Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Should I bother with wired network?

Le Big Mac

Le Big Mac

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 7, 2003
2,885
482
Washington, DC
Buying a house that doesn't have any real data wiring. Will be a significant renovation, so could open walls to get wires in if needed (would add expense for wiring and patching, but not huge given all else being done).

Given where things are I'm wondering if it's worth bothering with much in the way of hardwired ethernet, vs. just going wireless mesh. I'd probably need some wiring just to get decent coverage, but could probably get away with not many drops.

So . . . is wireless likely to be sufficient? I'm not running a data farm here . . . this will be normal household usage: computers, handhelds, peripherals, IoT devices, etc.
 
If you're doing renovations anyway it's a good time to consider it. A wired backhaul for a mesh network would be a good idea, especially if you think radio reception might be affected by internal walls. Faster standards of wifi (eg 6e, 7) sacrifice range for throughput/speed and you'd be building in some future expandability if you sell on the property too.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: SalisburySam, Basic75 and splifingate
If you are installing coax cabling for cable/sat TV, you could also consider using MoCA adapters data networking. I have coax drops in nearly every room of my home and have been using MoCA adapters to bring wired network speeds and wired backhaul to my mesh network devices. MoCA works amazingly well.
 
If you're going to have the walls "open" anyway then go for it. Wired is always going to be better than wireless, and due to the shared nature of it your speeds are going to be influenced by what your neighbours do (I know this all too well, with around fifteen networks showing up on my Mac). Wired is, of course, only for you, and since you have the opportunity to install it "for free" then I'd jump at the chance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wyliej, Basic75 and splifingate
I always advocate for Ethernet when possible. When I bought my house a few years ago one of the first things I did was wire it up for drops where I knew I wanted them. The only things I have on WiFi are devices that are wifi only, everything else with an RJ45 port is wired I to the network.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wyliej, SalisburySam and Basic75
Just do it. I would do 2-4 runs to each room, plus more to anything that might be used as an office. Also do a few runs to any place that might be a TV or stereo location, potential locations for wireless access points, and any place you might want a telephone. Run them back to a single patch panel. I'd also do fiber between the floors in a multi-floor house. You don't need to pay to have the fiber terminated now if you don't need it, but it's nice to have in the wall and ready to use in the future.

Note that you can use cat. 6/6a for things besides just data. Analog phones, HDMI (by means of HDBaseT), analog or digital audio, etc. can all be run on cat. 6 and/or 6a. And 10GBaseT will work fine on shorter runs, too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: S.B.G
One more vote for ethernet in [nearly] every room.
(If you're going to be opening up walls, etc.)

If I was going to be building a new home or remodeling an old one, I'd put actual "chases" (open tubes) between floors and the important rooms. The idea being that some new cabling technology may be coming out in the future. Would make it easy to get it strung through at least -some- of the house without tearing into walls again...
 
  • Like
Reactions: wyliej and S.B.G
Le Big Mac said:
Buying a house that doesn't have any real data wiring. Will be a significant renovation, so could open walls to get wires in if needed (would add expense for wiring and patching, but not huge given all else being done).

Given where things are I'm wondering if it's worth bothering with much in the way of hardwired ethernet, vs. just going wireless mesh. I'd probably need some wiring just to get decent coverage, but could probably get away with not many drops.

So . . . is wireless likely to be sufficient? I'm not running a data farm here . . . this will be normal household usage: computers, handhelds, peripherals, IoT devices, etc.
Click to expand...
House layout/# of stories/sqft has to be a decision criteria, same as are your computers desktops or laptops? if laptops, in same place of roaming around?
Do you access your computers via the network?
what internet connection/provider will you get?

We are in a single story, 1 desktop, 2 laptops, 3 iPads, 2 iPhones, 2 ATV 4k - all on wireless. Frontier FIOS, 1GB up/down, Eero Pro6e. On my Mac Studio I get ~ 450Mbps up/down, more than enough for my internet usage. no issues streaming.

IF you need mesh, then an Ethernet backbone is a good choice. Get the highest speed cable/routers (Cat 6/7?) possible, you'll probably never upgrade those.
 
If the walls are open put in conduit to run the lines through, that way you can much more easily add more or replace with something else in the future. This would also be a good time to think about an IP camera setup and all the wiring that would need.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back