Wired/Wireless

It turns out that the roll of "speaker wire" my friend gave me when cleaning out his shop is actually cat5e ehtenet cabling . So , I'm faced with a decision - I have 400 feet of this stuff , which is plenty enough to wire my whole house for internet connections . On the other hand , wireless is much cleaner and easier to move computers around if we change the layout of our furnishings . Or maybe a combination , since some comps already have a wireless card and some don't - and the one out in the shop has a card but signal strength is iffy at times . Not much worry here about getting hacked , a stranger down here in The Holler would be questioned - and the hacker would have to be in my driveway to get any kind of signal at all so ...

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Reply to
Terry Coombs
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If it were me, the fact that it was free wouldn't make me want to do the labor part, which isn't trivial, to install it. If there is a use that could benefit from wired speed and reliability, eg you're using it for video, I'd consider doing it there. But for general internet usage around the house, wireless works for me. Plus more and more connected devices are mobile and may not be connectable via wire anyway.

Reply to
trader_4

For me wireless is around 15Mbs Wired is 60Mbs. It depends on how fast your provider is.

Reply to
Seymore4Head

Well , since most of my exterior walls don't have drywall yet ... now would be a good time to decide . The modem and router are at the middle of the structure and will stay there , probably 4 or 5 runs would cover the most likely areas where I'll want a computer - TV , stereo , one or

2 in the bedroom , my desktop is right by the router and will stay in this immediate area . The one that really needs a wired connection is the shop , it's just barely too far from the WiFi router to get a reliable signal . Doesn't help that the side walls are sheet metal (end walls are wood framed with plywood sheathing) .
Reply to
Terry Coombs

My wired connections are 100 Mb/s , wireless are 54 (15 year old laptop) and 130 Mb/s plus . Speed is a moot point except for intranet transfers , my ISP can only supply a max here - 12 miles from town - of

6 Mb/sec . Reliability is the main thing I need ...

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Reply to
Terry Coombs

Wired is generally better, speed-wise.

Even some of the new-fangled "mesh" wifi systems (which can use two, three or even more "nodes") have the capability to utilize "wired backhaul" via ethernet for better performance.

Probably worth it to install at least some cabling for future use...

Reply to
John Albert

Given that, I'd run a wire to the shop and a wire or two to places you think you may need it in the future.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

+1 If you have the access to the walls, do some runs now to remote areas of the house. If nothing else you can always drop in another wireless router in the nether reaches to ensure solid wireless connections throughout the home and shop.
Reply to
Unquestionably Confused

An external high gain antenna would probably solve that problem. A friend of mine went that route to provide wireless to his mother who lives down the block. He spends a lot of time there so it's for his convenience too.

Reply to
rbowman

On Mon 17 Jul 2017 06:44:31p, Seymore4Head told us...

wired connectins will always be faster. Sometimes convenience overshadows speed. But not for me. I have every PC in the house hard wired, but I do use wireless for my tablet and phones.

Reply to
Wayne Boatwright

You will never be sorry that you wired a backbone in your house. You can do a lot with CAT5 other than just internet. Figure out where your "star" should radiate from and home run to there from strategic places around the house.

Reply to
gfretwell

Newer ethernet adapters run at 1gb. It makes file transfers go a lot faster.

Reply to
gfretwell

The best case is to run a raceway to all of your drops or at least to an accessible spot but that is overkill for most people. Then you can pull in any wire you want later.

Reply to
gfretwell

On Mon 17 Jul 2017 06:49:01p, Terry Coombs told us...

We're fully wired with at least two access points in every room expect the bathrooms. Our high speed Internet is 300 Mbps Downloads and 30 Mbps Uploads.

Reply to
Wayne Boatwright

+2 My house was prewired as part of the building contract and there still wasn't enough. I am sharing a cat5e for telephone and internet to the main TV. Plus, it would have been nice to have a few extra coax cables to some places. So if you have a plethora of cat5e run it everywhere you thing you might want it and add some coax too.
Reply to
Art Todesco

If the wall awaits drywall, I would forget the 'windfall' cat5 and instead string optical fiber instead. It would seem to have a higher probability of future utility.

Coax would be even less likely to have a use. I am saying so directly against my experience because I actually have & currently use coax to pass an RF signal from a VCR which gets it from a wireless cable box to a TV in another room. (I bought a shorthaul IR transponder to control said WiFi cable box using a remote control in the destination room. With 3 TVs in a house of only 2 people I could not see paying $7/mo for a 3rd cable box.)

The truly complicated part was programming the 3rd remote because the TVs are different manufacturers, and the cable box uses the HDMI interface to confirm that it can control the TV, and the two remotes look identical, and you only have a few seconds for each step in the manual intended for someone with just one remote, etc.

Plus I had to call the cable company and tell them that my wife lost remote #2 so that they would allow me to get #3.

Reply to
Mike_Duffy

Hence the desirability of using a raceway system. 3/4" Smurf tube is a good, low cost system. I used it for low voltage and line voltage in my new addition (separate runs) and all of the drops end up at a central location at an easily accessible location in the attic. It probably added $100 to the cost of my wiring but I have already changed a few things with no drama.

Reply to
gfretwell

Smurf tube is great stuff!

Reply to
Stormin' Norman

True dat. Most electricians and even some inspectors do not understand all the things it is listed for. One thing that is good to know is the RNC (gray PVC) connections are also listed for smurf so you can use any PVC fittings, boxes or conduit bodies directly glued to smurf. It can also be embedded in concrete. One tip, when you are pushing wire through smurf, fold over the lead wire, making a rounded tip, so it does not hang on the ridges and then tape the rest up into a bullet. Carlon says you can actually push wire through 720 degrees of total bend although the code still says 360 max. They have been trying to change that.

Reply to
gfretwell

I did not know you could glue gray PVC connectors to the smurf, that is really valuable to know.

When I have run wires in smurf and other conduits, I always leave a piece of poly twine in the tub in case I have to pull more stuff through it in the future. If I do, I pull another piece of twine with the new wire.

When pulling wire through virgin conduit or smurf, I attach a fluffy little cat toy to a piece of twine and suck it through the conduit with a shop vac, works well for long runs.

Reply to
Stormin' Norman

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