BEST PRACTICES AND A GUIDE FOR HOMEOWNERS
A homeowner would ask, 'Why should I do structured cabling rather than just stick with Wi-Fi or ad-hoc cabling for my home?' There are several reasons why structured cabling, also known as low-voltage wiring, for a new or even existing home, is important, such as;
Reliability
Speed
Future-proofing
Long-term costs
A structured cabling system is an organized collection of copper, fiber, video, and low-voltage wiring that connects all the home’s electronic hardware, such as computers, security systems, smart systems, and telephones, among others. It’s the central nervous system of the home’s communication system, providing flexibility, uninterrupted uptime, and the ability to scale, upgrade, or modify whenever needed.
Often, houses are built with electrical cabling and plumbing well catered for, and it’s only when moved in that the need for a different type of cabling becomes apparent. Home devices and systems, particularly smart devices, which are becoming more prevalent in homes, need a robust network to work optimally.
Since cabling is now an impossibility or too costly when the house is occupied or ready for occupancy, homeowners are forced to scramble together an ad hoc Wi-Fi network, which, depending on the complexity and size of the home, can be both frustrating and extremely costly in the long run.
For this reason, low-voltage cabling is usually done concurrently with general electrical cabling or shortly after, before the walls and ceilings are covered up, provided conduits and passages are catered for. The termination of sockets and data points is best done when the rough work on the house has been finished, so as not to run the risk of damaging the sockets.
A cabled network is way faster and more reliable than a Wi-Fi connection and isn’t susceptible to factors that adversely affect Wi-Fi, such as walls, distance, and interference from other networks.
But for devices that have to be fixed in one place, like TVs, security systems, PCs, and smart home devices, cabling is the way to go. This can even help free up the Wi-Fi capacity for mobile devices that have no option to plug in, ensuring a fast and reliable connection for all home devices and systems.
Power line networking, or Ethernet over power, can be an option for a Wi-Fi network and its attendant downsides. Power line networking uses existing electrical cabling to transmit the internet all over the house.
While it can be an option for homeowners who either have no way of re-cabling an existing home or have no budget for a new cabling project, it's no match for high-speed network cabling and can be just as slow or even slower than Wi-Fi.
Apart from the internet, structured cabling takes care of a slew of other functions like file sharing, voice, video, and audio distribution. As new services become available, they can be incorporated seamlessly if a well-planned infrastructure is already in place to allow for flexibility and robustness.
What to consider when cabling the home
Central Location of the equipment
Standard practice recommends all data and multimedia sockets and data points be cabled to a central location, particularly to save on the amount of cable run. In most homes, it could be a basement, a spacious and well-ventilated store room, or a home office, where they all plug into a switch or terminate onto a patch panel. This makes management, expansion, and upgrading easier.
Ideally, the central location should be in a central position in the house, big enough to be well-ventilated and to accommodate bulky equipment and terminated cables that can be unsightly when situated in a general living area. In smaller homes, even a dedicated shelf, cabinet, or wardrobe would suffice as long as it's large enough to accommodate all equipment, allow work to be done, and be out of the way.
Patching
The equipment room or cabinet can have different patch panels, e.g., for network, phone, and TV signal distribution. On a patch panel, each port is clearly marked, denoting the specific socket it leads to and the specific part of the house. Patch panelling makes management and reconfiguration easier since each individual socket can be changed to serve a different function by just re-patching cables between the patch panel and the switch.
Without a patch panel, a cabinet might end up in a hideous ‘spaghetti’ tangle of cables that would be a nightmare during maintenance, additions, and repairs. While patch panels aren’t a must for a network to function, they are recommended as a cabling standard.
Cable type
The type of network cable is a very important component of structured cabling. It’s advisable to go with the latest standard of cable that will make the network future-proof. For instance, Cat 5 cable, while still prevalent, is becoming obsolete and therefore not recommended for new installations that need to be relevant and up-to-date for at least ten years.
Gigabit devices are becoming cheaper, available, and common in homes; therefore, there's a need for cables that can support gigabit speeds. While Cat 5 cables can support speeds of up to 100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps for Cat 5e, Cat 6 cables can support up to 10 Gigabit speeds over typical domestic cable lengths, which is way more than what most home devices would ever require.
The price difference between Cat 5 and Cat 6 cables is marginal, so there’s no real short-term cost to buying Cat 5 cables, but there is a significant long-term cost to doing so.
Socket, Outlets & Data points
The number of data outlets would be determined by the size of the home and the projected number of wired devices and equipment a home would have in the future. Standard practice is to have at least two outlets in rooms where a computer, TV, phone, or printer might be situated.
For common rooms like living rooms, entertainment rooms, lounges, kitchens, or home offices that have a higher concentration of multimedia devices such as gaming consoles, TVs, media players, smart hubs, Wi-Fi access points, and security systems, at least six data outlets would be recommended.
It’s always recommended to have more sockets than needed rather than less because it’s cheap enough to wire extra sockets during cabling but can be prohibitively expensive or even impossible to add them afterwards, once everything is sealed up and the house is occupied.
Of course, future data outlet needs can be solved by installing a network switch at a data point, though it would definitely come with the downside of slower speeds as several devices would have to share the capacity of a single cable connecting the switch to the equipment room or closet.
Wireless Access Points
Good Wi-Fi across the home is important, as it serves devices that are completely reliant on Wi-Fi. Conventional routers are the most commonly used mode of providing Wi-Fi across the home. While they can adequately supply wireless internet across a room or two adjacent rooms, they won’t be able to cover the whole home, and in large homes, they might not go beyond one room.
Unlike cabled internet, Wi-Fi is affected by walls and distance, i.e., the further the Wi-Fi signal travels, the weaker it becomes. In larger homes, there are more walls and greater distances for the signal to cover, and by the time it reaches the farthest ends of its range, it’s too weak to be of any use.
For optimum speed and reliability, not only should a home have more than one Wi-Fi source, but all WI-FI access points have to be wired to the switch, though there is the option of using a mesh network system (WIX). The size of the home will determine the number of access points.
In homes where cabling might not be possible for a variety of reasons, Wi-Fi access points or Wi-Fi extenders (WIX) might be incorporated to extend the Wi-Fi signal beyond the reach of the router.
Cost
The cost will always depend on
Size of the home and how it’s constructed. Houses with designated cable ducts, conduits, and passages would cost less in terms of manpower and cabling than houses without such accommodations.
Type, quality, and quantity of accessories used, such as terminators, sockets, patch panels, switches, and data points
It’s important to consider both short- and long-term costs, for instance, in terms of cable standards and quality that would last for a long time, as well as support emerging technologies.
Another aspect can be the number of sockets or data points. It’s advisable to have at least two per room where currently only one might be needed, as adding an extra data point in the future can cost almost five times as much.
Equipment sourcing
While a knowledgeable homeowner can source equipment and either undertake installation or engage a professional installer, it’s usually cheaper and more secure to have the installer source and provide the equipment. They might be able to find equipment at cheaper prices as they might acquire it at wholesale or installer prices, and most importantly, when the equipment is faulty, it’s their responsibility to rectify or replace it, which is a big advantage to the homeowner.
They should also be better able to advise on equipment and accessories that would be future-proof and compatible with emerging technologies, thus saving the homeowner on future costs of upgrading.
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