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R2D2, I gather your are quite involved into home networking and your address reads Pune, so need some inputs.

I am thinking of putting in cable connections in all the bedrooms and living room. This is to get lag free connections on the connected devices, if you are streaming from internet or NAS. At the moment, in built wifi cards/dongles are doing the job, but as the file sizes grow, once in a while buffering happens.

To make it future proof, I wish to use Cat 6 cable. Do you know places in Pune which stock good quality ethernet cables? What brands should I consider? Any idea of price?

Well, I believe the most cost-efficient option in India would be Finolex. Their price list is here: http://www.finolex.com/images/UserFi...01_12_2016.pdf - about 7.5K for 305 metres.

You need to come up with an estimate of the amount of cable you require - remember that each of your rooms has to uplink to a central location where you'd place your switching gear. Also remember to account for the alignment of the cables (you need to avoid certain kinds of other household wiring and appliances).

The rest of the kit - crimping tool, RJ45 jacks, ties, cutters etc. assuming you don't have it all already - you can order off Amazon.

Shipnil, you're on the right path. Wireless repeaters etc just don't have the stability and speed of a wired network 'backbone'.

You could get your cables from Budhwar Peth. This is near App Balwant Chowk/ famous Dagdu Sheth Halwai Ganesh temple. Tons of stores selling electrical goods.

I had my entire home wired with CAT6 back in 2010-11 with an outlets each room where my PC/NAS/media server etc are located. Some tips:

a) Network cabling is a one off investment. Buy the best cable you can get i.e either Finolex or Polycab CAT6 or CAT6A.
b) According to specs the run should be no more than 100 metres long from a Gigabit switch to the other. I'd say keep the run down to 50 metres for better signal quality.
c) Do not route the cables near or through electrical conduits. This will reduce interference and signal degradation.
d) For the same reason do not route cables from outside the building premises
e) Use plastic casing to support and route the cables. Keep in mind UTP cables do not like sharp bends. For tight corners use long patch cords which generally come with stranded wires and are flexible.
f) If you are familiar with using crimping tools you could do it yourself. Otherwise hire an electrician.

Feel free to ask if you have more questions.

Backing my working days, had a great small company for network consultancy and instalation. They used to come in in suits for the consultancy and jeans for the installation. And I think it was a real advantage that they knew their stuff over the whole range from theory to crimping!

Anyway: point is that I was watching these guys at work one day, cabling a patch panel. I noticed that they maintained the twist of the cable, even where stripped, right up to the terminals. I asked about that: "vital part of the spec. If the twist is not right, it may fail testing or even give trouble in use. Hey, it probably won't, but it is doing the job right."

As a small-company hands-on systems manager, I did not, back then, know that. What chance that an electrician, rather than a networking specialist, would know it today. And things have moved on and become even more demanding since those CAT5 days.

Another thing is that I was used to making up cables, eg all that serial stuff with various D connectors. I did a neat good job. But somehow... I never succeeded in making a reliably good network flylead. This may be like making meringue: everybody else says its easy, it just doesn't work for me.

Hi. :) I too was in network & systems engineering very early in my IT career. I began to apply some of the principles and best practices of a corporate network when I got sick of the constant Wi-Fi drops @ home, bit the bullet and decided to create a wired network 'backbone'. The resultant stability & reliability gives me peace of mind till today.

I have a range of tools including a cable tester, crimper etc which helped me do a better job than the electrician who, though skilled in crimping, used a beat up old crimping tool that didn't quite do the job properly or shall I say, to my 'standards'. IMHO crimping is a crucial step for network performance and reliability. Then there was the decision to make a straight through cable or a crossover. I went for a straight through because network equipment can now automatically handle it.

Most people will find using a RJ45 crimping tool a little bothersome especially the deciphering the 8 pin layouts (T568A or T568B) and matching them to the coloured UTP cores. Hence the suggestion of an electrician to do this job.

Friends, Need help here..
I have a D-Link DWR-116 Router serving all my WiFi needs at home. But sometimes I face a strange problem. My old HTC Desire 826 Phone refuses to connect to router. No matter what i try it just says saved in wifi list, but doesn't show connected nor password wrong. If I change the SSID it connects with no problem. Any one faced similar issues?

Change the channel of wireless broadcast and try. It should work. Instead of auto channel, select channel 6 or 11.

ok , I will try next time.

Binand, R2D2, thanks for your replies!

Yes, I have started learning bits of networking. Earlier, the ISP installer had installed the router in one corner of my flat making the wifi patchy at the other end. After reading through lots material on wifi, router placement, crimping etc, I decided to do it myself. I pulled out the existing cable and re-routed it so that my router gets to central location in the flat. Also bought the crimping tool and did crimping myself.

The issue I face once in while is playing files on TV from media server, especially, when bit rate is higher hence thought of hard wiring the home.

As for your inputs, I have mostly adhered to rules while re-routing the cable, like avoiding electrical pipes. But for some length, 10 ft I guess, I had to route it through outside of flat. At the moment, I don't see much degradation. But while doing the hard wiring through multiple rooms, I think I'll follow all the rules.

I was looking at what cable my employer has used in the office. They have used D-link Cat 6. Is D-link in the same league as Finolex / Polycab?

Also, in the flat, the pipes for TV cable is separate from electrical one. I intend to use the TV cable pipe for CAT 6. But I am not sure how I will know if there are sharp bends. And even if I am able to find them, I don't think I can use patch cord in the middle of a CAT6 cable run.

@shipnil - The shorter the cable run outside of a building the better it is. 10 feet is not much. But I guess there was no choice.

D-Link is good quality cable. I use D-Link CAT6 at home (this is if I remember correctly because it is now concealed in a plastic casing) and I selected D-Link since it was before the advent of reliable CAT6 cables from Finolex and Polycab.

If there are sharp bends with a UTP cable just ensure those aren't removed or shifted frequently. Once they are bent into shape moving or re-routing the cable MAY damage the cores.

Signal strength, transfer speeds and reliability are heavily dependent on the quality and integrity of the conductor. Crimping and the RJ45 male/female connectors also play an important role.

@R2D2 any idea what Rft means in terms of length?

When I got CAT6 cabling in my house, I was charged for "502 Rft @ Rs.56 per Rft." I felt it was quite high (gut feeling ;) ) and so after lot of haggling with the electrician, the amounts were adjusted in overall bill. But still couldn't really understand what Rft meant and the electrician couldn't explain.

I hope you don't mind my answering your questions that are directed at another member. I do have some experience in network design and provisioning (having had a career doing this sort of stuff for a large MNC).

Rft is running foot/feet, is a unit used to express the fact that the pricing of the product in question is determined purely by its length (the circumference in this case being determined by international standards and understood by all parties).

Is it so high? I did run a basic google search and generally the 305 meter box is costing about 6000 to 7000 rupees. About 20 to 23 rupees per meter. 56 per ft comes to about 180 per meter:Shockked:

Thank you Binand.

Reason for confusion is that at amazon, the length is mentioned in meters or feet only and I couldn't convert Rft to meters or feet. Would it be correct to say 502 Rft = 502 feet?

@shipnil
That was exactly my concern and so the arguments with the electrician. All he could say was that much was required all over the house without specifying in feet or meters. Amazon has lot of cheaper options for Cat6 (including unbranded ones).

Is Your Cat 6 Cable a Dog?

This technology is pretty robust, and the bandwidth demands at home (unless video streaming is involved) are very modest. So long as it works at all, we are unlikely to notice if performance is quite a long way below spec.

BUT...

This cabling is going to be done once, and only once. So assuming that budget allows, use decent, branded cable, properly installed. Actually, it should be tested as well, but only network specialists are going have/understand that equipment.

Personally, I'd try to use Belden cable. I'm sure it would cost more --- but we are talking house, not data centre or even office: can't be that many metres involved?