Hi, Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me.
Background:
I have been doing a lot of reading on the internet regarding structured wiring so I probably know just enough to be dangerous. My husband has asked me to figure out the data/phone/sat tv configuration for a house we are currently building. The walls are currently open, the electrical wiring is almost complete. This house is in a relatively remote location--we can’t even get cable TV. We want to be able to have Satellite TV, telephone, and data/internet connections in every room. We were initially planning to have satellite internet but even the satellite company rep that I spoke with said he would not recommend it. He said it was not very good since they were using “something or some provider” (I cannot remember the term he used,) that he implied made it less than desirable. Others I have talked with that have dial-up at home and satellite internet at work say there is not too much difference except in the price. It looks like we may have to go the dial-up route (at least initially). So we will probably have 2 separate phone lines coming into the house. The satellite TV company is insisting that they need to run all the cable for the Satellite TV connections once we are actually ready to connect the receivers, but I want to run that cable myself (I think) since the walls are open now—this is still a bit of an unresolved issue. I am planning to run 2 RG6 and 2 Cat5 lines (a single bundled cable) to each room in the house (double that in a couple of the rooms). There will need to be about 16 outlets (each consisting of the 2 RG6 and 2Cat5 jacks). We are planning to run everything down to a data enclosure in the basement where we will be able to choose what rooms in the house to have the phone/internet/satellite tv actually active. I am planning to have multi port punch blocks in the data closet to manage what is going to which rooms. My husband and I are currently planning to run the cable ourselves. I read the cocoontech.com article and found it pretty helpful.
Questions:
1) Since we are rookies at this, should we use cat5e, rather than cat6 since I read somewhere that cat5e is much easier for a novice to work with? Does it really make any difference if we are working with bundled cable? Other things I have read said to use the best cable available but given our remote location is that really just a waste?
2) Since I am planning to use bundled cable and I can only find bundled where the RG6 is copper over steel, does it make sense to use the bundled cable from the data enclosure to all room outlets and then run a separate RG6 solid copper center cable from the data closet to the location where we might one day have a home theater? Should you use the solid copper center RG6 from the satellite dish to the data enclosure too, otherwise you wont really gain anything by only having the solid copper cable from the closet to the HT area?
3) I read somewhere to have a separate area in the data enclosure for telephone and another for data (but did not explain why). I really want to combine them so I can use either of the 2 cat5 outlets in any given room in any way I need—not have one dedicated as a phone line and one as a data line—or am I misunderstanding the data/telephone separation issue?
4) If I run the satellite TV RG6 cable from the roof location where the dish will be, do I just run a separate RG6 line for each LNB the satellite company uses down into the data enclosure? And run 2 RG6 runs for possible future satellite internet from the roof to the data enclosure? Is RG6 cable needed from the dish area for any other reason (e.g. audio?) Can the satellite multiswitch then go in the data enclosure so that we can send the satellite signal to whatever rooms we have decided will have a satellite receiver? Is there a better way to approach the TV satellite setup? Is this really a satellite-tv provider specific solution where I must choose the satellite company we will eventually use and get them to either come out and wire it now (even though we are months away from TV watching) or get them to agree to provide the information I will need to do this ourselves? I am assuming I would also use punch blocks in the data enclosure for all the RG6 lines to make it easier to direct the Satellite cable from the multiswitch to the individual rooms where we will have the satellite receivers? I am getting dizzy from all this.
I know this is a lot of questions and I hope my ignorance does not irritate anyone. Any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Background:
I have been doing a lot of reading on the internet regarding structured wiring so I probably know just enough to be dangerous. My husband has asked me to figure out the data/phone/sat tv configuration for a house we are currently building. The walls are currently open, the electrical wiring is almost complete. This house is in a relatively remote location--we can’t even get cable TV. We want to be able to have Satellite TV, telephone, and data/internet connections in every room. We were initially planning to have satellite internet but even the satellite company rep that I spoke with said he would not recommend it. He said it was not very good since they were using “something or some provider” (I cannot remember the term he used,) that he implied made it less than desirable. Others I have talked with that have dial-up at home and satellite internet at work say there is not too much difference except in the price. It looks like we may have to go the dial-up route (at least initially). So we will probably have 2 separate phone lines coming into the house. The satellite TV company is insisting that they need to run all the cable for the Satellite TV connections once we are actually ready to connect the receivers, but I want to run that cable myself (I think) since the walls are open now—this is still a bit of an unresolved issue. I am planning to run 2 RG6 and 2 Cat5 lines (a single bundled cable) to each room in the house (double that in a couple of the rooms). There will need to be about 16 outlets (each consisting of the 2 RG6 and 2Cat5 jacks). We are planning to run everything down to a data enclosure in the basement where we will be able to choose what rooms in the house to have the phone/internet/satellite tv actually active. I am planning to have multi port punch blocks in the data closet to manage what is going to which rooms. My husband and I are currently planning to run the cable ourselves. I read the cocoontech.com article and found it pretty helpful.
Questions:
1) Since we are rookies at this, should we use cat5e, rather than cat6 since I read somewhere that cat5e is much easier for a novice to work with? Does it really make any difference if we are working with bundled cable? Other things I have read said to use the best cable available but given our remote location is that really just a waste?
2) Since I am planning to use bundled cable and I can only find bundled where the RG6 is copper over steel, does it make sense to use the bundled cable from the data enclosure to all room outlets and then run a separate RG6 solid copper center cable from the data closet to the location where we might one day have a home theater? Should you use the solid copper center RG6 from the satellite dish to the data enclosure too, otherwise you wont really gain anything by only having the solid copper cable from the closet to the HT area?
3) I read somewhere to have a separate area in the data enclosure for telephone and another for data (but did not explain why). I really want to combine them so I can use either of the 2 cat5 outlets in any given room in any way I need—not have one dedicated as a phone line and one as a data line—or am I misunderstanding the data/telephone separation issue?
4) If I run the satellite TV RG6 cable from the roof location where the dish will be, do I just run a separate RG6 line for each LNB the satellite company uses down into the data enclosure? And run 2 RG6 runs for possible future satellite internet from the roof to the data enclosure? Is RG6 cable needed from the dish area for any other reason (e.g. audio?) Can the satellite multiswitch then go in the data enclosure so that we can send the satellite signal to whatever rooms we have decided will have a satellite receiver? Is there a better way to approach the TV satellite setup? Is this really a satellite-tv provider specific solution where I must choose the satellite company we will eventually use and get them to either come out and wire it now (even though we are months away from TV watching) or get them to agree to provide the information I will need to do this ourselves? I am assuming I would also use punch blocks in the data enclosure for all the RG6 lines to make it easier to direct the Satellite cable from the multiswitch to the individual rooms where we will have the satellite receivers? I am getting dizzy from all this.
I know this is a lot of questions and I hope my ignorance does not irritate anyone. Any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.