Cat 5 cabling

[furstivetreats]

Please, talk to me like an absolute idiot about this.

So, internet comes into my house, then I have a router. Do I plug in cat 5 cables (or cat 6) to this router and the cables then have an RJ45 socket at the other end, say in my dining room for the TV? Is that right? If so, presumably the location of the router is pretty much set in stone once I make a decision on it, since all the ethernet cables are run to that point?

Usually a router does not have enough ports to run wired Ethernet to all rooms. You could run a Ethernet cable from the router to a multi port switch located somewhere more central and then run cables from there to the rooms.
A common way is to have the switch in the loft and then run cables down the exterior walls into rooms. They terminated at a RJ45 socket in the wall that you can plug a TV / PC/ CCTV etc into. You can also plug wireless access points into the sockets to get much better wifi around the house than using the wifi from the router,

We recently rebuilt our house and thought about installing Cat5/6 cables but in the end we decided not to.

The problem is getting them in the right place, the first time. We couldn't decide where our TV would go for a start. Inevitably you'd get it in the wrong place and then have ugly cables going to the right place.

But IMHO it's now unnecessary. We installed BT Whole Home disks through the house (4- we have a large house) and we get full signal WiFi all over the house. These things are absolutely fantastic and a game-changer. We run 4 HD TVs, 3 computers, 6 Amazon Echos, 20 smart bulbs, Ring doorbells, tablets, phones and even the vacuum cleaner off them and it doesn't miss a beat!

If you MUST have a hard dired connection for a particular device then put a disk near the device and you can run a Cat 5 cable from the disc. Using this method for my son's gaming PC he gets close to 100Mb/s.

We’ve just put them in since the floorboards were up. We have a panel near to the router and the cables then run to various places in the house to connect with the TVs and main computers.

You could run wires through your house and under carpets ect , you can get flat cat5 cable, but in all honesty like others have said get a good mesh WiFi system or the plug in links.

As a pp said, the router will not have enough ports for everything, so prioritise where it goes based on what can not be WiFi, sky box , alarm etc. That way any cable runs should be short.

Thanks all. I'm still not really sure what to do but appreciate all the info.

Whilst a Mesh system will increase range and cover wifi black spots, every hop halves the speed without a dedicated backhaul to the router. Latency and ping rates are also increased with a Mesh system,

Mesh systems like the BT discs have an Ethernet port to wire it back to the router so that the discs acts like access points. This is far superior option, especially if you have solid walls in your house.

If you are renovating, its well worth laying cable to the principle rooms. You will have the option still have the option of wiring up or extending wifi via access points ( or both).

Oh and if you don’t have enough Ethernet ports at the back of the router you add a switch like this
www.netgear.com/uk/business/wired/switches/unmanaged/gs308v3/
For under £20.

Have you looked at a system where you use the electrical system to get the WiFi in every room? You have an initial ethernet cable from your router to an electrical plug & then plugs in each room for things like computers, games consoles, smart TV's etc with ethernet cables. You can also use the WiFi extenders at the same time for things like mobile phones & tablets. I got that type of system from Talk Talk who provided 3 plugs & a router initially, I could buy further plugs at a discount from them but found them cheaper on the Internet.

We have a mesh system (deco). It’s good and way better than a booster which splits the signal, but for some things you need the stability of an Ethernet cable. The mesh system can still drop out and doesn’t always reach to the furthest ends of the house.