[M_Six]

Do you have a main patch panel somewhere? If so, where? Does it necessarily have to be in the same room as the modem/router? I'm considering having my house retro-wired (if I can use that term) with CAT6. But my home office is already pretty crowded with gear and I'd like to have a small rack with a patch panel put elsewhere in the house.

[Higgs Boson]

mine all route to the gym closet and go into a large network switch which of course is connected to the router that controls mesh wifi with 4 more satellites with wired backhaul around the house.

[KevinC]

<raises hand>

Our house was built in 2018 and we had the whole thing wired up. Yes, we have a central patch panel in a hallway closet, where the cable modem, wireless router, 4-port hub for some additional ports, and DirecTV server sit. We just use wired connections in 2 locations - here in my office, and in my wife's office which is the 3rd bedroom. This was new construction so it was easy to integrate into the house, and the closet location is quite central so we get easy whole-home wireless coverage from there.

Maybe you have a closet that could be similarly utilized?

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by KevinC

<raises hand>

Our house was built in 2018 and we had the whole thing wired up. Yes, we have a central patch panel in a hallway closet, where the cable modem, wireless router, 4-port hub for some additional ports, and DirecTV server sit. We just use wired connections in 2 locations - here in my office, and in my wife's office which is the 3rd bedroom. This was new construction so it was easy to integrate into the house, and the closet location is quite central so we get easy whole-home wireless coverage from there.

Maybe you have a closet that could be similarly utilized?

That would require convincing Wifey to give up her small closet for historical family stuff. And that closet is fairly shallow. Maybe 12" at best. I'd be worried about heat issues. The far back closet in the exercise room might work, though. There is already shelving in there.

My main concern is whether or not I need to have "everything" in the same place. Like could I just have a patch panel and switch in a closet and still have my modem and router in my office and connect everything that way? So all the rooms we wire would link down to a closet patch panel, which would then be linked to a switch in my home office where I have the cable modem and router.

What I'm envisioning is a closet where all the new Ethernet drops are run into a patch panel. Then I leave the existing modem and router in my office. The router would have one Ethernet connection from my office to the patch panel to feed the various drops we install around the house.

What I'm trying to avoid here is having a huge patch panel in my office, but leaving the modem and router there.

[mc-m3]

No, the router does not need to be in the same room/location as the main patch panel. You will need a switch if you want cat6/5 in more than one remote location. Our panel is under the stairs, have a small gig switch to connect the rooms where we have devices and the location where the router is.

[Atavus]

I have a small patch panel, but my router, Wi-Fi and other bits don’t live there. They don’t need to.

I started off with a bigger gigabit switch and panel. Then as I started needing more connections, I found these are often clumped together in the house. Now I run a number of smaller gig capable switches, each having a single cable back to the patch.

[vreihen16]

Design around power, specifically UPS/generator outlets.....

[zx10guy]

As others have discussed, you need to consider ventilation, power, space, and where it logically makes sense. At my main house, I have my server room located in a logical location where it's more or less central and has access to spaces where running additional cables to the network rack won't be a pain.

Depending on how big you plan out your network will dictate how you go about building the cable plant along with the rack or structured wiring cabinet. If your network is going to be small enough with only a few drops, you can get away with just terminating the cable ends with male RJ45 connectors. But to clean up the install, you'd want to use a patch panel which there are ones for rack mounted and structured wiring cabinets.

You'll also want to plan for a bit more capacity than you think you'll need.

I have a structured wiring cabinet that was part of the new construction build for my vacation home. One thing you'll find is these cabinets are very shallow which will require you to mount any device vertically/flat against the wall. I'm not a fan of these things for this reason along with them not being practical. They're meant to be neat and clean where you can put a cover over the cabinet. But there is absolutely no ventilation which means anything you put in there is going to be subjected to a lot of heat. For this reason, I have the cover off all the time which really negates the need for the cabinet.

As far as having the router at another location, yes, you can do that. But what's the reason?

Also, run at least 2 network drops per location whether you think you need the extra one or not.

Here's the rack I have at my main home which conveniently is next to a HVAC register. I open and close it depending on when it's summer or winter. The patch panel for all the network drops I have in my home is at the top of the rack.

[ryan stewart]

Mine go into the same closet as the media/alarm wiring. Not really ideal for any powerful setups but works for my main router node and NAS.

Originally Posted by Onesie

Why do you need cables again?

Gaming its a big one, although I dont do it, because wireless introduces drops and latency. Not something that is a big deal to your average user because a few dropped/delayed packets doesnt really matter.

Also it helps performance in larger homes. I helped my buddy wire up his office because he didnt want to spring for another node just to make it good up there. And in my house I have a mesh system but using the wired backhaul means Im as close as the theoretical 6600Mbit/s of the system between devices. Its way overkill for my 800Mb internet but I have a home media server and automation so my wireless system does work. Also work from home so less latency/more uptime always another benefit.

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Here's the rack I have at my main home which conveniently is next to a HVAC register. I open and close it depending on when it's summer or winter. The patch panel for all the network drops I have in my home is at the top of the rack.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TLHNXJT...ogi&th=1&psc=1

[bosstones]

I uave a small/medium cage up on the wall in my basement. It's near an exterior door which isn't ideal but oh well. PoE switch and patch panel are there, as are all wired drops. I have a PVC raceceway going up to the attic where I'll run new drops to the 2nd floor.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Onesie

Why do you need cables again?

Mostly for wired backhaul for the wifi nodes. My garage must have some fireproofing material in the wall between it and the house because any wifi node I put out there struggles to maintain a connection to the mesh wifi. Many of the cameras and sensors I have are installed in and around the garage, so good wifi there is essential. I don't need a really high capacity network setup. I just need wired backhaul. I have some MoCA gear and I'm going to try that before looking into CAT6 runs. Hopefully the MoCA setup does the trick.

[wdb]

Originally Posted by Onesie

Why do you need cables again?

• speed
• PoE
• speed
• security
• speed
• future proofing
• speed

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by wdb

• speed
• PoE
• speed
• security
• speed
• future proofing
• speed

Exactly. My recommendation is to run Cat 6a as it officially supports 10Gig to the full 100 meter spec. I have a couple runs of Cat 6 due to not being able to get 6a on the short time frame I had to run them before the ceiling in my basement was closed up. But even Cat 6 will support 10Gg officially up to 55 meters. Some have said they were able to get 10Gig to work over Cat 5e if the cable quality is high.

I doubt anyone would need to exceed 10Gig for a home network for quite some time. Even Cat 5e has been given new life with multigig (2.5 and 5 Gig). I'm currently running two 10Gig connections between the 48 port switch in the pic I put up in my post above to a 16 port 10Gig switch I have in my office.

With that said, I do use my wireless network quite a bit due to the convenience.

[M_Six]

My needs are simple. I want to hard wire Wifey's PC, my Apple TVs, and my wifi APs for Ethernet backhaul. I don't do gaming and we watch streaming TV on the Apple TVs. I can get away with two drops in the living room, one in my office, one in my exercise room (which shares a wall with my office), and one in the garage. I'm thinking the garage would a good place for a switch. It gets warm in there (~90F) in the summer, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue for a switch. And there's easy access to the attic where some drops would run and the crawlspace for the other drops. I'm going to try MoCA first to see if that will save me the expense of drops, but mesh wifi just doesn't cut for me without some sort of wired backhaul.

[B58-M340iX]

Originally Posted by Onesie

Why do you need cables again?

Wi-Fi is half-duplex, and its speed and latency are both impacted by signal interference and other issues. Modern wired networks are full-duplex and massively more secure than wireless, more reliable/stable, provide less latency, etc.

I ran Cat6A through my house because I wanted future-proofing. Google Fiber initially offered 1Gb down/1Gb up, but now offers 2Gb down/1Gb up. The 6A is for better handling of crosstalk and other interference over longer distances (if ever needed) as well as handling future ISP speed increases. A bit overkill as Cat6 would have done the job, but you don't design networks for right now, but rather, for the future (build it once).

[Pauldunlop13]

I installed a network cabinet in my garage and ran Cat6 from there to all the rooms that needed it. Used pvc piping as a conduit and it looked fine on the roof of a garage. Used the second -power plug on my garage door opener for a UPS that powered the whole rack.

[wdb]

Originally Posted by B58-M340iX

Wi-Fi is half-duplex,

Gotta add that one to my list.

[TheWatchGuy]

in both my last house and my current house, patch panel is in a different location than the modem/router.

my last house, modem was in the living room, patch panel in the garage. current house, modem in the living room, patch panel in the basement.

You arent going to have a noticeable drop in performance by not having your modem/router at the patch panel.

[M_Six]

I set up a MoCA network today. Pretty easy and works well as far as I can tell. Right now it's just connecting my main Apple TV box to the router by wire instead of wifi. Time will tell if this solves the occasional lag issues we've seen with the Apple TV and wifi.

[wdb]

Originally Posted by wdb

• speed
• PoE
• speed
• security
• speed
• future proofing
• speed

Updated, thanks all.

• speed
• PoE
• speed
• security
• speed
• full duplex
• speed
• WIFI backhaul
• speed
• future proofing
• speed

[zx10guy]

Add audio/visual and home automation to the list.