futureproofing house wiring... CAT8 or..?

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From my own perusal of networking stuff i'm looking at whats on the direct horizon but since people here are pretty cutting edge they might know things beyond my random reading. :)

I'm considering wiring up a couple houses for Ethernet. I hate wifi and if I do it, i'd rather not do it more than once or/and have any need to re-do it held off for whats probably the perceivable life of the cable. (what is the likely lifespan of ethernet cable anyway?)

What i'm thinking of doing is going right for CAT8 assuming that is a standard and running two ports to each room of 40gig capable Ethernet while limiting to 30m runs. Is this as far as the future is likely to allow with the backward compatible 8p8c connectors/like will even faster speeds be forever constrained to fiber and thus needing a separate drop anyways? I want something I can plug existing gear into whether its a 100mbit original Xbox game console or a 10gig server, I have no immediate need for 40 direct to any PC but figured it makes it easy to stick a hub in a room to serve a number of PC's full bandwidth as well so there's little downside. Thinking dual ports because regardless of speed, you can have physical port failures or wire damage and such too.

I mean is there ever likely to be a Cat 9 copper solution for 100gig that's using a compatible connector or is that at least (x) years off from consideration let alone production?
 

StammesOpfer

Active Member
Mar 15, 2016
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Better off running conduit and putting CAT6a in it. That can run 10Gbe. If higher speed eventually requires different cable then the conduit allows for pulling new cable very easy. Hell for the money that it would cost for a CAT8 install you could probably pull CAT6 and a couple pairs of fiber. Or do things strategically. You TV is not going to need crazy speeds any time soon (a Netflix 4k stream is 25-ish mbps). So maybe you don't need all the speed in the world. Now a server closet and an office maybe you look at what is required for 100Gig right now and pull some fiber for that.
 

Aestr

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2014
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Seattle
I mean is there ever likely to be a Cat 9 copper solution for 100gig that's using a compatible connector or is that at least (x) years off from consideration let alone production?
There is always going to be another standard for the next great thing that you cannot plan for and will someday want. As stated just run conduit and you will be ready for anything. If conduit is not possible at least run pull strings.
 

Markus

Member
Oct 25, 2015
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Just use plain CAT-7 cable for the walls and CAT6A for patch panels and sockets - 10Gbit/s right now - 25/40GBase-T for the future...
If you have a server room / office you can prepare a direct fiber connection for cheap server<->storage-Connection.

I am building a house right now and just do this.
Will use fiber / infiniband (don't know yet) just in the server room. For Client Speed this should be sufficient for years...

Regards
Markus
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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The lifespan of Ethernet cable depends on the environment and usage of the cable. Probably a good 10 years. But if I were you, I would run fiber in conduit.
I've had cat5 thrown across a garage for over 15.
I've had cat5 under a house for around 20.
I've had cat3 direct burial in service since 1985.

I'd say 10 years is a very short life ;) I'd expect double or more as long as rodents or harsh enviroment don't come into play.

Now if we're talking about needing higher performing... no telling what's going to happen... optane changes the game IMHO on home users wanting to move gigs at a time and not wait hours to backup movies, pictures, etc.

"Home" or rather the average home storage and data moving on network is mostly dictated by family pictures and videos... they keep adding the megapixels so file sizes go up, capacity needs increase and network performance still hasn't caught up :( There will be a tipping point soon when home users will demand higher performing, it's going to be rather soon IMHO.
 

cheezehead

Active Member
Sep 23, 2012
723
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Midwest, US
Generally
1) ENT (aka smurf tube) anything going into walls/ceilings/floors, (future-proofing)
2) Cat current flavor of the week for most things
3) High bandwidth scenarios (ie office to homelab at 10GB+) look at pulling single-mode fiber (pre-made jumpers can be picked up cheap)
4) Don't forget wireless, unless your in a dense environment with many rogue wireless signals, most edge devices work fine off of wireless.

A bit of an oddity but if you are thinking of pulling any long HDMI runs, there are adapters to run it over Cat cabling. Plan your runs....try to keep 12"+ away from any electrical (avoid running in parallel) and away from DC motors, if you need to run near them switch to shielded cabling if not fiber.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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I hope my cat6 can work for 20 years.
As long as a critter (mouse, rat, etc...) doesn't eat it, and you didn't get the cheapest cable possible (some get brittle and crack) it most def. should last :) :) Fingers crossed!
 

petree77

New Member
Mar 10, 2015
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If you're doing it, probably the "correct" thing to do is to pick the standard today and run that in some conduit, but run "inner conduit" with pull strings so that if something changes tomorrow you can pull whatever is then current and start using that.

If you're running conduit anyway, running inner conduit isn't that much more and allows you to get around some of the weird rules about running fiber in the same space as copper (no interference issues, just friction issues on the insulation of the cables rubbing together during the pull and in life).
 

Kryax

Member
Oct 14, 2017
44
1
8
Personnally I would stick with copper based cables (Cat6a or Cat7). Do at least 2 drops per area. Going fiber would be ok inside a room to connect multiple devices together but when you talk about multiple drops in a house to a distrubtion point and have multiple switches as endpoints througout the house the costs start to add up to find a switch with SFP slot and SFP tranceiver to support it especially at higher speeds (SFP+ or QSFP).

I am in a similiar boat and may want to upgrade my house cable in the near future. I currently have Cat 5E but I am waiting for 10 Base T pricing to drop a little more before I upgrade the cable/switches I have in my house.
 

cheezehead

Active Member
Sep 23, 2012
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Midwest, US
I am in a similiar boat and may want to upgrade my house cable in the near future. I currently have Cat 5E but I am waiting for 10 Base T pricing to drop a little more before I upgrade the cable/switches I have in my house.
Depending on your distances, you may not need to upgrade the cabling. Just because it's not rated for it doesn't mean it won't run it, in home scenarios often the cable distances are very short (compared to business installs) where you might be able to get by. ie in an old apartment they ran CAT3 for phones....the cabling was re-punched for network while I was there and it handled gig just fine, given the distance was about 7M.
 

Kryax

Member
Oct 14, 2017
44
1
8
Depending on your distances, you may not need to upgrade the cabling. Just because it's not rated for it doesn't mean it won't run it, in home scenarios often the cable distances are very short (compared to business installs) where you might be able to get by. ie in an old apartment they ran CAT3 for phones....the cabling was re-punched for network while I was there and it handled gig just fine, given the distance was about 7M.
Yep I am aware. I know some of my runs are a decent distance being a 2 story house with most of my server appliances upstairs and the distribution being in the garage. The main reason I will be uprading is that I want to put the distrubtion inside my server room and also run 2 cables per area instead of just 1 drop per area I have now. I could just add a second cable to the area's that require it but I may as well redo it all instead of just adding to existing cable infrastructure.
 

ewitte

New Member
Nov 26, 2017
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Wow I just realized my 5e is now 15-16 years old. I also have 1 point to point 2xCAT6 in a HDMI extender that was added later though.
 

s0lid

Active Member
Feb 25, 2013
259
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Tampere, Finland
Cat6a is fine for house wiring, Cat7 if you want to go fancy. But say no to Cat8.
Just as wikipedia says:
It is defined up 2000 MHz and only for distances from 30 to 36m depending on the patch cords used.
Category 8 is designed only for data centers where distances between switches and servers is short. It is not intended for general office cabling.
 
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