Wiring Your Home? 40
Royster asks: "I've just got my mortgage commitment and I'll be closing on a house this month. It's time to start thinking about wiring up a home network that's a little more extensive than the 10-base T patch cables strung across the living room of my apartment. I want 10/100 base-T and a phone jack in every room (perhaps not the bathroom). I guess I need to get some Cat-5 wire and learn how to attach and test connectors. Can I run 10/100 base T and a phone line through a single set of wires? Do I need to run conduit or can I snake the stuff through the walls? Any suggestions for sources and resources?"
theguru, looking to be a bit more ambitious, asks: "In the next year I plan on starting construction on a new home. What do my fellow Slashdotters think I need to consider when it comes to the wiring of the house? I'm talking about everything... electrical, phone, cable, home entertainment, alarm, home network, the works. I want the controllability I have now with X10, but without the ugly warts. I want to enjoy DVDs, DirectTV, cable, music, etc., from almost anywhere in the house. I want high-speed networking to almost every room. Most of all however, I want flexibility and growth. I currently have a cable modem, but I want to be able to keep up with technology for the next five years at least without any major wiring changes. Also, help me think of anything important I'm forgetting. "
Wiring up your house. (Score:1)
How I wired my first house (Score:3)
I only did a little bit of wiring on my first house.
I bought a dual RJ-45 plate and a dual phone plate for my office space, as well as some 25 foot cat 5 cables and lots of phone cord.
I saw that I had an electrical outlet, and used that as a starting point. I went into basement and found the hole in the floor for the outlet.
I then cut holes in the wall on the other side of the stud (since outlet boxes are mounted on studs) for the cat5 and the telephone. I went into the basement and drilled a hole a few inches from the outlet box wiring.
To fish the wiring, I had some left over Nomex house wiring, which was stiff enough to act as a fish cable. At this point I cut the end off the cat5 cables. I stuck the wire up from the basement, bent the end and taped the cables to it.
Going back upstairs, I pulled the wire, and brought the cables up. I separated the cables in the cat 5 wiring, laided them in the outlet, and pushed the outlet together. The other end still have the connectors, which I plugged into a hub.
It's really pretty basic, you just have to know your house, and know where to drill. You could always go wireless, but I'm happier trading my time for much cheaper wiring, and standard NICS.
Some other things I learned.
My SA's warned about running cat5 near lights and wiring, it may cause interference.
Measure twice and drill once.
Wear goggles and a mask if you're drilling up.
Vent pipes, water pipes and drain pipes probably run from the top of your house to the bottom, and usually have decent sized holes, you can string wire along those, too.
In our new house, I still have cat5 sprawled along the floor of my study, but when my latest book is done I'll start wiring it up, drops in the attic, master bedroom, living room, study, basement and garage.
Good luck,
George
some suggestiosn (Score:2)
Some things I'd do different:
Put a jack in every room - you never know when say you might have a baby and your former office turns into a nursery. :) If you put a jack in every room you are set for the future. I wish I would have put a jack in the kitchen - cause then I could get one of these slim desktop units in there and read the paper online in the am.
You can split the CAT5 cable to do data and phone - although I don't think it's 'right'.
Hubble makes some splitters as well that can take one CAT5 and either split data/data or data/phone.
Ask you builder about codes and if you need conduit. I didn't - I just used plenum cable and that was fine.
Somewhere in the house you'll need a punch down area - someplace to tie all your cable down and get it into a hub. Make sure it's in a good location. Mines in the garage.
Buy good quality cable. Once it's in the walls it's tough to replace. :)
I'm thinking this could also possible add a bit to the resale value of your home (depending on if you sell to another geek)
good luck
Cat-5, Coaxial, etc. Cat-7 or Fibre? (Score:3)
In other words, I ran 3 Cat-5 cables to a single box, where I have two phone lines (RJ-11) on a single Cat-5 and two ethernet (RJ-45) connections on their own Cat-5's. Running 3 Cat-5 connections to every room in a house can get expensive, I'm sure. Just don't short yourself. You won't be able to go back!
Also, don't forget the need to run coaxial to each room or at least certain rooms. Having the flexibility to have cable or satellite in several rooms is key. Don't forget to run coaxial to whatever room will have your cable modem. I put my cable modem in my study (even though I *could* put it in the basement) because it needs to get manually reset from time to time. So in addition to the connections I mention above, I also have two coaxial connections.
In other words, my wall plate has 6 ports in it, two each of coaxial, RJ-11, and RJ45. (And I have that x2 in my study--talk about overkill!!!)
For "future flexibility" I suppose you should consider fibre. I also heard about something over the weekend, which is probably old news for networking geeks (I am not one, I just pretend), about a newer spec for cables called Cat-7. Supposedly much more robust, and useable for gigabit networks. Now that's planning for the future!!! (Probably *really* expensive too!)
Good luck!
Centralise (Score:1)
You should then run as much to each room as you can afford. That means coax and multiple cat-5. The reason for this is that you can run anything over cat-5, except coax...
If you want good audio, you might be able to use the coax, but I'm not sure. Whatever the case, you might want multiple coax and/or some dedicated shielded speaker cable to each room. (Hmmm, probably means another panel of some sort for audio...)
I would love to work on a project like this!
A.
--
Adam Sherman
Wiring up your house (Score:1)
Next, your level of security. If you're not paranoid, you can run the cables along the same route as your power (properly grounded), without conduit. For the paranoid, run STP in a grounded conduit.
Depending on how wired you want to be, and how often you plan on re-arranging your furniture (or how often your told to re-arrange your furniture) put at least one DVO (data-voice outlet, containing two CAT5 cables) in every room (even the bathroom). In main rooms go with one DVO on every wall, or 1 every 15-20 feet, depending on the size. Also, in the main rooms, put in at least two dual DVO's, replacing one with a co-ax drop.
In your TelComm closet, mount a 4 foot by 4 foot backboard. Get a BIX 10A mount, a couple of BIX 5A strips (5x telephone multiplier) and BIX 36DI strips (data jacks), a BIX tool, and a whole mess of tie-wraps and your on your way.
UTP, antenna and ground will do! (Score:1)
Each UTP cable has 4 pairs of wires, 8 conductors in total.
You terminate each UTP cable in a RJ-45 female connector. The RJ-45 wall-mounted connectors are color coded, follow the codes carefully.
A main distributing frame with (a lot of) RJ-45 female connectors goes in the central location.
You can use patch-cables on the main distributing frame to set up any kind of configuration you need, just by plugging in cables.
Each of the two RJ-45 connectors in each room will allow you to get anyting from doorbell or plain old telephone service (1 pair), ISDN telephones or 10 Mbit/s Ethernet (2 pairs), 100 Mbit/s Ethernet (4 pairs) into the rooms.
You can put a local telephone exchange and Ethernet hub in the central location. You can install an antenna signal amplifier/splitter in the central location.
I don't know the exact requirements for earthing of the main voltage in the States, but a good solution is to have a central earthing point (guess where!) and run one earthing conductor to each room. This will protect you computers since they will have the same potential level (voltages with respect to "ground").
All of this will be a physical star configuration, meaning that if any cable get cut by accident, only one room will be affected.
Good luck - I've installed the setup described above in my Danish 1898 house. You'll save quite a lot of hours by installing the cables during the construction instead of after
Best regards,
Niels Kr. Jensen
Conduit, use lots of it. (Score:3)
It may sound expensive, but really it's cheep. Especially if you use plastic conduit and junction boxes. Run lots of it. Conduit is your friend. Need to change something, just pull a new wire through. Put in extra conduits and boxes. If possible put in a network/AV box on each wall. Put the boxes in and cover them with blank wall plates if you don't put any wiring to them. When you decide to wire or rewire a room all you need to do is pull the wires through, put on the proper face plate and your set. When I get around to building my own home (hopefully soon) I will be putting in networking/AV conduits and boxes in beside every plugin. I'll run all of them back to concentrator boxes where my networking hardware and AV switches will live. If you need to find out how to layout conduit, pick up a copy of the National Electrical Code. Barnes and Nobel and Borders both handle copies of it.
House LAN (Score:1)
As an aside, a good DHCP config on your server will probably make you popular with geek friends bearing laptops.
Ade_
/
I've done this recently (Score:3)
If you are going to pull cable through the walls, do it with two pairs just in case you need another later or in case something goes wrong with one. ( bulk Cat-5 is cheap, 5 cents a foot ). You might even consider leaving a string/wire between the end-points in the walls where you ran a cable so you can use it in the future.
Crimping your own ends on the cables will save a lot of money and is not too hard.
You only need 4 wires for ethernet. I used the other 4 for a serial connection to my Bat House [batbox.org], I think this is a very common use of the extra wires
A good resource for this type of thing (Score:1)
Do run conduit for the future... (Score:2)
Also, you can put raceways/conduit in existing locations. One neat trick (as used apparently first in the Playboy mansion in Chicago, or so said one of the old home journals) is to remove the molding, then put down your conduit along the wall edge, then put the molding above it, hiding the conduit with quarter round molding. You then cut out space for an outlet in the molding board.
In my case, this works great, since I cut a hole in the floor for the conduit to go into the cellar from, and because I already had quarter round molding in place anyway. Voila, no need to cut holes in my (inch thick) plaster walls!
Of course, with the price of wireless dropping as per earlier slashpost, this may be only necessary for fiber in the future anyway...
Re:How I wired my first house (Score:1)
Re:Centralise (Score:2)
Use keystone-style jacks, those which fit in blank faceplates which can hold several kinds of jacks. Home Depot and many other places now carry them. You'll then have a single place for low-voltage cables such as LAN, phone, audio, and TV.
Get a ball or two of nylon twine. Every time you pull a cable, leave a string tied at both ends of the path. Makes pulling more cable much easier (pull a new string with the new cable).
Notice the plastic flexible conduit available at hardware stores. Even if blue doesn't fit your decor, it's useful in walls and above ceiling for guiding cables through messy areas -- I have one place where I had to cut a hole in a basement ceiling, so I'm installing that conduit to provide a clear cable path and future cable pulls will travel smoothly without having to reopen the ceiling. Spackle does wonders, but I prefer to not have to repaint too often.
Re:How I wired my first house (Score:1)
No, no, noxious sewer gas vent pipes, the ones about 8 inches in diameter made of cast iron, they also fucntion as the main drain pipe.
George
Conduit, moisture, heat (Score:5)
Conduit. Definitely conduit. I was the lead sound tech at my church for 4 years, and when we did an upgrade (we being me and one other guy), we pulled about 2 miles of microphone cable and speaker cable through tiny little holes in walls and closets. For a new house, I would suggest conduit everywhere, and bigger than you think you'll need. After all, conduit is for those unforseen wires in the future. And you will need pull-strings. A pull-string is a piece of string lain in the conduit to let you pull wire through. You tie one end of the pull-string to your new wire, and you pull on the other end to snake the wire through your conduit. Just remember to tie another sting to the back end of the wire, so that you can do it again the next week. :) I recommend 3 pull strings (fight Murphys law), and secure them to each end of the conduit; otherwise, you might drag your other strings out when you pull with one. You should seperate your power from your signal, which might mean two conduits, or leaving the power in the wall without conduit.
And in reply to the AC (Cat-5, Coaxial, etc. Cat-7 or Fibre?) who said Just don't short yourself. You won't be able to go back! - conduit lets you go back, that's its purpose. A big enough conduit, with several pull-strings, and you can run more Cat-5 when you want to turn your home office into a home-ISP.
BTW, if you plan a big setup, you might want to think about heat. A hub or two, two servers, and a patch panel in one closet might get hot enough to need cooling. I haven't run the numbers (though I am a senior in Mechanical Engineering and I know cooling), but if your closet is next to the water heater, in the middle of the summer, and your personally hosted website is mentioned on Slashdot, you might have a heat problem. Just another worry for you. :)
Good luck.
Note on Pull cords (Score:1)
comp.home.automation (Score:2)
Hometime (Score:1)
Don't duplicate grounds (Score:1)
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Re:I've done this recently (Score:1)
Agreed - crimping isn't hard, but make sure you've got a pair tester (or plug up each connection after crimping) to make sure you crimped well.
Been burned by crappy crimping too many times at work.
Hmm - Fun, Fun, Fun! (Score:3)
I'll reitterate and say that using conduit is probably best and makes future wiring needs easier, but it can be expensive for the "first" install. Use the fish lines as mentioned (I especially liked the clothes line system posted earlier - pretty neat idea!). There also exists reels of thin steel fishing "tape" that can be fed thru the conduit, the wire hooked on the end, and then a crank is turned to pull the tape, and wire, back.
Whatever type of wire you run, make sure not to snag it, then yank on it - this will stretch the wire, and could break it. At best, doing so will cause the TP sheilding (or coax sheilding) to stretch and reduce their effectiveness.
Centralise the connections, in a closet or other easily accessible area, as previously mentioned.
I would say the minimum install for each room should be phone, 10Base-T, and coax. If money wasn't an object (or wasn't a big object), I would go for a phone, two cat-5 (10Base-T), and coax in each room, as well as speaker wire drops through the ceiling (including the bathroom). I would put phone and coax in the bathroom, as well as speaker wire, but I would leave out the cat-5 (unless you are the kind of geek that needs
Also as mentioned earlier, crimping your own connectors on IS cheaper than buying pre-crimped cables. Cat-5 is damn cheap in bulk, and the connectors go for about $20.00 for a bag of 100 or so (I could be wrong here - it may be even CHEAPER). Crimping them is easy as well. The expensive part comes when you have to buy the crimping tool. I am not sure of pricing now, but at one time the tool could set you back close to a hundred dollars (for a glorified pair of pliers)! It may be cheaper now, but expect to pay at least $30.00. Anybody have more info on this?
If you have to work in an attic, wear knee pads and good tennis shoes. Wear a dust mask (or something better). Wear safety goggles. You may even want to wear gloves (nails, framing metal). If you can find the nerdy "flashlights-on-glasses-frame" things, use them, because you don't want to have to carry a flashlight in the attic (I found a thing like this at Walgreens for $15.00 - but it had not only the light, but safety wraparound goggles as well - excellent device). Tell someone you are going up into the attic before you go, and where you expect to be. Using a pair of walkie talkies might help here as well. Visualise what you plan to do before you go up, and take all the tools you will need, and a few you think you won't (because you probably will - nothing sucks more than going up into an attic, and realising you left a tool behind). Wherever you work, watch out for insects and rodents. Bee hives/wasp nests are especially nasty things! Take frequent breaks. If possible, work at night or when it is cool/cold outside (attics can get damn hot!). Finally, if you are running a long run, and need a central cable run in the attic for multiple cables, Home Depot carries metal flashing that is "C" shaped in cross section, 10-12 foot lengths for about $5.00 - nail this down, then lay the cable in it.
If you are doing the install after the house is built, you are in luck! You can generally "get away" with anything after a house is done (technically it isn't legal to do stuff without inspections - just don't make the work too shoddy. Use common sense when routing wire through the walls, and no one will probably care). If the idea of busting/drilling holes in walls scare you, there is thin track conduit available (they look like hot wheels tracks with covers) that stick to the wall, and allow you to run wiring nearly anywhere, if looks aren't too much of a concern.
Final note for the ultra-cheap home wiring dude/ette/s: Thumb tacks and duct tape are your friends! Actually, this can go a long way - if a temporary setup is required. Don't stick the tacks through the cable, just use them to "wedge" the cable against the wall.
Re:Hmm - Fun, Fun, Fun! (Score:1)
If it's too difficult to arrange that, the builder's electricians could probably at least install some empty conduits for you to empty boxes.
another reference (Score:1)
there was a pretty large thread there this summer on a guy who was doing it. plenum vs. not plenum - which kind of patch boxes to use - most everything.
i remember it being pretty good.
Re:Don't duplicate grounds (Score:1)
I described how to create a star topology, which is free from ground loops by definition.
Pre-1996 houses in Denmark have no ground connector in the power outlets.
Wireless LANs? (Score:1)
Ade_
/
Multiplexing Cat5 (Score:1)
10-base-T needs four wires of the eight in a piece of Cat5 UTP. Normally, these are pins 1,2,3,6. (NB. I forget which orientation these are numbered from, and I don't have my notes to hand.) It is possible to use the other four to carry another 10-base-T connection, or a phone or two, or whatever else. (The phone wiring will depend on where you are though -- here in .uk, domestic phone extensions need three wires. Also beware of local regulations regarding phone extensions.) Theoretically, I see no reason why you couldn't put (say) 2x100-base-T down a single piece of Cat5 UTP, but beware; at those speeds, factors like balancing the pairs may come into it. (Somebody with more experience of UTP, please help me out here!)
What I did (Score:2)
I did this myself, not hard.
The local home depot sells cat-5 cable, and female ends that snap into a special wall plate. They also have telephone, coax and speaker female ends for this plate. (look first to see what you can get before making plans) Got some of that, and then find a way to get up to each room without making a mess. This is the hardest part if your not doing new construction. The walls in our second story do not line up with the walls to the first, and I could only get to the basement. (Outside walls of course line up, but they are full of insulation so that isn't useful) I did manage to find where the toilet drain went thoguh a wall, which was great since normally you can't get through floors in walls without drilling. Look in your house, if you don't see what I mean your house is probably built different.
For new construction, run plenty of cable, the stuff is cheap. For older construction the hard part is running cable so I ended up skimping. (For ethernet you can run two jacks on a normal cable if you know how to wire it.)
Run caox and phone for sure when you do this, and I'd run it all to one central localation in a wireing closest.
BTW, don't make the mistake I did: make sure you have some way to tell which jack in the wireing relates to which elsewhere. I have labels in the closet, but I can't tell left from right. Not good.
Insurance Re:Hmm - Fun, Fun, Fun! (Score:1)
When we had our house built, I asked the builder about this and his explanation was the insurance cost. Their liability insurance didn't cover either my getting hurt on the site (if I were to sue him) or injuries to other workers if they got hurt because of my mistakes. It sucks, but makes sense.
Unfortunately, I did not have then run conduit at the time. Heck, just getting a couple of extra phone jacks run was expensive.
Re:Insurance (Score:1)
I wonder if you and the builder could simply sign some kind cross agreement where neither party holds the other responsible for on-site injuries? Maybe couple this with your own builder insurance (I am sure something like this exists)? Or see if you could be added as an employee to the builder's insurance policy for his employees, for the duration of the project, and you pay him the premiums?
I find it hard to understand how you could injure one of his employees (unless you were working on-site at the time everyone else was working). Most of the time you would do your work on the weekend (when most builders don't work), and you are only installing conduit and boxes for audio/video/comp/phone cabling - not electrical work (thus no faulty wiring or shock hazard).
I guess it might be possible for you to drill/bore/cut wrong and weaken a support structure (which could cause a fall and/or collapse), but you would have to seriously not realize what you were doing (in other words, if you are planning on doing this yourself, it might be a good idea to familiarize oneself with how a house is built and why, before modifying the structure in any way).
How to run wire yourself and save $$$! (Score:3)
If you can afford to have the cable installed before the sheetrock goes up on the walls, or you are allowed by the builder to do this yourself, by all means, do it. But for many, the expense of having someone else install and run custom wiring can't be justified, especially for first-time home buyers who may not have a lot of money to spare for additional work to be done.
In these cases, it may be easier to do the work after the house is built (if you want to do it yourself). You won't be able to use conduit, but it still can be done...
Tools Needed
The tools you will need are:
A keyhole-type hand saw
A power drill
A long 3/8 inch wire drill (these are really long - about 4 foot - flexible drills used to drill through studs and such for wire routing)
A wire fish tape (a steel reel thing for wire fishing in walls and conduit)
A bit of strong string
About 6 inches of lightweight chain
An electronic stud finder
Vertical Runs
Plan out where you want an outlet, then use the stud finder to find the nearest vertical stud. Select one side or the other of the stud (whichever is convenient) and mark where you want the box. Now is a good time to go into the attic or basement and check to see if anything is blocking the way of the hole you will need to drill in the ceiling plate stud (for an attic run) or base (floor) plate stud (for a basement run). If it is, you may have to move the location of the box, or do a horizontal run of the wire (explained below).
On the side you choose, move the stud finder to find the horizontal "fire-blocks", and mark on the wall where they are - these will have to be drilled through to run the cable (older houses may not have these blocks, which is good for running cable, and bad when there is a fire). Depending on whether you are running the wire to the attic or basement, you may or may not encounter these fire-blocks. However, you will encounter either a base (floor) plate stud on the bottom (at floor level) or a ceiling base plate stud (ceiling level) that will need to be drilled through.
With the keyhole saw, cut the hole for outlet box. The box will have instructions on how to cut the hole (get the boxes that are blue plastic, and have "flip-out" tabs - these are designed to be installed after the sheet rock has been put up).
Now, depending on where you installed the box (floor level, ceiling level, in the middle somewhere), and whether you are routing wire to the ceiling or basement, cut holes just above the fire-block studs, and a hole under the ceiling base plate stud (attic run) or above floor base plate stud (basement run). These holes should be near in-line with the box.
Tie the length of chain to the end of the string, and drop the chain through the hole in attic, or whichever hole is the highest (may be the box hole if it is a basement run). At each hole in the wall, fish the chain and run through the stud hole, until you reach the box (or the basement). Cut the chain off the string. The string will act as your wire pulling string. Alternatively, you can use the fish tape in the same manner.
Tie the string to the cable at one or the other ends, and pull the cable through, the amount you need. Always pull through more than you think you need, because invariably, you always need more. The wire is cheap - don't worry about wasting a bit of it.
Horizontal Runs
Horizontal runs can be done similarly. Simply mark the intervening vertical studs, and make a hole with the keyhole saw to the left or right of the stud. Drill the hole, and use the fish tape (or a stiff piece of wire, like a straightened coathanger) to work the chain/string/wire over as you work. Depending on how far your horizontal run is, you may end up going through a lot of vertical studs. Studs should be spaced about 18-24 inches apart (anyone know the code on this?). Try to keep horizontal runs to minimum lengths, or position them near the floor level (where any patching mistakes will be less noticable).
Finishing Up
Once the wire is finished being pulled through, and all connections are checked, you will be ready to patch, texture and paint all the holes you made. It is best to do all the wiring for one room, then patch/paint that room, and move on to the next. BTW - don't be afraid of re-texturing the patch. Your hardware store should sell or be able to get a product that is a simple spray on texture system - it costs about $20.00 a can, and is easy to use.
Conclusion
A hard and lengthy job? You bet. Done right, though it can save you quite a bit of money. However, if your time is valuable, it may not be worth it. A large wiring project could take several days of work to finish. Keep in mind what you plan to do, and how long you expect it to take. Research all costs and materials before you begin, and ask yourself if it is really something you want to tackle. The learning experience of it alone is worth it many times. Also, keep in mind alternative approaches - baseboard running, thin track conduit (kinda ugly IMO, but easy to install), and wireless approaches.
Re:Note on Pull cords (Score:1)
When I did that cable run (another thread [slashdot.org]) I was occasionally putting most of my (substantial) body weight on the bundle I was pulling, even though my partner was feeding the wires as nicely as they would go. As far as I can tell, that only happens with tight turns or large bundles.
If you are building your house, you can avoid those problems by making your conduit large (2 inches sounds good, off the top of my head), and keeping those curves large and smooth. And each piece of conduit should connect to each other piece, with no gaps in between for little twists to catch on. This will prevent snagging and yanking, like cr0sh [slashdot.org] said earlier.
And walkie-talkies will keep the neighbors from hearing you yell to your partner in the basement from your perch in the attic.
my (REALLY) limited wiring experience (Score:1)
Just my random $.02 *shrug*
Re:Multiplexing Cat5 (Score:1)
Took me a day or two to figure out why my custom serial cable wasn't working... I finally setup a function generator and scope to see what was really going on.
Have fun!
Important Notes! Read this too! (Score:1)
Check on both side of the wall, at the same horizontal position as where you will put your outlet box, make sure that vertically you don't see any light switches or other outlets. Do the same as you make horizontal runs.
If you do suspect a pipe or a wire might be in the way, be careful. If you are thinking there may be a wire, then the best bet is to cut off the electricity to that room or section of the house. Check the outlet or switch to make sure it is dead, with a voltmeter. Then, when you cut your hole, use a razor knife or box cutter, and make several passes to make the hole, each pass cutting a little deeper into the wall, until you cut all the way through. This is better than the possibility of nicking the wiring. The truely paranoid can wear a pair of rubber gloves, to insulate themselves from the electricity...
If you suspect a pipe (rare that you will run into one, unless the wall you are working on backs against a bathroom or kitchen area), cut gradually with the keyhole saw - if you run into an obstruction, stop sawing, and try to go shallower. If that isn't possible, try using a razor knife or box cutter to remove the section of wall, in a similar manner as would be done for wiring. Basically, you want to avoid damaging the pipe (which may be PVC, copper or steel).
In any scenario, try to route around the pipe or wiring first, by either rerouting your wire, or moving the box to a different location.
Cat 7 is bunk (Score:1)
According to the article, Cat 6 is not even at the draft stage as a standard. Where do you think that puts Cat 7? Cat 6 is the last spec to use RJ-45 for cripes sake! Cat 5E was only ratified a few months ago. It's good enough to do Gigbit Ethernet as long as you follow the installation guidelines (it's more than just cable length). As for fibre to the desktop, I'd spend the money on conduit instead. It's unlikely that you'll have a use for fibre in the next 5 years for anything other than interconnecting network equipment. You're more likely to use Firewire first. Seriously.
Re:Multiplexing Cat5 (Score:1)