Running Ethernet in the House

[mattiooo]

My wife hates using WIFI. We've been using Ethernet over the Powerline (Netgear) for extending from my office to her PC and my son's PC for years now. But her speed needs are increasing and we're getting lousy speeds from the units. We recently switched from Century Link to Xfinity internet, and though I'm now getting 200+ DL speeds on the direct connections in the office, her performance is actually worse over the same Powerline units. It's also bad with some upgraded units we got to handle the higher speeds.

I'm suspecting noise on the line and distance from the main unit as the main culprits overall, though I don't know why her speeds are worse with the new service. The only variable I can think of other than the service itself is the fact that I'm using different outlets in the office for the outgoing Powerline, because the phone jack is on one side of the room and the coax is on the opposite side.

My question is, what is the price range I would expect to pay to have someone set-up the lines and the hub in the house? I'm estimating 4 locations for jacks, probably with at least one location having a double jack.


Thanks,
Matt

[Gman]

Now I'm curious. Why does your wife hate WiFi? They've made significant improvements over the decades. Many have come in the last several years with the mesh systems that have really good performance and coverage.

Ethernet over Powerline will likely never touch what you could be getting via WiFi. I use both in my home. Many devices that I previously had difficulty reaching via WiFi used EoP. I have migrated nearly everything to WiFi now that I've replaced my router a couple of years ago.

[Grant H.]

I understand the want for wired. While I have fantastic wifi in the house (UBNT ER4 Router and Cambium E600 WAP) it still doesn't compare to wired networks. If you are moving any reasonable amount of data (modern phone/camera pictures, certainly video, etc), wifi sucks.

For most internet users, normal browsing, email, streaming, etc, yeah, modern Wifi works just fine, but if you get past that, good luck.

As Gman said, EoP is going to be out classed by current Wifi with the right gear. Last time I looked at it, it was good for 100mbps at most, and that was with low noise and good copper wire, etc... Actual realized throughput was often much lower than that.

[Grant H.]

As for your actual question of pulling drops into your house, it varies widely on access, location of drops, length of cable runs, etc.

Do you have forced air heating/cooling where you can run plenum cable in the ducts?
Are there ducts/vents near where you want the drops?
Do you just want wall plate jacks to wall plate jacks, or do you want a patch panel type of install?

Lot's of things will determine this.

To give you an idea, when I was wiring buildings/trailers with drop ceilings and conduit to the wall plates, I was charging $250/drop for cat6 certified runs. If it was more complicated, it got more expensive. I've seen pricing run from $100-500/drop depending on the difficulty of the install, length of cable run, certified or not, etc...

This is why I wired my own house. Use a $50 fish tape and $25 fish sticks, buy a $150 box of cat6, and the parts on amazon/ebay or Home Depot (HD costs more for keystones and such) and knock it out.

We pretty much avoided residential installs because home owners don't understand how pulling a couple cables can be so expensive.

[iego]

Do you have a landline or are you cellular for telephony? If not, and you are using cable for your internet, you may be able to use existing landline phone wiring for 10/100 ethernet, or potentially even 10/100/1000 if you have 4 pairs.

-John

[def90]

My wife hates using WIFI. We've been using Ethernet over the Powerline (Netgear) for extending from my office to her PC and my son's PC for years now. But her speed needs are increasing and we're getting lousy speeds from the units. We recently switched from Century Link to Xfinity internet, and though I'm now getting 200+ DL speeds on the direct connections in the office, her performance is actually worse over the same Powerline units. It's also bad with some upgraded units we got to handle the higher speeds.

I'm suspecting noise on the line and distance from the main unit as the main culprits overall, though I don't know why her speeds are worse with the new service. The only variable I can think of other than the service itself is the fact that I'm using different outlets in the office for the outgoing Powerline, because the phone jack is on one side of the room and the coax is on the opposite side.

My question is, what is the price range I would expect to pay to have someone set-up the lines and the hub in the house? I'm estimating 4 locations for jacks, probably with at least one location having a double jack.


Thanks,
Matt

If you bought your ethernet over powerline units a few years ago they are probably only 10/100 units and aren’t capable of the newer higher speeds. Just buy new units that are gigabit rated.

[Gman]

CNET: Best Powerline Adapters for 2019

The actual throughput on powerline is usually significantly lower than advertised. Also can vary depending on how the wiring is terminated at the breaker box. YMMV.

My current home WiFi connection that works flawlessly with video, large files, etc.:

[izzy]

I had my whole house wired recently. Had 5 rooms done on two different floors with everything run into a central spot in the basement and into a cabinet. I also had speaker wire run for my surround sound at the same time. I paid just under $600 to have it done.

[Gman]

Was your basement finished?

[FoxtArt]

Unless you're rich or don't have time at all, I strongly recommend DIY.

Get the best cable you can to future proof it. Think like Cat-7, foil wrapped with a ground wire. (SF-UTP or SF-STP) and get a grounded block - budget $80 or so, ($#$%ing brain fart, I know what it is called - ETA a second later, patch panel) to run them all into your cabinet. Then do short little patch cables to your router, etc. You can get the tool kits for cheap - under $40, and a huge pack of shielded RJ-45 connectors for under $20. A spool of 500 feet of cable could be had for probably $250.

If you had someone do that, you're looking at a $1,000+ job. There is truthfully no skill to it - just google the order of the wires, push them in the connector, crimp. A big problem is, whatever you quote, they are highly likely just to put Cat-5e in, who is going to know? (from their perspective) Or at the very least, cheap chinese cable that might say cat-7, or cat-6, etc, but really isn't.

ETA: The shielded increases your top speed when grounded, and also reduces risk of equipment damage from any kind of EMF event even if rare - runs of twisted pair make for huuuuuuge antennas otherwise.