[lug] OT: wiring a house for ethernet

[Michael D. Hirsch]

On Monday 28 June 2004 12:05 pm, Ryan Wheaton wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> Sorry for the OT post, but figured there were some smart cookies in
> here with good ideas from previous experience.  I just moved into a new
> (rental) house.  In our old house, we had run cables every which way,
> mashing them under floorboards, etc...  (a real professional job) In
> the new house, I'd like to have a more "professional" job -- you know,
> with eth outlets in the walls, instead of running cables under carpets
> and such.  Any ideas on the best way to go about this, or how the pros
> really do it?  I haven't been able to locate any kind of crawl space
> under the house, and finding an attic may not help me cause most of the
> rooms are downstairs...
>
I've not used three different methods of networking old houses.  Wiring is 
definitly the worst.  Wireless is okay, though it can be messy, too, because 
of various interference problems.

I recommend powerline ethernet.  You buy a unit for each system you want 
connected to the network (generally number of wired rooms--I figure computers 
in one room can share a hub/switch which is cheaper) and plug them into the 
wall.  An ethernet cable runs from the computer/hub/router to the wall unit.  
That's it.

I get essentially 10baseT speed.  Way better than 802.11b, way worse than 
100baseT.  Since I mostly want to web-surf from my outlying systems, I don't 
worry about the speed--it is much faster that the network connection.  If I 
were serving MPEG video I might look at other solutions.

Michael