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.