Power Line Networking

[Douglas]

Wasn't sure whether to post this in General Chat or Fine Living - I put it here because I think traffic is higher in this subforum - mods please move it if you think it's an egregious mis-post.

Anyone have any experience with power line networking? I am renovating an old house and many have told me to run Cat-5 cable throughout the house while the walls are open, but it's still an added cost and in an older house getting some of the runs to where you need them is problematic. I was going to just go wireless but I gather it's not as reliable for entertainment streaming (audio/video) and I guess the security is maybe an issue as well.

It seems to me there might also be security issues with power line networking. Are the speeds good enough for high-def media? And anyone have any insight as to whether it will work in an older house with some older wiring that will remain in use?

 

[otc]

If you're doing the renovation to the point of open walls, just do the cat5

Powerline sort of works but its not great and its not well supported like ethernet over plain cat5. Also if its older wiring...recipe for phantom problems a year down the road.

You don't really have to do cat5 everywhere as wireless will suffice for a lot, but I'd do a double cat5 to every bedroom/office type room (cat5 also works for telephone so don't run anything but cat5...then in the future you can just transfer the phone wire to networking duty if you want).
For a living/TV room, I would run double cat6 plus a run of coax so you are not at the mercy of some cable installer who wants to drill holes in random places.

Kitchen/dining/bathroom--until we get smart fridges of the future, I think wireless is fine for all of these areas (and what kind of cheap ass smart fridge doesn't have wireless?).

Where are you terminating everything? Best option is to have a cabinet in the basement near where the electrical/telephone/cable/fiber lines come into the house (if cable is not installed yet...consider doing the installer's work for them to ensure they don't drill a random hole in your wall wherever it is most convenient for them). From here you can terminate all of your wires: cat5 go to networking gear or to a telephone splitter, cable comes in and goes to a splitter with one going to a modem and the other going to the coax you ran for TVs.

If you can't get a good house-wide wireless signal from the basement (my parents did well with a unit mounted on the ceiling in the middle of the basement), run an extra cat5 to a bedroom or living room near the middle of the house where you can hide the wireless unit. To do this right, you need to use two pieces of networking gear instead of one (a router in the basement with all the cat5 and a wireless access point upstairs) but it does work pretty well and almost all consumer routers can be configured to work this way--look for one supported by tomato or dd-wrt though.

 

[Thomas]

Cat5 isn't hard to run or terminate - particularly if you have the walls open - but in a straaange twist of events I found that our wireless router pushes data faster than a wired connection.

 

[GQgeek]



Cat5 isn't hard to run or terminate - particularly if you have the walls open - but in a straaange twist of events I found that our wireless router pushes data faster than a wired connection.

ya... that shouldn't happen. either something is wrong (duplex mismatch causing collisions, bad cable/termination, or something like that) or you need a gigabit switch.

Anyway, like otc said, run the damned cat6 (better for gigabit at longer distances). It's super easy to do and you can terminate yourself if you're trying to save money. You can buy a 1000ft spool and all your jacks/wall plates off of monoprice for like 60 bucks + less than a dollar per piece.. Buy the tool-less jacks. They're really easy to work with.

 

[Rambo]



Cat5 isn't hard to run or terminate - particularly if you have the walls open - but in a straaange twist of events I found that our wireless router pushes data faster than a wired connection.

You gots a problems there.

Doublas - run the damn wire. get cat 6 like geek said. you'll be MUCH MUCH happier in the long run.

 

[transient]

I don't have to chime in about running the damn ethernet but I will anyway. Just do it now. And have it terminate at a central switch somewhere in the basement or some closet.

Wireless for the most part works pretty well these days but I've seen some strange houses where it just refuses to work well for one reason or another -- some odd wiring in some wall just causes all kind of interference and messes up everything.

Be sure to run it to wherever your TV is because chances are you'll be watching most of your television off the web in the coming years.

 

[gettoasty]

Similar question, would it be more efficient to run a CAT6 cable through the house (fenced around the ceiling) where only 2 PC are connected to the internet? Both are using wireless right now. Supposedly the modem can output up to about 24Mbps, wireless 12-15.

Testing out wireless currently, but would a CAT6 100-150ft wire from the router to a switch then to the PC be more efficient in using the most of the connection speed?


Right now only the living room has the modem access and router, and the rooms are about 100-150ft away using wireless.

The only alternative is have an installation of an alternate cable line from the outside to one of the bedroom but that would require drilling holes etc.

I was about to do the wired connection and buy supplies from Newegg.com but all the corners the wire had to go through made me hesitate and doubt the speed. I feel it may be similar to wireless.

 

[Douglas]

Thanks guys for the thoughtful feedback, in particular the advice about phone lines, termination points, and Cat 6 (a product of which I was totally unaware).

The walls are not nearly as open as everyone seems to think - many walls have indeed been torn out with new ones framed and still open, but most of these are in bedroom/bathroom/kitchen areas. There are still many walls standing, and they are old plaster walls and ceilings that are significantly more problematic to get things into. Exterior walls are also a total no-go because of the method of original construction. So running unplanned wires to many areas is not just a matter of a few hundred bucks for a spool of cable. And considering all the other overages on the project, from unplanned roof repair to a new water service to other finish items that are overbudget (to satisfy the wife) just shrugging my shoulders over more added expense is just not something that's all that comfortable, particularly given that I'm not the biggest techie in the world and wifi seems to be good enough for a lot of what I do.

Anyways, I will take this advice to mind and likely modify my plan to some greater or lesser extent. Thanks!