# What type of cable to install for a whole house rewire?



## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

I already have CAT-6 for network and CAT-5e for the phones. I plan on a home-run type wiring setup into a Leviton Structured Media enclosure. I bought a 500 foot spool of RG6, but I'm wondering if I should take it back and get the RG6U Quad-shield instead that costs about $25 more. 

This is the first time the walls have been opened in 45 years and it may be another 45 years before they're opened again. I want to do it right and plan for the future (ergo the choice of CAT-6 for data, for example).


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

I went with RG6U Quad-shield 
1st floor I left what was there - since I have access from the basement

2nd floor I also have access with 10' conduit I ran
But since 2nd floor was not wired I went with the Quad
I only went with 5e, since I have access I can run newer if needed
It's been my experience in that by the time some new tech has come out new wire is out too
So I don't go with the higher rated PC network cable
Phone I had a 1000' roll of Cat3 leftover so I used that


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

What kind of wiring cabinet are you using?


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

I'm not using a cabinet
Phone wire is simply connected to a terminal block
Network wire I have a 24 port punch down
I'll need to add another 24 port in the future
I activate whatever ports I need

This is all located in my utility room
Phone & Network are on the same 4x8 plywood as my electric panel & FIOS setup

The cable is run further away from the panel & the wires/connection are up in the joists
I'll need to add an 8-way splitter in the future

I looked into panels...but I decided mosty were too small for what I want
I may eventually build a cabinet on the wall w/1x6 pine & put a door on it

But since its all in a utility room which has a door & closed off from the rest of the basement I probably will not
And its just one more door that will get in my way when I want to wire


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

I don't really have a utility area where I can just throw punchdown blocks into, I need something like a structured cabinet to make it look neat and organized. I would do it your way if I could though, it would be cheaper.


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## acerunner (Dec 16, 2009)

ever considered using a patch panel mounted in a wall? Makes for a very clean setup.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

brons2 said:


> I don't really have a utility area where I can just throw punchdown blocks into, I need something like a structured cabinet to make it look neat and organized. I would do it your way if I could though, it would be cheaper.


Go buy a cabinet door that you like that is big enough
Use 1x's to build a frame & put the door on
A small structured cabinet can go for $100+
Then usually you have to buy all of their add-ons that fit in that cabinet


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## khawk1664 (Feb 25, 2010)

You can get an 18" Rough-In can and an 8x8 combo telephone and cable splitter for pretty cheap. With you living in Texas and not having a basement this is a good solution. You can put the box in a spare closet somewhere, make all your connections, close the door and never worry about it again. You will want to run electrical to the can. It will have a knock out in it for an electrical plug. This comes in good use when you want to network out of it by installing your modem there.


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

I have a 42" can, LOL.

Trying to decide where to put it. I'm going gigabit throughout on my wired Ethernet, so I'm trying to leave lots of room for airflow. Need to get me some sort of fanless switch.

[edit] I will also get some kind of power in there and put my cable modem in there as well. I'm going to run at least two RG-6 to the demarc as I currently have satellite TV and cable Internet.

Then for wireless I need an AP I can just feed back into the switch...which reminds me, I need a layer 3 switch, proally whip up something open source.

Probably just get some 66 blocks for the phone. 

Not sure if I need to amplify the TV, I'm thinking no, just split it. The big question is, run two cables per outlet or one. Probably two, if I have enough cable left.


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

For the coax question, plain RG6 is just fine. That's what you'll have feeding the house as well. Quad shield is never necessary unless a) you want to feel a false sense of security in signal quality, or b) you're living 2 feet within a power-plant turbine.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

With a 10% off coupon the price of the quad was equal to the reg RG6 normal price


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

Scuba_Dave said:


> With a 10% off coupon the price of the quad was equal to the reg RG6 normal price


If the price ends up being the same, then there's nothing wrong with buying it. Just don't expect any difference whatsoever in signal quality and power.

Here's something to keep in mind: RG-6 aerial cable is not quad shield (not in the system I work for, and as far as I know, other systems such as Comcast do not use quad-shield either). Now keep in mind, the drop cable is a minimum of 18 inches (or less, depending on how the cable is anchored to the pole/strand) below power. There is far more current and voltage running through a power transmission line, than through a household outlet. Signal degradation does not exist with coax that is a foot or so from high-voltage, uninsulated, unshielded power transmission lines, so you have NOTHING at all to worry about in a household.


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

I took the RG6 back and got the quad-shield, the difference in price was inconsequential. I'll sleep better knowing it is quad-shield! :biggrin:


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

brons2 said:


> I took the RG6 back and got the quad-shield, the difference in price was inconsequential. I'll sleep better knowing it is quad-shield! :biggrin:


Could you please explain why it'll help you sleep better? There really is 0 difference when it comes to protection. Regular already has a foil shield (which in itself is usually enough to stop most interference), and then on top of that has an aluminum braid (this certainly finishes the protection off). To me, quad-shield is more of a marketing hype. "Monster cables" comes to mind for this as well, but that's a different topic for a different day.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

Works for me



> So, what's the result of these differences in shielding? Engineers measure the effectiveness of a shield by what is termed "transfer impedance," which indicates the extent to which a signal outside of the cable reaches the inside. Transfer impedance is a function of frequency, so to gauge the relative effectiveness of shields, one has to know what the frequency band in question is, but at all frequencies, a precision video cable with a 95% braid and foil outperforms quad shield cable. The following table is taken (with permission of the author) from the _Audio/Video Cable Installer's Pocket Guide_, McGraw-Hill 2002, by Stephen Lampen, an engineer with Belden Wire and Cable. It shows the transfer impedance for various shield configurations on RG-6 type cables at various frequencies; the lower the number, the better.
> 
> 
> *Shield Type **5 MHz **10 MHz **50 MHz **100 MHz **500 MHz*​
> ...


 
well that quote didn't work too good​


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

Scuba_Dave said:


> Works for me
> 
> 
> 
> ...


With the system I work for, the foil is bonded to the dielectric, and we have 95% braid. That seems to be pretty standard, as far as I know, for cable that is not bought inside little packages. The packaged cable is horrendous: I've cut connectors on them before, and most of the cheaper cables only have a few strands of braid, and very thin shielding. These cables are also a leading cause of interference on the low band.

Quad shield really is more of a security blanket than anything. In nearly all real-world situations, quad shield and regular will perform equally, with quad shield being the higher price (it's like buying a Monster HDMI cable for $80 when the $5 cable works just as good.)


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

I really doubt the cable companies are buying high end wire
I know the stuff in my home was garbage


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

Scuba_Dave said:


> I really doubt the cable companies are buying high end wire
> I know the stuff in my home was garbage


I know the stuff I work with on a daily basis. It's not that expensive when it's bought in bulk quantities, and god is there a lot of braid. Perhaps we take more pride since we're a small company. Who knows. I'll get the part number off a spool tomorrow and see if I'm on crack (which is possible) or not.

The stuff in your house: was it pre-wire (ran behind your walls)? If so, we don't touch that; electricians are the only ones licensed to do that work and pull the permits, etc., and I can attest for all of the junk prewire I've come across (RG59 that barely has what can be called shielding, etc). We'll install cable where it is fully accessible and visible (run along outside walls, drill through floor etc) and that is very common practice across the country.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

It was all over the place
2nd floor was an Apt, so they ran it up the side of the house
I've ripped just about everything out now
They had splitters all over the place too

FIOS went in a few years ago
Replacing one line to a 19" TV improved the picture a LOT

My last house I went with AT&T I think for phone, cable & Internet
3 people were there 1/2 day & did not run the wire the way I wanted 
They went up & over a doorway & across my wall
Then they left me on a Friday without a working phone
I called Monday to cancel....they ended cutting the bill way down for 6 months to make up for the problem


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

One thing I will say, is that apartments can be huge nightmares. Don't take this personally by any means, but apartments are _huge_ breeding grounds for illegal hookups. Tenants will move in and out, hooking up their own splitters and adding lines in order to get free service.

In most cases (this is not always true, because I know we all slack off from time to time), a wiring nightmare did not start off that way; it was installed correctly at one point, but was "added on" by amateurs and thieves. I've had a few check-for-illegals at apartment buildings, that have ended up being a "to the hell with this, I can't tell what's what, so I'll disconnect whatever I think may be illegal" and hope that the paying customers don't lose service: if they do, I'll be out right away to correct my mistake. The problem is in these cases, there will be tons of splitters hanging from windows (not our splitters, nor our wire), and if it looks wrong, I disconnect it.


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

Tonglebeak said:


> Could you please explain why it'll help you sleep better? There really is 0 difference when it comes to protection. Regular already has a foil shield (which in itself is usually enough to stop most interference), and then on top of that has an aluminum braid (this certainly finishes the protection off). To me, quad-shield is more of a marketing hype. "Monster cables" comes to mind for this as well, but that's a different topic for a different day.


Cause Quad-Shield is three more shields than normal? :biggrin:

Actually, I was being facetious with my previous statement.


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

Tonglebeak said:


> Quad shield really is more of a security blanket than anything. In nearly all real-world situations, quad shield and regular will perform equally, with quad shield being the higher price (it's like buying a Monster HDMI cable for $80 when the $5 cable works just as good.)


Oh yeah I would not have bought the quad shield if it was that sort of price difference. I got a 500 foot spool at HD, the normal RG-6 was $42 and the quad-shield was $65. In other words, 8.4 cents a foot for normal and 13 cents a foot for quad shield. At the quantities I am using (probably won't use the whole spool), that difference barely registers a blip.


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

Tonglebeak said:


> One thing I will say, is that apartments can be huge nightmares. Don't take this personally by any means, but apartments are _huge_ breeding grounds for illegal hookups. Tenants will move in and out, hooking up their own splitters and adding lines in order to get free service.
> 
> In most cases (this is not always true, because I know we all slack off from time to time), a wiring nightmare did not start off that way; it was installed correctly at one point, but was "added on" by amateurs and thieves. I've had a few check-for-illegals at apartment buildings, that have ended up being a "to the hell with this, I can't tell what's what, so I'll disconnect whatever I think may be illegal" and hope that the paying customers don't lose service: if they do, I'll be out right away to correct my mistake. The problem is in these cases, there will be tons of splitters hanging from windows (not our splitters, nor our wire), and if it looks wrong, I disconnect it.


I was an athlete in college and we had a small dorm that various teams lived in, we had that whole thing wired off of one installation. The cable company finally came out and cut us off one day :biggrin:


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

Yeah I seem to remember a wire thru adjoining Apt closets for cable decades ago :whistling2:

I always wondered...I see Apts where they include cable in the price
Is it legal to feed all the Apts with one "service" ?


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

Well I stand corrected. I guess not all information I received during training, was accurate. Or my memory fogged up.

In any case, we do use 60% braid and bonded foil. One thing you do have to consider though, is that there is a huge difference between real-world conditions, and labratory tests.

If we used cable that couldn't do the job at resisting ingress/egress, we'd be out of business in a hurry, either by a lack of customers, or the FCC.


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## Neonblue (Mar 7, 2010)

I'm a network engineer that has over 30 years of experience...

I've also built a home recently and had it wired to the hilt. 

You will see in the very near future that most everything will be wireless in someway. Even video distribution is starting to go wireless (Gefen and a few other brands have an HDMI over wireless solution now).

With that said, my theater area is being hardwired BUT I'm using conduit to run the wire so I can easily swap out with a new standard in the future. I also have at least 3 CAT6 (phone, computer, HDMI over network) and in some cases 5 CAT6 cables. At each of the media jacks I've also got RG6 which will probably stay dark. I do have some of my computers hardwired but over half are wireless. The new N standard really picks up the speed and goes a good distance.

So with all the wire I ran I'm betting that I'll only use about 1/5th of it. Especially now that wireless is becoming more prevelant.


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## brons2 (Jan 25, 2010)

30 years in networking? geez all I had 30 years ago was a trash-80 with a tape drive for data storage, in my 2nd grade classroom lol.

anyways....conduit does sound like a good idea but I've already installed all the runs downstairs and I'm not inclined to change them now. I have way too much work to do on this project still to be messing with re-work.

One thing I would really like would be a centralized wireless controller that could be in charge of 2-4 AP's and have it be seamless for roaming from AP to AP. I was looking at the MicroTik stuff the other day, pretty interesting.


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## Neonblue (Mar 7, 2010)

Let me clarify that a bit... 30 years professional experience with computers 24 of it in networking and 6 as a programmer (another 3 or 4 years non-professional experience but I'm not counting that). I'm an odd bag, I'm a programmer, network engineer, and security specialist. I started in programming... Never owned a "trash"-80, but I do have fond(not) memories of punching out cards to program a computer. My first tape experience was with a commodore Pet, the sound of reading in all that code was music to my ears... 

Anyway, I don't have any experience with the MicroTik controller, but it sounds interesting. I do have a lot of experience with the Cisco controllers. The only benefit I could see you receiving from this is possibly more security on the wireless(again, I'm not versed in that controller). Typically I use a controller where there are dynamic changes in the location (like a warehouse) to change signal strengths or in a location that needs high mobility and handoffs to closer APs. Of course in the Cisco controller, security management is a lot easier but one can get the same security with a little extra work in each AP. With that said, I'm not going to foot the bill for cisco EQ.

You must have a really big house... I've got a 5000sqf house that I can service with one AP and have full signal in most of the house.


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