Is direct Ethernet Cabling needed? For what?

[Clariman]

Our house is about a dozen years old and has an integrated structured cabling in it with Ethernet, TV and Phone points in every room. It has a patch panel (remember them?). This is all wonderful but WiFi is perfectly good for all our IT needs so we never use the Ethernet connections.

The patch panel is a complete mess with wired with plastic ties that someone used to 'tidy it up'. Unused cabling from an old router cannot easily be removed so is dangling etc. You get the idea. I'm considering removing the patch panel and using the extra space for storage.

Is this a good idea or a bad idea if we came to sell the house in the future?

Thanks
C

[Infrasonic]

Maybe if you labeled all the incoming ethernet cables removing the patch panel would be less problematic for any future owners?
Or maybe do a little schematic diagram?

One regret I had with my house rental (subsequently sold to the last tenants) was that I didn't label the freeview aerial sockets and co-ax cable runs that were put in previously by NTL/Virgin.
I used to get endless requests from new tenants (via the letting agent) about how it all worked, despite it all being pretty obvious (to me anyway...).

Edit: Cables still have better bandwidth in general than WiFi (and Powerline), so I'd always look at a property that had ethernet or co-ax cable runs in place as a bonus.

[Lootman]

You evoked a painful memory there. In or around the year 2000 I installed, at significant effort and expense, a patch panel in my garage, and three-way outlets in each of my 15 rooms for TV, phone and internet. The modem was also in the garage and of course I didn't need a router.

Now almost all of that is bypassed. I still have a landline but all the phones are cordless. The TV is now via a satellite dish. And of course wi-fi is via a router, with a separate back-up system, also wi-fi.

So I put all those holes in my floors and walls for what turned out to be nothing. Although not quite nothing. I still use the TV jacks. And I have one phone that is "plugged in" and so doesn't need batteries.

As for ethernet cables, I use one to link the modem with the router, and I keep a spare in case the router fails and I can plug a laptop directly into the modem with it. I've also convinced myself that copper is faster than wireless, but can't prove it.

[xeny]

. I've also convinced myself that copper is faster than wireless, but can't prove it.

Can't you copy the same file over copper and wireless with a stopwatch?

[xeny]

Is this a good idea or a bad idea if we came to sell the house in the future?

C

Depends hugely on who you sell it to. To the average member of the public they'll not care a jot. To someone who works in IT and does a significant amount of personal development at home, or a serious amateur photographer, it'll be a nice bonus feature.

Can't you excise the surplus router cabling with a pair of wire cutters or the cutters on a pair of pliers and then tuck the patch panel strip up and out of the way?

[chas49]

IMHO (and supported here: https://www.howtogeek.com/217463/wi-fi- ... onnection/) Ethernet is (potentially) faster than Wi-Fi.

The reality depends on

- what cabling you have (is it Cat 5e - max 1Gb/s, or Cat6 - up to 10Gb/s)
- what router and Wifi Adapters you have ( 802.11ac and 802.11n, offer maximum speeds of 866.7 Mb/s and 150 Mb/s, respectively)
- and, probably most signifcantly, what the speed of your internet connection is.

If your internet connection is 60 Mbps (I just measured mine), and you have a Cat5e Ethernet cable to your router - you're still getting 60Mbps maximum. If you have a 802.11 Wifi connection instead, guess what? (Still 60Mps)

All this is for external traffic obviously - if you use the network for internal stuff (streaming from a media server etc), then the Ethernet connection probably wins.

Or of course if you have a 1GB/s FTTC internet connection

[xeny]

The reality depends on

- what cabling you have (is it Cat 5e - max 1Gb/s, or Cat6 - up to 10Gb/s)
- what router and Wifi Adapters you have ( 802.11ac and 802.11n, offer maximum speeds of 866.7 Mb/s and 150 Mb/s, respectively)
- and, probably most signifcantly, what the speed of your internet connection is.

I agree with your HO, and would add one additional factor:

- how many neighbours you have and how heavily they use their wifi

I get much better wifi performance first thing in the morning compared to in the evening when I have neighbours who are watching streaming services, even after moving my router to the less congested channel(s)

[krobaa]

I have just installed ethernet cabling in my house. We are about to have fibre to the home at 900Mbps synchronous. Unfortunately the configuration of our house makes wifi difficult to receive throughout and the real speed is not great when we can use it . Also my son is a keen gamer, my wife a prolific photographer who uses cloud storage and we all have 4K televisions in various rooms and watch on demand services more than live transmissions. I am moving more to cloud based applications and trialling virtual computing so our internet load is increasing and we need to most efficient method of access with low latency and error rate. The future of the connected home is still in its infancy and I want to be a bit future proofed.
krobaa

[gbjbaanb]

- what router and Wifi Adapters you have ( 802.11ac and 802.11n, offer maximum speeds of 866.7 Mb/s and 150 Mb/s, respectively)

wifi maximum speed is dependant on what else is using the airwaves. That 866Mbps assumes you're the only wifi user, no other devices are using it, and that includes next door who is streaming 4K UHD Japanese bondage manga cat porn.

Cabled ethernet is far more reliable, and for something bandwidth-heavy like streaming movies, I'd always go for it, just to ensure that 100% of the bandwidth is available all the time and the wifi bandwidth can be used for the mobile stuff.

[Infrasonic]

Over shortish runs you can get more than 1Gb/s out of Cat5e...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC267rV ... VJ&index=3

MoCA is worth looking at for ethernet over coax...http://www.mocalliance.org/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... deman+moca

There was a Cat5/6/7 thread on here a while back that morphed into a discussion about fibre runs in the home using cheap eBay ex enterprise gear, courtesy of an ex data centre engineer.
viewtopic.php?t=16504&p=204572#p204572

[Clariman]

Just thinking I maybe can't get rid of it because we have a Sonos system which was has been here four about 10 years. I guess that may use the Ethernet cabling to reach other rooms. I'll have to spend some time sorting it out. My hunch, however, is that by the time we come to sell the house (maybe 10 years time) it will be completely obsolete.

[gbjbaanb]

Just thinking I maybe can't get rid of it because we have a Sonos system which was has been here four about 10 years. I guess that may use the Ethernet cabling to reach other rooms. I'll have to spend some time sorting it out. My hunch, however, is that by the time we come to sell the house (maybe 10 years time) it will be completely obsolete.

Only if fibre replaces ethernet because we all have 1Gbps internet speeds... oh stop laughing.

But to future-proof things, make sure your new ethernet cabling has the ability (ie string) to pull other cables through to replace it, then you can upgrade it to fibre really cheaply. Might make a big difference when it comes to selling.

[xeny]

Only if fibre replaces ethernet because we all have 1Gbps internet speeds... oh stop laughing.
.

It looks as if "consumer" 10 gbit is going to be over copper - or possibly intermediate 2.5 and 5 gbit hardware that was originally intended for enterprise wifi backhaul will also be used to offer LAN upgrades.

The cards for those speeds are relatively cheap, and USB to 2.5gbit dongles are starting to become available.

[pochisoldi]

"Is direct Ethernet Cabling needed?"
Not where wifi is available
"For what?"
See above.

If I had a house with installed ethernet I would:
1) Make sure I had a gigabit ethernet switch
2) Use the wired network to feed anything which is fixed and located close to an ethernet outlet.
3) Never consider removing it.

Wifi is a "shared medium".
- the frequency spectrum is shared with your neighbours
- the bandwidth is shared between the devices on your network
- (unlikely) if someone outside your property gets the credentials, they can use your bandwidth as well
- Wifi performance depends on what's between your device and the access point

Wired ethernet is switched.
- Each pair of devices can communicate at the highest rate supported by the network equipment.
- No interference from your neighbours, need physical access to a network socket to connect.

Removing the patch panel means you end up with a house full of useless ethernet outlets which you'll have to remove/plaster over.

PochiSoldi