Yeah I hate wireless with a passion. I think its an overrated technology and should be used only when absolutely necessary. I cant believe some people out there actually prefer it and choose it over a wired connection when they have the option.

Wireless is great for laptops and cell phones (especially if you are on limited data plans). I'd use wired for any static device, but wireless definitely has its place in any modern home. Most wifi tvs/blu-ray players will work just as well off a wireless.

You probably want a switch rather than a router for the general wiring in your house, and a wireless router plugged into the switch so you can have wireless in your whole house.

[quote name='AndreTheGiant' timestamp='1299176884' post='4781474']
Yeah I hate wireless with a passion. I think its an overrated technology and should be used only when absolutely necessary. I cant believe some people out there actually prefer it and choose it over a wired connection when they have the option.

Wireless is great for laptops and cell phones (especially if you are on limited data plans). I'd use wired for any static device, but wireless definitely has its place in any modern home. Most wifi tvs/blu-ray players will work just as well off a wireless.

You probably want a switch rather than a router for the general wiring in your house, and a wireless router plugged into the switch so you can have wireless in your whole house.
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So like this?

[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1299181641' post='4781500']
[quote name='AndreTheGiant' timestamp='1299176884' post='4781474']
Yeah I hate wireless with a passion. I think its an overrated technology and should be used only when absolutely necessary. I cant believe some people out there actually prefer it and choose it over a wired connection when they have the option.

Wireless is great for laptops and cell phones (especially if you are on limited data plans). I'd use wired for any static device, but wireless definitely has its place in any modern home. Most wifi tvs/blu-ray players will work just as well off a wireless.

You probably want a switch rather than a router for the general wiring in your house, and a wireless router plugged into the switch so you can have wireless in your whole house.
[/quote]

So like this?





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I'd put the router on the other side of the switch, but that could be a naive way to do it. I've never done anything on quite the scale you are doing.

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I'd put the router on the other side of the switch, but that could be a naive way to do it. I've never done anything on quite the scale you are doing.
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Hmm, yeah I'm not to confident one way or the other.

I thought the router was supposed to go between the internet and your network, because it has a firewall. But I'd like to hear an expert's opinion...

Hmm, yeah I'm not to confident one way or the other.

I thought the router was supposed to go between the internet and your network, because it has a firewall. But I'd like to hear an expert's opinion...

It probably depends a lot on which switch/router you get too.

If you can, run conduit instead of just the wires themselves, then you'll be in better position to run other wire technologies in the future -- say, to add more Ethernet drops to an underserved room, fiber-optics, or speaker wire.

Also, since you're under the drywall it may not be much of an issue to you -- but if you find yourself needing to hide some cables in the future I've had success in my apartments tucking unsightly cables underneath the baseboards -- there's usually a sizable pocket underneath, room for 2-3 cables at least. For doorways and such, I use a steel fishing tape to snake the cable underneath the carpet when possible.

As for conduits, I second this.

In fact, it may be required for the local building code.

If you don't know about your local building code, you really should check this with the builders. It would seriously suck if your wiring project made your new home fail the inspection. The builders wouldn't be responsible to fix it because you decided to do it yourself.


It is generally best to have the home builders install it. The installer do the wiring all the time and know what they are doing, and generally either they are an electrician or their work is verified by one. Plus they are responsible to do it correctly and re-do the work if they failed the wiring inspection.

[quote ]

I'd put the router on the other side of the switch, but that could be a naive way to do it. I've never done anything on quite the scale you are doing.
[/quote]

Hmm, yeah I'm not to confident one way or the other.

I thought the router was supposed to go between the internet and your network, because it has a firewall. But I'd like to hear an expert's opinion...
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While not an expert - I think what I know is right (but dont we all!)

First off, a definition of the various technologies:

Router: Routers connect one or more networks, "routing" the traffic between each of them. A typical example would be an ADSL router, which joins your local wired network to the internet by routing traffic between the two.

Hub: Hubs are dumb, and essentially split a cable into multiple cables. When using a hub to create a network, if one PC sends a message to the PC on IP 192.168.0.2, that message is transmitted across ALL ports, until the correct PC with that address is found.

Switch: Switches are similar to hubs, in that they split the cable into multiple cables, but unlike hubs, switches are intelligent. They remember which PC is connected to each port, so in the example above, whent he message is sent to 192.168.0.2, the switch remembers that that PC is on port 5, and will send the message *only* through port 5. Therefore switches are far more efficient. (they can also provide extra services, such as traffic filtering, routing, DHCP etc etc... )

Now, when connecting up your house you basically have two options - you can run multiple cables to each room, feeding back into a large switch, or you could run a single cable to each room / floor, then place a hub/switch in each room/floor to provide multiple connections. These still need to feed back to somewhere though, so either the 4 ports on the router, or another switch, which in turn connects to the router.

Your diagram is correct, but slightly misleading. Switches typically only have ports on one side, you dont connect PCs on one side and your router to the other (although they may have an uplink port, which is slightly different but not neccessary). Your router would connect into a normal port, as per any other PC. The router will provide a firewall, but all traffic has to pass through the switch then the router anyway to get to the internet, so it will always be passing through this firewall.

Personally i would go with what you had in the diagram, unless running 25 cables is going to be an issue.

Now, assuming that I err on the side of too many wires (rather than too few), I think I'm looking at 25 or more wires total. So, Do I need a 25 port router?? Do they even make those? Are they bloody expensive?

I currently have a half-decent gigabit router which I paid $90 for. But it only has 4 ports. Thats obviously not going to cut it.... or is it? what If I connect an 8 port switch to each of those 4 ports? Then I'll have 32 ports to use. But does that make any sense? Wouldnt that force the 8 wires from each switch to be bottlenecked into the single wire linking it to the router? I know for my purposes I probably wouldn't even notice such a bottleneck (in terms of transfer speeds), but I still want to know the 'proper' way to design this network.

Do I just get a router with a ton of ports? Or is there a smarter way to do this by using my current router and a few switches?

You have a few different options. I have a 4 port wireless router that I plug into my cable modem. All the wires in my house terminate in the closet and are clearly labelled. I simply plug the 4 that I am currently using into the router. The upside is it's cheap and takes little space, the downside is you can't use more than 4 at a time and if you change you have to reconnect wires in the closet.

Your other option is to do what your diagram showed. Get a large (32 port) switch that all the rooms plug into, and then connect that to your wireless router or wireless modem. Downside here would be that your switch will be expensive and pretty big.

A compromise is to get a smaller and much cheaper 8 or 16 port switch and just plug in the rooms that you think you will use most often. Most likely you're going to be using a static amount of jacks that won't be changing too often. With an 8 port switch and a 4 port wireless router, you'll have 11 ports (8 +3) that are always connected + wireless.

Your other option is to do what your diagram showed. Get a large (32 port) switch that all the rooms plug into, and then connect that to your wireless router or wireless modem. Downside here would be that your switch will be expensive and pretty big.

A compromise is to get a smaller and much cheaper 8 or 16 port switch and just plug in the rooms that you think you will use most often. Most likely you're going to be using a static amount of jacks that won't be changing too often. With an 8 port switch and a 4 port wireless router, you'll have 11 ports (8 +3) that are always connected + wireless.

You could also get 2-3 small switches and plug them all into the router.

I donno if I'd like having my house wired for ethernet without all or even most of the ports being ready to go from the beginning. It adds hassle for something that's so easy to set up right away.

On looking more, it looks like I can confirm that I was wrong about which should go first. It should go router->switch(es).