Home networking advice sought

Hello home networking DIYers and gurus and experts (swamis?).

I'm hoping to do a little work to optimize our home network situation while we're renovating our basement.  I found an abandoned plumbing drain line that I think goes from the basement to the attic. It's 3" pipe so there is plenty of room to run cables through it.

I want to run two Ethernet cables to the attic. One would be for future hard wires Ethernet connections on the second floor. The other would be to hardwire two Google Wi-Fi devices together. I would have one centrally located on the attic floor. The other mounted on the ceiling in the basement. 

So question number one is do you think that will be reasonable wi-fi coverage through the floor and ceiling to cover the first and second floors? I could eventually put the basement Google WI-FI somewhere on the first floor itself.

Second question is should I spring for Cat 6 or is Cat 5 sufficient?

I'll have more questions but I want to just set the table here.

Definitely spring for Cat 6 cabling, because you don't want to do this twice, right? It may be hard to imagine needing higher speed in the home, but you are likely to want it eventually.

As for whether the access point will reach through the floor, it's really hard to say, but you could run tests before you run the cables. I helped several clients in their Maplewood and South Orange homes with wifi, and it varied a lot, depending, I suppose, on construction materials. And I mean a lot. Some walls and floors were hopelessly opaque, and others were radio-transparent, and some are in between.

Can you tell us more about the devices you'll use?

On the second floor just computers, iPad, phone general use. Maybe streaming on a Smart TV in one room.

Mostly the same in the first floor. We stream Netflix on a Smart T.V. in one room, which I will likely put an Ethernet connection for hardwired streaming.

I like hardwired, too, though it's getting hard to insist on. Some people just don't want to run cables.

I have the radio in the attic after having it in the basement out of inertia. Did essentially what you are proposing. I can get a signal half a block away now. Not sure if that’s good or bad. Multiple streaming devices all over the place- TVs, iPads, phones, laptops, no problem. 

You may not need the multiple access points. Give it a shot with one.

thanks for the advice Jackson. I already have 2 Google Wi-Fi units. So it sounds like whereas you are being conservative with your access points, I will be much more liberal.

All joking aside, I will probably just go ahead and hook both of them up so that I never have to deal with the buyer's remorse of finding out that I only actually needed one in the first place.

I'm currently using a Verizon Quantum Gateway router which is in an awkward place in my house. I'm thinking of moving that to the basement close to where the coaxial connection comes into it from outside. Then my intention is to run ethernet cable to a centralized location for a hard wired Hub, where I will attach one of the Google Wi-Fi units. Then like I said I'll run to Cat6 cables through that old drain pipe up to the Attic where one of them will also go into a hard-wired hub, and the other will go to the other Google Wi-Fi unit. I will be able to sleep in a warm blanket of high-speed data transfers 24/7.

There's a lot of market hucksterism when providers like Verizon tell you to go to and pay for high capacity like 200 Megabit or more.

Its a measure of capacity, not speed. Like having a pipe that can carry 100 gals of water per minute vs. 500 gals. Larger pipe.

Cat 5E, I believe is good for 1 Gigabit (1000 Megabits), Cat 5 to 100 megabits. Cat 6 can go to 10 Gigabits. Do you need it? Can your router handle multiple gigabits? If you have 4 lines of Cat 5E going out from your router, which means 4 Gigabits, can the input to the router handle 4 gigabits? Does your provider supply you with 4 gigabit capacity?

I have high def TV's. When I'm streaming Netflix, at the highest 1080 def, the streaming rate varies from 6.5 to 8.5 megabits. Which means that if I have 100 megabit service (basic Cat 5), I would not expect to see issues until I'm simultaneously streaming over 10 high def devices. The only time you can expect high volume is when you are downloading a large program or data, such as a new operating system. But even then the download may be throttled by the provider.

There is a great deal of debate among people about whether new cabling installations should use Cat5e or Cat6. Many people incorrectly assume that by running Cat6 they will then have a Gigabit Ethernet. However, in order to achieve true Gigabit Ethernet speeds, every single component on a network must be gigabit rated, such as the switches, hubs and network interface cards. This isn't to say that there aren't differences between Cat5e and Cat6, however. The general difference between category 5e and category 6 is in the transmission performance. While Cat5e can support gigabit speeds, Cat6 is certified to handle gigabit Ethernet. Additionally, the Cat6 specification is better suited toward environments that are generally unfriendly to twisted pair cabling. This includes areas that have lots of interference from things like power lines, lights, and manufacturing equipment. Still, for most applications, Cat5e is perfectly suitable and preferable to Cat6: it is more economical and performs almost as well. However, if you can be certain that all the components on your network are gigabit rated, and the volume of the data being transmitted calls for certified gigabit performance, then Cat6 is the way to go.

Bottom Line: If you plan on to implement Gigabit Ethernet, go with Cat5e. Also, the small increase in price of Cat5e over Cat5 is more than made up for by "future proofing" your network's cabling infrastructure.

https://www.networkcablingdire...

Thanks BG9.

Everything you say makes perfect sense. For right now, so what I'm trying to think about is what is going to be the expectation in 10 or 15 years? I think the price point between Cat5e and Cat6 is fairly minimal from what I've been able to discern today.

This is probably more of a theoretical and philosophical question then practical for any predictable advances in technology before I plan to sell my house and move. I was pretty happy with my 5 to 6 megabit high speed internet from Comcast 10 or 15 years ago. I wonder if it is likely that we will see the same kind of advances in content and data delivered to the home that we have in the last decade or so.

50 ft. of cat 6 is $7.55

50 ft. of cat 5e is $6.17

Plus shipping, at Monoprice. I’d splurge on the high-priced spread.

thank you for clueing me in to Monoprice, metaphysician. Have you ordered from them in the past? They seem to have good prices, including on ethernet switches.

I've ordered from Monoprice.  All of my friends in the computer industry order from there.  That's how I ended up there.  

Thanks Steve. I didn't know them so good to have a reference or two.

I don't know what the upper limit on Fios home bandwidth will eventually be, or will be while I'm in my current house - another 15 years maybe. So even though my plan is for 75 megabits now, I don't know what bandwidth needs will be like in 10 years. Will we be doing streaming VR, for instance? How much bandwidth will be considered normal everyday use? 10 years ago my 5 megabit speed over Comcast was more than adequate. Is there any reason to expect that trend not to continue? 

So for the minimal difference in price it probably makes sense to just got with the Cat 6 cable now, assuming it will be easier to upgrade components like the router and Ethernet hubs in the future.

I'm another satisfied Monoprice customer.

I think that the important thing is that lay your cable in a way that it will be reasonably easy to replace and upgrade.

Steve said:
I think that the important thing is that lay your cable in a way that it will be reasonably easy to replace and upgrade.

 Agreed, all your other infrastructure is likely easily replaced, whereas cable is not.  I'd go with CAT6 for this reason, eventually the hardware in your devices will all be gigabit capable and Google Fiber has shown that ISPs can certainly offer 1Gb/s to consumers if they want to.  

Also your home networking needs may well grow more quickly than your ISP speeds to the point where CAT6 speeds could be an advantage.  

@mrincredible, has this project progressed yet?

No, Tom.  It's waiting for a day when other projects aren't more important.  So by the time it's done, we'll probably be using some kind of quantum entanglement to transfer data between our DNA-based home computers and fully 3D Holographic immersive environments.  

That reminds me of the story of a cellular service company. The engineers complained to management that they couldn't complete the network upgrade until they got more wiring installed. The executive said, "But we're a wireless company."