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Home builders are probably the worst option to design a home network as they're only interested in mass-producing crap as quick as possible, and they have no id

Home builders are probably the worst option to design a home network as they're only interested in mass-producing crap as quick as possible, and they have no idea the difference between cat5, cat7, or fiber. You're lucky if you get electrical outlets in the right places and orientation. My friend that is like me a network engineer just bought/building a new house, and was talking about getting a 8 port switch. I was like what, for a new, large-ish house? He was talking about just doing wireless, and I'm like ugh, but what about all your kids watching netflix on 8k+ tv's, all on wireless at the same time and complaining to you, you'll wish you had wired their tv's. Not to mention security cameras, doorbells, multiple AP's potentially, ethernet-based sensors for things, etc, all things that need Power over Ethernet too, or at least benefit from it. It got him thinking at least. Then he went back to the builder and the builder gave him 2 options, take what they give, which is an ethernet drop in each room in a random spot back to a closet of whatever cable they happen to have that day, or nothing. I'd have been pissed, and he was at that point. I told him better luck next time on his next house. It shouldn't take a network engineer to build a decent home network, but apparently it does and any home builder worth a damn should in the modern age should consider it.

ponector 3y ago
Regular homebuyers would not pay extra thousands dollar for proper network project. Unfortunately if you want a decent network - then do it yourself.
- bdavbdav 3y ago
  DIY is really hard to do (neatly) once built. Especially in the UK where even a lot of internal walls are brick.
  - ponector 3y ago
    Could be messy, but possible. After all, our modern apartments are built with reinforced concrete first and then wires are laid into the walls, floor, ceiling.
  - rickydroll 3y ago
    Try in a 1930-40s house with vermiculite insulation. You need asbestos monitoring whenever you crack open a wall or a ceiling. Of course, the same can be said for and 1970-80-90's house with Chinese drywall. I'll never get 10G from my basement to 2ed floor office. I can run fiber along the chimney, but there is no way down that doesn't disturb the vermiculite insulation. I love old houses, but they present a whole different set of engineering challenges and DIY skills.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  I've heard the secret to getting contractors to do what you want is "Name a price, then do it." Basically for everything non-standard you want in the build, let them set a price, and then pay it. Oftentimes it'll be a few thousand for extra wiring or moving some outlet around, $25K to raise the roof in a room, something like that. But if they feel like they're getting an extra few grand out of you, many contractors are very willing to do it. It does mean that costs frequently balloon, but you should expect that when you do any form of home renovation, and just budget an extra $100K or so for it.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    >and just budget an extra $100K or so for it. Yeah, I can't believe everyone isn't jumping right on that.
    - Fauntleroy 3y ago
      Lots of people out here not making the realization they need to be in the top ~20% of earners in their area if they want anything remotely nice in their life. Edit: probably higher than that in certain locations where homeownership is impossible
      - ChadNauseam 3y ago
        Only because "remotely nice" is defined relative to people in your neighborhood. What percent of people worldwide have their own bedroom with >10gbps WiFi and an outlet?
        Nevermark 3y ago
        Not sure the context here is "worldwide". I don't see any comments about running AC to bedrooms. Also, "nice" things continually transition to being expected "basic" things. Especially when many people find the upgrades not too onerous. Other people feel natural frustration if happenstance makes the transition to a new norm more difficult for them. -- It took work to get good WiFi signals throughout my home this year. But an 80+ foot tree fell on the roof, centered directly over me in bed without killing me, during a tremendously dark and stormy night. So I won't complain about the signal resistant materials! Too much! In a closely adjecent "verse" I won't be complaining about anything.
instagib 3y ago
A co-worker became friends with his contractor and put in his own drops in the evening after the workers left. My place has two separate drops per room. One for Ethernet and one Ethernet that is setup as a phone line. I picked up a couple used enterprise grade AP’s with traffic shaping and all is good.
- madamelic 3y ago
  > A co-worker became friends with his contractor and put in his own drops in the evening after the workers left. Was talking to my dad over Thanksgiving and that's precisely what he did every time we bought a new house. He would go over to the new house after work and install conduit to the house so he didn't have to tear up the house installing it after drywall.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    How many times did you guys move into a newly constructed house?
    - madamelic 3y ago
      Only twice while I was living with them. The first time I think he just did a giant PVC pipe from top to bottom, that's what he said. Seems like there was more to that installation that I should ask about. I was quite a young child when we lived at that house so hearing it had ethernet was surprising. The second time he actually did all the ethernet runs while the house was unfinished and I remember it because he'd bring me along.
  - olyjohn 3y ago
    If you're just lazy like me, you just go through an exterior wall, staple the cable up along some trim, and go back through the wall into the room you want the cable. Caulk it up and paint it and you can't even tell it's there. Best to get outdoor-rated, or direct-burial cable. The layer of paint over it also seems to do a pretty good job protecting it.
NewJazz 3y ago
Even if they use a shitty cable you can pull your own cable through after the fact, no? Might not work well with flimsy fiber if they took tight turns, but CAT7 should be fine.
- jaywalk 3y ago
  They don't just leave cables hanging freely behind the walls.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    I assume GP is assuming it would be hanging freely in (in-wall) conduit, which is pretty uncontroversially the best way to do it, just very hard to retrofit. And if you are retrofitting a cable run, yeah it probably will be 'just hanging freely behind the walls'.
    - Someone1234 3y ago
      I've been in a newly constructed home with Cat-6, and they stapled it. This was within the last year. From builder's perspective it is "controversial" to run conduit because they're trying to tick boxes as cheaply/fast as possible and conduit is the exact opposite of that goal. If you want conduit, I'd assume you have to pay for it as a bespoke upgrade.
- slimginz 3y ago
  Not every time. In my current place the cable is stapled directly to the studs so it would require gutting basically everything to replace all of it. Luckily most of the runs go to places that make sense but I’ll never be able to upgrade from CAT5e.
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    That’s how my house is as well. The builder used CAT5 for all of the phone runs. Fortunately it’s a one story with easy attic access. I’ve rerouted many of them to a closet (the originally all terminated outside near the electrical panel) and ran a few more by drilling through top plates in the attic. I don’t have jacks everywhere I’d want, and most of the cable is CAT5, but it generally hasn’t been an issue. Most of the lines seem to support gigabit speeds. In my previous house an upstairs leak resulted in a downstairs ceiling coming down which was a boon for wiring up most of the house and adding in ceiling speakers and can lights.
Baeocystin 3y ago
Honestly, modern meshes are fine. I Have clients with large families, everyone streaming at Netflix O'Clock, and the three-pack of Eeros they picked up handle everything without a single hiccup. My last house, many years ago, I did wire up with CAT5e. If I build again in the future, I may not bother.
- ghaff 3y ago
  As I wrote elsewhere, I've had a fair bit of Ethernet installed when walls were open and other electrical work was being done anyway. But this was years ago and a lot of what I do is over wireless these days. It's probably still a good idea to run some network wiring depending on the house layout but, with meshes, it's probably not really necessary--especially if at least some of the high bandwidth equipment is wired.
  - Baeocystin 3y ago
    Yeah, I do technically have a few runs, for a pair of PoE security cameras. I wound up moving my Synology out of my office in to the garage (it was a rackmount unit, with screeching fans), just plugged in to one of my satellite Eeros, and I literally can't tell in terms of bandwidth. I'm not complaining, it's nice to not have to worry about wires!
    - ghaff 3y ago
      My Synology is fairly low-end one. It's "only" something like a 1.8TB RAID-1. (I think it was probably cheaper than operating my old Linux box with btrfs to do the same thing.) But, yeah, I plug my various wired stuff in where it's convenient but basically don't sweat the details.
xattt 3y ago
I’m planning to wire not only for Ethernet, but also speaker wire. I’m not fully confident in my ability to make sure a ceiling speaker goes in the right place, but I’ll have to resort to that. My options are either a guy that does all the big projects (churches, restaurants, houses for people that won’t blink at a 100,000 dollar late-construction review) or myself. There’s simply no in-between, because it’s not in the mindset of the general population. Most one-man electrician shows probably have enough issues keeping their phone going.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I basically have whole house (including outdoor) speaker wire. But, to be honest, this was basically done 20 years ago by an electrician in concert with other work and I'm not sure I'd do it today unless it were really easy.
m463 3y ago
On the other hand, you can still get pretty good bandwidth out of the lowly cat5. You usually don't have 100m runs. Over my lifetime I think 10 -> 100 -> 1000 -> 2.5 maybe 10 is usually doable. arguably not as good as fiber, which has been reused in steps of orders of magnitude each tech jump.
- ghaff 3y ago
  People here get obsessed with the highest bandwidth numbers. But, most of the time in a consumer context, it really doesn't matter.
- snuxoll 3y ago
  The problem isn't using Cat5E, specifically - as long as they run conduit pulling new cable isn't a big deal. It's the complete lack of planning and design around home networking, which is just as important to our daily lives in 2023 as plumbing and electrical is. When my aunt moved her custom sewing shop last October I put more effort into planning the network infrastructure for her modest storefront than homebuilders do for half a million dollar homes.
avidiax 3y ago
> you'll wish you had wired their tv's. Unfortunately, many TVs only have 100Mbps ethernet, and sometimes that ethernet port doesn't even achieve 50Mbps because of software issues. People workaround that by using a USB Gigabit Ethernet adapter with the USB 3.0/3.1 port. https://www.howtogeek.com/763255/how-to-add-gigabit-ethernet-to-a-tv-without-it/ https://www.howtogeek.com/763255/how-to-add-gigabit-ethernet...

ponector 3y ago

Regular homebuyers would not pay extra thousands dollar for proper network project. Unfortunately if you want a decent network - then do it yourself.

bdavbdav 3y ago
DIY is really hard to do (neatly) once built. Especially in the UK where even a lot of internal walls are brick.
- ponector 3y ago
  Could be messy, but possible. After all, our modern apartments are built with reinforced concrete first and then wires are laid into the walls, floor, ceiling.
- rickydroll 3y ago
  Try in a 1930-40s house with vermiculite insulation. You need asbestos monitoring whenever you crack open a wall or a ceiling. Of course, the same can be said for and 1970-80-90's house with Chinese drywall. I'll never get 10G from my basement to 2ed floor office. I can run fiber along the chimney, but there is no way down that doesn't disturb the vermiculite insulation. I love old houses, but they present a whole different set of engineering challenges and DIY skills.
nostrademons 3y ago
I've heard the secret to getting contractors to do what you want is "Name a price, then do it." Basically for everything non-standard you want in the build, let them set a price, and then pay it. Oftentimes it'll be a few thousand for extra wiring or moving some outlet around, $25K to raise the roof in a room, something like that. But if they feel like they're getting an extra few grand out of you, many contractors are very willing to do it. It does mean that costs frequently balloon, but you should expect that when you do any form of home renovation, and just budget an extra $100K or so for it.
- thfuran 3y ago
  >and just budget an extra $100K or so for it. Yeah, I can't believe everyone isn't jumping right on that.
  - Fauntleroy 3y ago
    Lots of people out here not making the realization they need to be in the top ~20% of earners in their area if they want anything remotely nice in their life. Edit: probably higher than that in certain locations where homeownership is impossible
    - ChadNauseam 3y ago
      Only because "remotely nice" is defined relative to people in your neighborhood. What percent of people worldwide have their own bedroom with >10gbps WiFi and an outlet?
      - Nevermark 3y ago
        Not sure the context here is "worldwide". I don't see any comments about running AC to bedrooms. Also, "nice" things continually transition to being expected "basic" things. Especially when many people find the upgrades not too onerous. Other people feel natural frustration if happenstance makes the transition to a new norm more difficult for them. -- It took work to get good WiFi signals throughout my home this year. But an 80+ foot tree fell on the roof, centered directly over me in bed without killing me, during a tremendously dark and stormy night. So I won't complain about the signal resistant materials! Too much! In a closely adjecent "verse" I won't be complaining about anything.

instagib 3y ago

A co-worker became friends with his contractor and put in his own drops in the evening after the workers left. My place has two separate drops per room. One for Ethernet and one Ethernet that is setup as a phone line. I picked up a couple used enterprise grade AP’s with traffic shaping and all is good.

madamelic 3y ago
> A co-worker became friends with his contractor and put in his own drops in the evening after the workers left. Was talking to my dad over Thanksgiving and that's precisely what he did every time we bought a new house. He would go over to the new house after work and install conduit to the house so he didn't have to tear up the house installing it after drywall.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  How many times did you guys move into a newly constructed house?
  - madamelic 3y ago
    Only twice while I was living with them. The first time I think he just did a giant PVC pipe from top to bottom, that's what he said. Seems like there was more to that installation that I should ask about. I was quite a young child when we lived at that house so hearing it had ethernet was surprising. The second time he actually did all the ethernet runs while the house was unfinished and I remember it because he'd bring me along.
- olyjohn 3y ago
  If you're just lazy like me, you just go through an exterior wall, staple the cable up along some trim, and go back through the wall into the room you want the cable. Caulk it up and paint it and you can't even tell it's there. Best to get outdoor-rated, or direct-burial cable. The layer of paint over it also seems to do a pretty good job protecting it.

NewJazz 3y ago

Even if they use a shitty cable you can pull your own cable through after the fact, no? Might not work well with flimsy fiber if they took tight turns, but CAT7 should be fine.

jaywalk 3y ago
They don't just leave cables hanging freely behind the walls.
- OJFord 3y ago
  I assume GP is assuming it would be hanging freely in (in-wall) conduit, which is pretty uncontroversially the best way to do it, just very hard to retrofit. And if you are retrofitting a cable run, yeah it probably will be 'just hanging freely behind the walls'.
  - Someone1234 3y ago
    I've been in a newly constructed home with Cat-6, and they stapled it. This was within the last year. From builder's perspective it is "controversial" to run conduit because they're trying to tick boxes as cheaply/fast as possible and conduit is the exact opposite of that goal. If you want conduit, I'd assume you have to pay for it as a bespoke upgrade.
slimginz 3y ago
Not every time. In my current place the cable is stapled directly to the studs so it would require gutting basically everything to replace all of it. Luckily most of the runs go to places that make sense but I’ll never be able to upgrade from CAT5e.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  That’s how my house is as well. The builder used CAT5 for all of the phone runs. Fortunately it’s a one story with easy attic access. I’ve rerouted many of them to a closet (the originally all terminated outside near the electrical panel) and ran a few more by drilling through top plates in the attic. I don’t have jacks everywhere I’d want, and most of the cable is CAT5, but it generally hasn’t been an issue. Most of the lines seem to support gigabit speeds. In my previous house an upstairs leak resulted in a downstairs ceiling coming down which was a boon for wiring up most of the house and adding in ceiling speakers and can lights.

Baeocystin 3y ago

Honestly, modern meshes are fine. I Have clients with large families, everyone streaming at Netflix O'Clock, and the three-pack of Eeros they picked up handle everything without a single hiccup. My last house, many years ago, I did wire up with CAT5e. If I build again in the future, I may not bother.

ghaff 3y ago
As I wrote elsewhere, I've had a fair bit of Ethernet installed when walls were open and other electrical work was being done anyway. But this was years ago and a lot of what I do is over wireless these days. It's probably still a good idea to run some network wiring depending on the house layout but, with meshes, it's probably not really necessary--especially if at least some of the high bandwidth equipment is wired.
- Baeocystin 3y ago
  Yeah, I do technically have a few runs, for a pair of PoE security cameras. I wound up moving my Synology out of my office in to the garage (it was a rackmount unit, with screeching fans), just plugged in to one of my satellite Eeros, and I literally can't tell in terms of bandwidth. I'm not complaining, it's nice to not have to worry about wires!
  - ghaff 3y ago
    My Synology is fairly low-end one. It's "only" something like a 1.8TB RAID-1. (I think it was probably cheaper than operating my old Linux box with btrfs to do the same thing.) But, yeah, I plug my various wired stuff in where it's convenient but basically don't sweat the details.

xattt 3y ago

I’m planning to wire not only for Ethernet, but also speaker wire. I’m not fully confident in my ability to make sure a ceiling speaker goes in the right place, but I’ll have to resort to that. My options are either a guy that does all the big projects (churches, restaurants, houses for people that won’t blink at a 100,000 dollar late-construction review) or myself. There’s simply no in-between, because it’s not in the mindset of the general population. Most one-man electrician shows probably have enough issues keeping their phone going.

ghaff 3y ago
I basically have whole house (including outdoor) speaker wire. But, to be honest, this was basically done 20 years ago by an electrician in concert with other work and I'm not sure I'd do it today unless it were really easy.

m463 3y ago

On the other hand, you can still get pretty good bandwidth out of the lowly cat5. You usually don't have 100m runs. Over my lifetime I think 10 -> 100 -> 1000 -> 2.5 maybe 10 is usually doable. arguably not as good as fiber, which has been reused in steps of orders of magnitude each tech jump.

ghaff 3y ago
People here get obsessed with the highest bandwidth numbers. But, most of the time in a consumer context, it really doesn't matter.
snuxoll 3y ago
The problem isn't using Cat5E, specifically - as long as they run conduit pulling new cable isn't a big deal. It's the complete lack of planning and design around home networking, which is just as important to our daily lives in 2023 as plumbing and electrical is. When my aunt moved her custom sewing shop last October I put more effort into planning the network infrastructure for her modest storefront than homebuilders do for half a million dollar homes.

avidiax 3y ago

> you'll wish you had wired their tv's. Unfortunately, many TVs only have 100Mbps ethernet, and sometimes that ethernet port doesn't even achieve 50Mbps because of software issues. People workaround that by using a USB Gigabit Ethernet adapter with the USB 3.0/3.1 port. https://www.howtogeek.com/763255/how-to-add-gigabit-ethernet-to-a-tv-without-it/ https://www.howtogeek.com/763255/how-to-add-gigabit-ethernet...