Under floor cat5

[Will]

Problem with cable design is that you can lose performance on long runs unless it's high quality cable. Cable runs should be solid core and ideally shielded (from experience) to prevent poor performance.

[petemc]

Hmm. The more I think about it the more I wonder if I really need cat5 into the kitchen. If I really do need to boost the networking in there I'm more tempted by Airport for its Airplay features and networking stuff.

I shall ponder.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Will

Problem with cable design is that you can lose performance on long runs unless it's high quality cable. Cable runs should be solid core and ideally shielded (from experience) to prevent poor performance.

Indeed - patch cables use stranded copper cores whereas the stuff used for trunking in long runs is usually solid core.

I use Cat5E everywhere at home except for one long run from the office upstairs, down through the garage and across the living room. This run is probably 20-30 metres and I used Cat6 for this, although still stranded cores rather than solid and it works fine for gigglebit.

[petemc]

Ok so just to change topic slightly. Phone line under laminate. Is that going to work? Can I just buy an extension cable to run from the front room to the kitchen, tape it down and lay laminate? I won't be laying it as our insurance company will be. Next week.

[Zirax]

I don't see why not. However any runs or extensions will affect your internet connection (provided you use ADSL).

I removed an extension from the master socket to upstairs and gained 0.5mb download speed and a big noise reduction. Then got a set of 4 cordless phones for ~£50 from Argos

[petemc]

Oh? Even if the router is connected to the main socket and the extension is just for 1 phone?

[Zirax]

Originally Posted by petemc

Oh? Even if the router is connected to the main socket and the extension is just for 1 phone?

For me it did make a difference, even with good microfilters on the other end.

[Mark]

Phone wire is generally unshielded and thus somewhat prone to line noise. So yes, even a 'downstream' extension socket could have an impact.

One way to (mostly) avoid that is to get an NTE5-style faceplate for your master socket and then wire the extension into that. The extension will then be after the filter and thus less likely to cause problems.

Mine was an early engineer install so I got an NTE5 faceplate as part of the package. I can certainly recommend them, though there are now some 3rd party versions that are even better.