Wiring your house for Ethernet

Everyone is doing the wireless thing these days.

I have decided to wire my house with CAT 6 Ethernet and ditch the poorly performing WiFi network I have now. The main reason is because I am having problems getting a stable connection with the second building I have a wireless bridge configured to. It works most of the time, but it is on the fringe of useful signal strength.

CAT6 cable is cheap, so I decided to go that route. While working through the process I have learned a few things that I want to share.


Need to run Ethernet cable outside? No problem.

I don't do this all the time, so I wasn't sure what was available in the way of cabling. It turns out that flooded, direct burial, CAT-6 cable is available on E-Bay for a reasonable price. I found 200ft for about $50.

I bought standard issue UTP CAT6 to wire inside the house. (E-Bay, again)

Other things you'll need to wire up your house:

Keystone jacks (CAT6 "approved" for gigabit speeds) and wall plates. These can be bought in all sorts of configurations.

Patch panel - These are relatively cheap but highly recommended. It gives you something easy to terminate all of your wiring from your wall jacks to in a central location and allows for easy cable diagnostics to that point.

Keystone punch down tool - Cheap, and any geek should have one. You can punch the wires down without one, but do it right. You'll thank me later.

Crimping tool for Ethernet connectors - Must have to install connectors on the ends of your cabling. E-Bay or your local electronics retailer should suffice.

Cable tester - Self explanatory. Not required but highly recommended if you value your sanity.

CAT6 connectors - Buy more than you need. You'll likely mess up a connection or two as you get the hang of using the crimper. They're cheap.

Gigabit switch - Cheap and widely available. Run patch cables from the patch panel to the router.

Router - Does not have to be gigabit necessarily since you will only be using this for IP address assignment and routing to the Internet. Your ISP will be your bottleneck, not the 100mbps router.

You could combine the router and switch and just use a router, but I find it easier to have a separate switch. A high quality switch will rarely need to be power cycled. Everyone knows that most consumer grade broadband routers have issues at times.

That way you can stash the switch in an out of the way place near the patch panel and run a single cable from the switch to the router that connects you to the Internet.

All devices on the switch will communicate with each other via the switch at gigabit speeds and Internet traffic will find its way through your router.

I'm still working on physically wiring my house. I'll update this post with pictures as I complete the project.