# Cabling suggestions for new/old home



## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

Feed to a Central point such as a attached garage, or indoor utility room. From there, you should be able to pull Ethernet, Coax, and Telephone. If you can afford Octopus cabling, that would work even better. Do not connect in the Attic, because the next home owner may not like it, and it is a ***** to work on during Summer months with the heat. Do yourself a favor, and keep the connections in the interior space. Why do you think that offices have connections in the interior, vs. in the drop ceilings.


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## swilson317 (Oct 9, 2009)

Thanks for the reply. If I pull to a central point, should I pull under the floor or in the attic? I'm not following your comment about the octopus cable. I'm only familiar with octopus cable that has multiples of the same cable. Are you referring to a cable that carries coax, ethernet, and phone?


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

You can do it either way. Crawl spaces are easier to work in, then attics. Octopus cable, is 2 runs of Coax, 2 runs of Cat-3, 2 runs of Cat-5e or Cat-6, and Fiber Optic if you wish. You can also get Octopus that is for A/V, with HDMI cabling in it. The cost is a little more, but makes for a cleaner run.


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## swilson317 (Oct 9, 2009)

I finally found the cabling. Maybe the term "octopus" is being used loosely. I was only able to find, what I am familar with for an "octopus" cable on the Net, as a single 50-pin Telco-style connector on one end and 12 RJ-14 jacks on the other. Searching for Structured Wiring, I did find various brands of "composite" cables such as this: http://www.av-cables.net/Bulk-cable/composite-cable-43076.html

I have a feeling that fiber may be overkill, but then again, it is the future...and I do believe in investing in the future...especially when it comes to pulling cable. Why two coax cables, though?

Oh...and for anyone else insterested in this topic...I found a really nice write up with photos of a similar project here: http://www.swhowto.com/

Thanks again for the suggestions!


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## jerryh3 (Dec 10, 2007)

swilson317 said:


> I finally found the cabling. Maybe the term "octopus" is being used loosely. I was only able to find, what I am familar with for an "octopus" cable on the Net, as a single 50-pin Telco-style connector on one end and 12 RJ-14 jacks on the other. Searching for Structured Wiring, I did find various brands of "composite" cables such as this: http://www.av-cables.net/Bulk-cable/composite-cable-43076.html
> 
> I have a feeling that fiber may be overkill, but then again, it is the future...and I do believe in investing in the future...especially when it comes to pulling cable. Why two coax cables, though?
> 
> ...


Two coax can be used for a number of different things. OTA antennas, Multi-room DVRs, security cameras, backfeeding modulated signals, etc.. IMO fiber in residential is a little overkill. Bundled/composite cable is nice but it comes at a premium. You'll probably pay 3X as much just to have the cable bundled.


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

Fiber is not overkill, especially if you are looking at installing 7.1 in the future, and want to also be able to provide for future tech's.


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## jerryh3 (Dec 10, 2007)

gregzoll said:


> Fiber is not overkill, especially if you are looking at installing 7.1 in the future, and want to also be able to provide for future tech's.


7.1 to every room? Do you have any links for the bundled HDMI cables?


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

If you wanted to. Otherwise, I would have it in just the media room where the projector is, and those rooms that if you wanted to pull from a central point. Check Parts Express, they have majority of the stuff out there avail. to the consumer public.


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## steve1234 (Sep 13, 2007)

I rebuilt my house and had everything down to studs. Pulled what seemed like miles of wire. 2x coax + 2x cat5-e (min) to every room + some additional lines to some other specific rooms. Everything "spoked" out from a central panel. The set up provides a lot of flexibility. Check out Home Tech solutions (Google it). They have a bunch of cool stuff as well as some online tutorials on "structured wiring for the home". I'm still trying to explain to my wife why we "need" all the wire.....she's slowly coming around.


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## Holt (Dec 6, 2008)

if you are going to do internet and watch tv in you office I suggest you have to cable coax drops to that room. Splitting the signal before a cable modem to many times can affect the preformance of you internet. My suggestion would be to wire up the cable modem where you are homerunning all of your cables to and run ethernet cables from there.


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