Re: On network (and otherwise) cabling a house...

Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It seems to me that it'd be sensible for me to make sure that there's at
least one cat5e socket in every room, or more likely 4 or 6 (if I site them
in opposite corners of rooms, and also allow for landline phone connections
to be carried on cat5e). In any case, once I start such a project I don't
suppose that running extra cables in would be impossible, if I'd once run
some, and if I eg leave pull-cords crossing any voids. I'd consider cat6,
except that I get the impression that correctly terminating cat6 cable is
harder than cat5e, and I find it hard to consider ME ever wanting the
gigabit or whatever capacity of cat6 anyway. Even if students WANT it,
they're not having it...

It might be better to make sure it's switched ethernet, not hubbed.
Otherwise they'll be able to snoop your network traffic, see any
in-the-clear passwords you send, etc.

The house also has rooftop TV, FM, and DAB aerials and I wonder about
distributing those signals too.

I perhaps wouldn't bother about FM or DAB, especially for short term lets.
TV is useful - you might need to think about a distribution amplifier in the
loft and coax into each room.

Think about the TV licence situation too. Would they need their own or can
they share yours? (Be a selling point if they can)

(Does anyone think it's a bad idea to contemplate allowing resident students
and perhaps their occasional friends/visitors to use /my/ broadband
connection? I tend to think a house without a bb connection would be
unappealing to a modern student.)

Indeed. It may be less unappealing if they're long term lets and the
student can contact BT/NTL/etc to get a connection to their room, but
they'll probably be stuck on 12 month contracts and have to pay installation
charges. If you do a bit of work you'll increase the rent you can charge.

I presume wifi won't work?

At the moment my connection to my ISP is a VirginMedia cable connection
which terminates in a place in a room which I do not think will always be
accessible to the lodgers.

How about a switched socket with an extension lead to the cable modem? Or
would they need to see the lights on the front as well? Since the CM power
is DC, you could even have a small low voltage cable to a switch and back.

I do have a cheap 16-port network switch. I can't remember the maker's name
(if there is one). I'd always thought it had quite good build quality - the
PSU is built-in, the unit feels quite robust in its steel case... but
increasingly often these days when I switch it on all the indicator LEDs
light up and stay on, so it needs switched off & on until it will come up
with just the LEDs on the connected ports remaining on. Does anyone know
why this happens? Maybe it needs replaced...

Sounds like it might be a bad PSU - shame you can't easily swap it out. My
first try would be to replace the electrolytic capacitors in the power
supply - worked for a printer with a similar fault.

Suppose I run cat5e from various points all over the house to the coal hole.
I could terminate each cable in an RJE plug and plug some or all of them
into the switch & then plug that into my 4-port Draytek router/firewall. Or
maybe plug some (the links /I/ use?) of the incoming cat5e cables into the
router and the student ones via the switch into the router (in which case I
presume links made via the switch would run more slowly than those directly
into the router, or would compete in some way?).

Not unless someone is saturating the network - unlikely on 100Mbit ethernet.

OTOH maybe it makes more sense to terminate every incoming cable in a patch
panel, and then only connect the in-use links to a (switch and) router?

Depends how 'professional' you want to be and how much you're likely to use
it in future.

I know some patch panels have IDC rear connections and some have RJE
sockets. Which would you use? I presume IDC is cheaper, but is it possible
to remove a cable from IDC connections if it needs replaced and connect
another cable or route the original cable to a different set of IDC
terminals? Terminating each incoming cable in a RJE plug might make testing
the connections easier, but cost more? I have the impression that IDC rear
connections tends to go with 'professional' equipment and RJE with home
networking, but does the latter imply lower quality equipment?

I think the idea is the cables are always fixed. You only change the patch
leads to reconfigure the network. So you'd only need to remove a cable if
it was faulty. Since they usually come in 16/24/32/48/64 ways, I imagine
you just buy one with a few spare sockets and use one of those if necessary.

Does anyone have any views over how much one should pay for a patch panel?

Random example from my local electrical distributor:
http://www.qvsdirect.com/Patch-Leads-Panels-c-799.html
(usually good prices)
It may be worth asking electricians suppliers rather than computer suppliers
for prices.

The incoming VM cable connection also includes the house phone, and the VM
master socket is in the lounge at the moment. I think I'd have that moved
to the coal-hole too. Could I then use any of the installed cat5e cables to
take a phone connection to any existing cat5e socket, just by using an
adapter on each end of each such connection?

For phone you have some options:

Just make them use their mobiles (nasty but simple)

Make them pay BT/Virgin/etc to have a line installed (expensive)
Possibly tricky as Virgin may not understand that your spare room is a
different 'premises' to the main house (BTDTGTTS).

Install a small exchange (PBX) to switch the lines. eBay might be a good
source for old ones that companies are replacing. Something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320318834514
http://www.sjgl.co.uk/nts/
You'd need to run some cabling, which could be telephone, or for more
flexibility cat5. But you'd share one phone bill - unless the PBX will log
calls, you'd have to go through the bill working out who made which calls.

Go software VOIP: just make them use Skype or a SIP softphone
- both need their computer on to make or receive calls.

Go hardware VOIP. Buy them an ATA box each - these are a bit like a router
but have a phone socket input and an ethernet output - 20-40 pounds. Tell
them to sign up with a VOIP provider like Sipgate, Gradwell or Vonage (to
name but a few). Landline number and cheap calls, and cheap/free line
rental. Unless the ATA has a built-in switch you'd need to provide a second
ethernet socket or a splitter to put two ethernet connections down one
cable.

Or some variation on the above with a DECT phone so you don't have to cable
the room.

Theo
.

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