cat5 cat5e cat6 cat6e cat7!! What on earth! what do i use!

[nerrrad]

Hi people,

I'm about to rewire my home and i need some advice on what cabling to use.

There is going to be a central server which has films music etc and a device in each room that allows someone to stream content from the server.

Could some body please explain to me the difference between each cable type the advantages / disadvantages whether to get:

- Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)

- Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)

- Screened Shielded Twisted Pair (S/STP)

- Screened Unshielded Twisted Pair (S/UTP)

and if you can even have those on certain types of cable!

Thanks for your time

regards


Darren

[rtj70]

Don't really know which best for this but assuming cable lengths in tollerance then surely shielded twisted pair a good future proof idea? I'd go for best available that might support 10Gb/s or at least 1Gb/s. Wiring this is what costs in terms of time and not only cable.

For the bandwidth needed, is wireless not an option for most of the house with wired for the main room where video needed?

[nerrrad]

All rooms will require video, i think i am going to settle on cat6 shielded twisted pair.. or possibly look into fibre optic (im not sure how the network will cope with 10 rooms all streaming movies across, whilst downloading and browsing the net all at once, any ideas? will cat six be sufficient?)


Thanks for the help

[Druchii]

Wel, Cat5e will do 1Gbps. Cat6 will do it more reliably, and CAT7 isn't even a standard

[icestar2]

Is it a big building ? could you run a fiber optic backbone and then have a cat cable from each machine connecting via a socket to the backbone ?

[popper]

Originally Posted by nerrrad

All rooms will require video, i think i am going to settle on cat6 shielded twisted pair.. or possibly look into fibre optic (im not sure how the network will cope with 10 rooms all streaming movies across, whilst downloading and browsing the net all at once, any ideas? will cat six be sufficient?)


Thanks for the help

as druchii said, Cat5e is perfectly good enough for 1 gigabit, and infact it's even upto 10Gigabit today, however if you intend upgrading the feeding kit in the future just go for Cat6 and be done with it.

the thing that everyone seems to forget is to run more than you need right now,and so not run out later... if you were to add more networking/storage kit http://www.freenas.org/ for instance.

you can also buy off the shelf cat splitters that convert the cat wire into two seperate RJ45 feeds from one cable, but its far easyer to just run two feeds to every single room, including the loft as you re-wire.

dont skimp on the fastest router/switch or even two, one for each end of your run just incase you want to change your main server room/location later.

for instance from your under stairs store to your loft room for housing a wireless 11N/WiMax router (for better/best coverage)and NAS (Network Attached Storage) kit.

and dont forget to always multicast your video if you want to save bandwidth and yet serve several LAN machines/devices at the same time with the video, something like VLC will Multicast several DVD streams just fine.

iv not as yet tested a/several HD-DVD/BR multicast feeds on 100Mbit ,but cant see a problem while browsing etc.

[janipewter]

The different between UTP and STP is that STP is electromagnetically shielded (there's a metal shielding around each pair of copper wires). If you're not laying the cabling anywhere where there is a high amount of electromagnetic interference then don't bother with it, since it is quite a lot more expensive than UTP.

[Graham M]

Originally Posted by Druchii

CAT7 isn't even a standard

no but it's a perfectly good pseudonym for a standard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_7_cable

[Druchii]

Originally Posted by Zeph

no but it's a perfectly good pseudonym for a standard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_7_cable

Last time i checked i swear i couldn't find that... Interesting.