Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
That is completely incorrect.
The proliferation of wireless devices and networks mean that the functional level of wireless, even 802.11n (with a theoretical max of 200Mb/s) can easily drop below the internet speeds provided by Shaw (25/50/100Mb/s plans are very affordable). That's not even counting the slowdown from interference from the wireless access point being 1 or 2 levels away from the device.
A home owner would be seriously foolish to avoid a hard wired situation in an area where it isn't finished yet, since dealing with drywall makes the job 10x harder if you decide to do it later.
It is actually very simple to run cat5e/6 cable, you might want to look into doing it yourself. It is just a matter of drilling holes, mounting a box and then matching colours in the keystone plug - the wires just snap in. You could probably find any number of youtube videos to show you how. A 1000' box of cable from Monoprice is less than a couple hundred bucks, including shipping so you would want to find someone to split it with, or plan on making 2-3 pulls per room to use up the cable.
You would need - Keystone Plugs and Wallplates or just use a Surface mount box instead. You would also need to buy/borrow a tester to ensure the connections were good.
That said, pretty much any general contractor would be able to easily run the cables. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang
Just to clarify, are you looking to just do the unfinished basement, or would you like to do some "finished" rooms upstairs as well?
As Rathji mentioned, if you're just doing the basement, you should be able to do it yourself. I put a bunch of ethernet jacks in my basement as we were developing it. I was also fortunate that my house came with ethernet in every room on the main and second floor already, so I didn't have to do any fishing behind drywall.
For casual web browsing with the laptops, I use wifi. But for my Slingbox, PS3, etc. I like to have those wired in for the extra speed. As well as my main media server PC.
ANother benefit of having extra ethernet jacks throughout your house is that you can easily plug a wireless access point (basically a router in AP mode, so it doesn't route) anywhere in your home for better signal strength. Otherwise your wifi is usually originating from your main router, which is likely in the basement. My parents have a problem with this as they can't stream BBC on the second floor - the horror! It is on my list of technical issues to fix for them.  |
The house is all finished except for the basement. It was built in 2002.
I'd like 2 lines run to the master bedroom in the 2nd floor... I'm not sure if that's possible.
I could maybe do the den on the main floor with a wall plate, etc, but I want another jack above the fireplace, which looks pretty hard.
I'm running all the cable to a switch next to my electrical panel in the basement.