stream music and video from a NAS drive in a different room, and in the future use services such as IPlayer etc to provide VoD.

I would appreciate any comments on whether wired networking would represent a sound investment

Many thanks

 

[The_Lhc]

I'd say so, especially for streaming video, if it comes to it that you have some kit that has no wired connection then you could always get a wireless access point. One assumes you'll have broadband and thus a wireless router of some kind anyway though won't you?

Not sure how much you're paying for the cabling but get gigabit ethernet cables (you'll be hard pushed to get anything else to be honest), cat 6 would be nice but it depends on how much it costs of course.

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

A 305m reel of cat 5 utp can be had for around the £55 mark plus the faceplates and rj 45's modules you are probably looking at £100 to do half a dozen rooms (.£150+ if you want cat 6). - If it is your own labour then it most certainly is a worthwhile investment.

I have just done it myself and whereas I have not got absolutely everything set up yet to do the streaming I feel it was the right way to go especially as my sons have an Xbox and ps3 . The latters wifi is particularly naff and £100 investment to keep them from moaning at me constantly about dropout in mid battle was a no brainer.(of course they are set up with wired now because the little (big) darlings have to come first.)

 

[b33k34]

I installed CAT5 cable when I refurbed my Victorian house. The cable is cheap but it was time consuming and by the time you added on the faceplates (which may have got cheaper in the last 5 years), a patch panel and a switch the cost does stack up a bit.

I've not regretted it as while wireless speeds have improved reliability has not. I've tried helping a number of people set up wireless repeaters to improve coverage in their houses or flats without a great deal of success.

If I was doing another refurb I'd take a slightly smarter approach than running a couple of cables to every room and only run it where it's really needed. Take up the slack with wireless but ensure the wireless access point is in the best place to cover the house (probably high up and central). If you find you need wired ethernet somewhere you've not installed it you can always use a 'powerline' adaptor to put it over your mains cables.

Assuming you've got ADSL put the Modem/router as close to where the cable comes into the house as possible for the fastest speed (don't run it off an extension).

 

[davejberry]

Its not difficult as a DIY install, the materials are cheap enough and for streaming purposes....so much better than wifi (well 802.11g anyway). AS far as I know most current wifi enabled products are 802.11g enabled, not the faster 'n'. I don't think you will see wired networking disappear quite yet. It's also more secure and won't get interference from your wireless phones and neighbours' installations.

 

[rs6mra]

Dude, wireless is improving all the time but you can never beat being wired. My house is Victoria and in renovating the property, I have so far run Cat 6 to most of the rooms on the first and second floor. I was even tempted to go for Cat 7 but this is way too expensive and i concluded that Cat 6 would suffice for a long time.

For instance I spoke to the guys that deal in Sonos products and he concluded that it is better to be wired than wireless if it can be helped. My router is at the front of the house and my office is at the back room which is the best part of 25-30m from the front with thick walls and the signal is therefore weak at the back of the house. Thankfully I have got a wired connection in my home office but I was considering a bridge at one point to which I concluded it wasn't worth it. Someone did mention something similar earlier. If you can run the cables yourself then go for it as it reduces costs considerable and shop around for the boxes and termination items: 8P8C for a cat 6 as the prices vary considerably and not the normal stuff that is used with Cat 5.

 

[Anonymous]

If you have the chance install Cat6 everywhere you can. This will give you access to using Gigabit networking throughout. 10x faster than wireless N at 108mbps.

With Cat5 you'll only get 100mbps, unless you go for Cat5e, though this is only the minimum for Gigabit and Cat6 is more the norm.

I don't like mains networking that is available, despite the claim of 200mbps, as this is mixing the signal up amongst the mains hum we spend so long trying to avoid. Also, it depends on the quality and wiring built in to the house, not something you can normally dable with much yourself.

Finally, wireless is the ideal system for a house where you need flexibility and minimum hassle. However, you will always get signal drop outs in poor reception areas and it's speed is massively affected by distance, obsticles and other wireless interferance. Great for normal internet use, but not really condusive to HD video or audio.

 

[PJPro]

I use a Cat6 wired network at home. Don't go for Cat5 to save a couple of pennies...it's not worth it.

The alternative is fibre (faster, more secure, easier to route, etc) but you'll need to add fibre to copper convertors at every ouput.

 

[Anonymous]

PJPro:I use a Cat6 wired network at home. Don't go for Cat5 to save a couple of pennies...it's not worth it.

The alternative is fibre (faster, more secure, easier to route, etc) but you'll need to add fibre to copper convertors at every ouput.

Pricey though and only really of use over long distances. I use fibre at work over 150m to 200m as that's longer than Cat6 can handle.

 

[PJPro]

Agreed....but it'd be cool to have a fibre network at home (in the strictly nerdy sense).

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, 10Gb fibre .... mmmm!!

 

[chudleighpaul]

You could always use the mains to carry your broadband signal. An ethernet connection from your router to an netgear adapter plugged into a a mains socket, then take the broadband signal from any mains socket with another adapter. Works fine, and there is no mess or work.

 

[Boca]

I would run the Cat 6 cable to the main areas. Think about it this way. Later if you want to sell your place it is an added asset.

The other reason for running the cable is that you can actually get a better connection with less interference. from RF noise sources.

 

[b33k34]

It looks like the incremental cost to install CAT6 and Gig-E switches is minimal now and it's worth doing but remember there are very limited instances when you're actually going to see any benefit.

- Real world internet connections are still sub 20mb to the home and not increasing that quickly (and that's only a theoretical maximum with the limiting factor often the source). Wireless G is more than enough for the sub 10mb most of us actually get.

- Throughput on home NAS drives is pretty woeful (despite some claiming to have Gig E network interfaces the processor is the limiting factor on these).

- Even a blu-ray only hits about 24mb and anything you stream will likely be far less

The only time I can think you'll actually use a really fast connection is moving large video files from one machine to another (rather than streaming).

 

[The_Lhc]

Might as well plan for the future though eh?

 

[Anonymous]

I have a Qnap NAS at work with Gb network port, the processor in that is a 1.6Ghz with 512Mb Ram, virtually a mini server. This has no issues with speed and handles 6 CCTV feeds recording at 1 megapixel 24 hours a day onto 2 x 1Tb SATA drives in RAID.

The consideration when you build a network should never be "How fast is my internet speed?", that is irrelevant when you're streaming files from a NAS to a HTPC.

100mbps is fine for most people, but once you hit HD files, you should always try to accomodate 1000mbps (1Gb). I would advise going for decent quality switches and cable though, Netgear has always served me well and you'll only need small switches that run silently consuming hardly any power.

If you have some areas that are hard to reach, you can always use external grade cable and cable it outside.