Help designing our home network

[MechanicalBuilder]

So the time has come to start designing the layout for our home network for our 220m2 bungalow.

I've attached the floor plans so hopefully they load up ok!

We are fairly rural so have a 60mbps broadband connection, hopefully fibre will make it to us sometime in the near future but its looking like its a few years away yet!

 

I'm no it expert but i'm fairly hands on with this sort of thing, love to learn and get involved, Ive been researching the Ubiquiti stuff on here but not so sure I will need anything so technologically advanced but open to suggestions.

 

I'm thinking of bringing the phoneline into the house and putting the master socket in the cupboard under the stairs, the logic being its somewhere I can hide everything out of the way. Plus, that will be a space that never changes in the future. I can put the router, printer and switch in here and run the network cables from here.

CCTV wise im using hikvision so will have a dedicated NVR with PoE connections.

 

We stream IPTV so I will put a double network connection in all bedrooms, the study, the living room and the dining room. The study is going to be a toy room for the next 10+ years otherwise id put it all here! May need to add a couple in the garage for the solar/heat pump if needed. Aside from this the netgear mesh wifi system looks a good way of providing wifi for the rest of the house!

 

As a side note, my parents are living in a static caravan next door and I plan on pinching the phone line from them and sharing the network.

I may add a mesh satellite in their caravan for wifi along with a network connection for their IPTV.

 

Open to your ideas!

 

Ground Floor.pdf 2nd Floor.pdf Location diagram.PDF

[TonyT]

I follow what’s generally done in commercial installs that there is never a single point run it’s a double data point with 2 data cables.

 

I have 48 data cables that I run in 20 years ago,  not all used but I was putting rewiring at the time, maybe 8 or 9 used but glad it was done keeps the Wi-Fi for Wi-Fi only devices.

good luck

[oliwoodings]

If you're running cable then go for wired PoE APs instead of a wireless mesh. You will usually get better coverage, bandwidth, reliability and it can be cheaper.

 

Run CAT6 to the ceiling voids of each major room in the house. You don't have to actually use it all at this time. Wherever you end up needing an AP, you just pop a hole in the ceiling, mount the AP, and hook it up at the other end under the stairs.

 

If you're hoping for a fttp connection in the future, think about how you'll get the cable into the property. Some people like to try and preemptively install a duct so it can be pulled through under the walls without breaching airtightness etc (although I think ISPs can be fussy about what they allow for this).

[CalvinHobbes]

Good point! I need to get on to sky, virgin and BT to see what they require us to do to facilitate future service through a duct by any of them. Has anyone any previous experience of this?

 

[IanR]

For all National FTTP ISPs (except Virgin, if you want to call them "national"), Openreach provide the infrastructure and the connection of a house to it.

 

(Although arranged via your chosen ISP when you order a service)

 

OR say they will fit a junction box for the fibre on an external wall, drill through and put the ONT the other side, where there needs to be a plug socket. Your Gateway (aka router) would likely be positioned there also.

 

Currently OR are prepared to go the extra mile and if you have ducting in place, ideally the grey 50mm ducting OR issue for copper connections, OR will route the fibre inside the house and terminate at your preferred location, along with the ONT and your Gateway.

 

My experience was OR did an awful lot for the standard connection fee. Ie. Pulled the fibre 130m through the existing ducting and got it to my Node 0, in the centre of the house. It did take them 5 visits though.

 

If you're in line to benefit from alternate fibre networks, ie. Virgin, Community Fibre etc. then each have their own rules, but are generally similar.

Edited April 14 by IanR

[garrymartin]

1 hour ago, IanR said:

For all National FTTP ISPs (except Virgin, if you want to call them "national"), Openreach provide the infrastructure and the connection of a house to it.

Not strictly true. Although Openreach runs the largest FTTP network, there are other providers that are laying their own cables in various areas.

 

My FTTP has been with Vodafone and TalkTalk over the years, both using the CityFibre network here in Worcester despite Openreach being available too. 

[ProDave]

I have a really really low opinion of BT / Open Reach.

 

For years and years, we had to put up with very poor "end of the line" ADSL as our only option.  Then OR started laying fibre up the trunk network that passed the end of out road.  They missed, or rather could not be bothered to put a cabinet there and give us all FTTC broadband.  It would have still used copper for the last 300 metres but would have been a vast improvement for relatively little upheaval.  Of course they did nothing.

 

Later a local company installed a wireless network covering our village and we now get 100mbps from them.  Of course that now means OR won't install fibre down our road as I don't think there is a single BT customer left here.

 

That's probably good because I would not allow OR to drill through my air tight walls to shove a fibre through.

[FuerteStu]

Under my consumer unit (in a cupboard in the hallway) is a 24 port switch. I've routed twin cat6 cables from there to all TV points, to each corner on the house and several other strategic places. This network has its own WiFi. My ISP plugs into this switch and livens up the outgoing connections, I change my isp, I just change their router and there's zero changes to my home network, no swapping WiFi passwords etc. 

 

The only thing I've done different to others is my so called 'turn it off and on again' Radial 240 circuit. Next to my switch. 

 

It's a spur that supplies the tactical sockets in places that supply. CCTV, router, switch, doorbell, alarm and WiFi. 

 

This way, one switch can reboot the entire house. Which makes it soooo much easier if there are any glitches or issues. 

[dpmiller]

Oddly enough we had the opposite experience. We're in a Project Stratum area, with service provided by Fibrus. Theoretically at least.

 

Our house didn't exist during the Stratum survey, and so does't attract a grant payment for Fibrus. "Sorry sir, you're property isn't included"

 

A chap from OR came out (chargeable survey, but they didn't tell me that to begin with...) and said "what's the problem? We've a fibre node on the next lane" and poles from there carrying a copper line to our neighbours. He explained that they would bring an 8-fibre bundle 200m in on the existing poles to cover the four houses in our little clump and call it "network expansion". Good value apparently.

 

And so fibre arrived to the pole, I buried the ducting OR delivered to me, and the installer happily brought the fibre in, through my internal conduit, and put the ONT in my chosen position in the plant room.

 

/subsequently, the three other houses all got Fibrus, and Fibrus have pulled three seperate fibres, all from a second node point on the same pole on the other lane.

[CalvinHobbes]

I am  in bed with covid since sitting is too much, planning our network (will run it by you shortly for your wise advice) but he said if he was doing his own again he would use cat 6a and run minimum 4 cables to tv's.

 

By away my covid started on Thursday with just a sniffle, I felt well. Went to asthma clinic on Friday (haven't used inhalers in a year but knew i felt tight) and doc said 'you might have covid, test if you want but I don't know if there is much point, it's everywhere'. I tested thinking nah, but it was positive. Now going upstairs is too much. Problem is it does vascular damage, it does matter - spreading it is crazy. Anyway, rant over, deffo going to look into hepa filtration now for the house. I wonder can I add it?

[JohnMo]

We kept it simple 

No BT or openreach to the house, although I did lay a cable to outside the house and the nearest pole (in same trench as power) just in case it gets better than snails pace. 

 

We just got a 4G router and a cat5 or 6 cable to each room, two to office and two to living room.

 

On 03/03/2024 at 07:59, MechanicalBuilder said:

solar/heat pump

Not sure why they need internet, but I am sure someone will come up with a good reason. But while you are digging things up may be useful in the garage.

 

CCTV is all wireless.

 

1 hour ago, CalvinHobbes said:

hepa filtration now for the house. I wonder can I add it?

Yes.

[Kelvin]

Cable is relatively cheap so I’ve run multiple cables everywhere plus a few buried in walls but that’s mostly unused Loxone wiring. I have 4 going out to the garage plus ducted for more to the opposite side of the house where the gate will be. I’ve run some upstairs but won’t actually use them. It was just easy to do. 
 

eta I did it myself so it just cost me a roll of cable and my time. Not sure I’d have paid a sparkie to do it. 

Edited June 17 by Kelvin

[garrymartin]

25 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Not sure why they need internet, but I am sure someone will come up with a good reason.

 

Not everything connected to the internal network will require Internet access, but having a network cable provisioned for things like solar and heat pump controllers allows for future automation/control of them, or just gathering stats and data.

[Pocster]

Even though like others I equally cabled everywhere there’s always a situation where it won’t do . So a super reliable WiFi mesh network ( with Ethernet backhaul ) is very important imho .

[Alan Ambrose]

Just think of anywhere you might want to put a wifi access point, a camera, doorbell, gate opener, plug in a computer, tv, have a smart device etc etc etc. Note that, if you forget one, that in the future you can split a network cable into two if you need, but it need a couple of tails and the solution is OK where you don't need max bandwidth. Run the cables back to one or more hubs - more than one might reduce the amount of cable considerably. CAT6 should be fine.

[ProDave]

I ran multiple cat5 to each tv point and at least one to each room, most were not terminated, just left in the service void where I can fish them out and connect them if a need arrises.

 

One in the small bedroom got used for a while when it was a temporary office and one is now in use in my new office for the desktop pc.  The rest of them remain in the service void waiting for a use.

 

But you could guarantee if I had not fitted them, I would want them.

[G and J]

Years ago I ran Ethernet cable around our house, connected just about everything that had an Ethernet connection.

 

Didn’t really improve things but I like a project.  Wi-Fi was still patchy and that’s the thing that mattered most to day to day life.
 

A few years later I bought some of these BT disc things.  Turn off router Wi-Fi and plug a disc via Ethernet into my router and the discs connect to each other wirelessly.  Brilliant.

Ended up disconnecting all the Ethernet apart from hive hub and one BT disc which sit next to the router.

 

So forgive me being dumb, but I think the only other thing I’ll need in the new pad is Ethernet to my man cave at the bottom of the garden (mainly for the TV).

 

So why, apart from remote buildings, would one need cat whatever the latest number is in my house?

 

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, G and J said:

So why, apart from remote buildings, would one need cat whatever the latest number is in my house?

Each to their own. I prefer to plug devices in with a cable rather than use WiFi. So I’ve run a lot of network points on walls for things like printers, game consoles, tvs, PCs, Sonos, streaming devices and so on. Not to mention CCTV. 
 

I could’ve run all that over WiFi but cabled is rock solid. It’s mostly mobile devices, laptops and IoT devices that use the WiFi. 

[Pocster]

7 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

Each to their own. I prefer to plug devices in with a cable rather than use WiFi. So I’ve run a lot of network points on walls for things like printers, game consoles, tvs, PCs, Sonos, streaming devices and so on. Not to mention CCTV. 
 

I could’ve run all that over WiFi but cabled is rock solid. It’s mostly mobile devices, laptops and IoT devices that use the WiFi. 

The other consideration is WiFi will most likely have less bandwidth than cable . Obviously depends on your setup . I try and keep WiFi free for things that need it I.e mobile devices ; though I make exceptions for a variety of reasons .

[markharro]

Two cables to each location? In case one faults for some reason and you have backup?

[garrymartin]

50 minutes ago, markharro said:

Two cables to each location? In case one faults for some reason and you have backup?

Yeah. That and the cost of cable for running two cables to everywhere will likely be less than the disruption of trying to get a single additional cable through to a location where you subsequently find you need another! You don't need to fully terminate both of the cables if you don't want to; you can just coil it up disconnected in the backbox/cabinet until it is needed so long as you label them well.

 

Personal recommendation; minimum of two to every location, four to locations serving TVs. CAT6a U/UTP for everything. Shielded F/UTP or F/FTP where necessary or desirable due to any potential environmental interference.