Installing coax / cat6 wall plate question

[ChadTower]

Okay, I'm moving our basement Tivo to our bedroom since it never gets used downstairs.  I don't have cable lines in that room.

I'm going to run a pair of coax lines + 1 cat6 line to that room to a modular jack.  I did that to our living room (with 2 cat5e lines though) and it works well.  This time I use cat6 because I have 1000' of cat6 on hand.

Question:

The Tivo requires a phone line.  Should I put the 2 coax / 1 cat6 / 1 phone or should I go 2 cat6, hooking the source line to the phone jack downstairs using the center four lines?  Is it worth the trouble of doing the cat6/phone line for future considerations, or am I thinking too far ahead and should I just put the stupid phone line in its regular form?

[pointdablame]

I'd run the phone line up there as well just to be safe.  If you ever need a phone jack, you'll have it.

Not that it's hard to do the conversion, but I think since you have the one Cat6 there already, you'll be just fine.  Worst case scenario is you'll need multiple ethernet connections from that room, but one wireless access point and/or one $20 hub/switch will do the trick for you.

if you really see a need in the near future for it, do the conversion and run the 2 cat6's.  If I were in your position, I'd pop an actual phone connection on the plate just in case.

my two pennies.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, I had thought about the ability to just pop a hub in there.  I don't really see the potential need, in the near future, to network any devices up there except maybe a game system or the Tivo itself anyway.

[pointdablame]

In that case, I wouldn't bother with the two Cat6s.  Grab yourself a Linksys hub for $10 after rebate next time OfficeMax or Staples has it and hold on to it if you worry about needing it.

An even better idea IMHO is to just get a nice wireless access point for your house (if you haven't already).  That will definitely be the easiest way to connect things in the coming years.  My girlfriend hooks up her Tivo with a wireless card, and you can hook up gaming systems with them already.

[ChadTower]

I did have wireless for a while but stopped using it so I turned it off.

The reason I'm putting cat6 is I figure, hell, I'm running lines anyway, may as well put them in there while I'm at it.

This Tivo is a DirecTivo and doesn't have a NIC in it.  That's a project for another day.

[Santoro]

This Tivo is a DirecTivo and doesn't have a NIC in it. That's a project for another day.

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum

[Ed_McCarron]

I'd go with the 2 coax, 2 cat 6.

IF you're pulling cable anyway, now is the time.  You can always use plain old RJ-11 patch cords in the RJ-45 jacks - you'll just sit on the White/Blue (4/5) pair if you've pinned the jack out 568B.

When I'm cabling buildings, I don't even install cat3 for phone anymore - theres not enough of a price difference.  I just install cat 5e, 6, whatever the supply place has more of (our shop is still only testing to cat5 anyway - a new scanner is like $6K).  Land it all on a patch panel and let the user decide whats phone and whats data.

[2600]

If you end up running the cables take some pictures for us or make a project out of it.  It doesn't seem like a bad job, but it's one of the projects I've been putting off that I'd really like to do.  Just don't want any suprises once I have the hole in the walls and trying to go up a floor or two.

[ChadTower]

It's not enough of a project to document here.  There are tons of sites on the web that describe it and any basic home maintenance book will too.

This is a simple one because I only have to run each wire about 15 feet from the source, up to the room direcly above the source.  Cut a hole in the wall for the old work box, drill down to the basement, run the lines along the foundation sill, up through the new hole, into old work box, connect cat6 jack(s), rg6 lines, and I'm good. 

The primary caveat is not to hit anything in the wall while you're cutting.  There is only one outlet on that wall and I've traced the wire so it appears to be completely out of the way.  Still, watch what you're cutting while you're in there and be damn sure all proximal circuits are cut at the breaker.

I'm going to go with a cat6 and a phone line.  This one is easy enough that I can just swap out the phone line for another cat6 later if I want and I don't have the cash to put in a real patch panel yet.  All phone lines go to the phone source now and all cat6 go to a hub I have mounted next to the electrical panel.

And as for putting a NIC in the Tivo, I don't really have need of it now.  My main DirecTivo has a NIC in it but I haven't even connected it to the network in well over a year.

[ChadTower]

Ran into a materials issue with the phone line so I ran two cat6 lines  Since I don't have a panel, what I usually do is just put an rj45 on the end of all of my lines so I can stick them in the hub I have by the router.

What I may do with this one is wire it to rj45 end, then get a female<->female connector, and make an rj11->phone source cable.  That way, I've wired up my usual rj45 terminated cable, but also have a sort of home made cat6->phone adapter.

cat6 -> rj45 -> rj45 female-female adapter -> rj11 -> phone source

[xar256]

I'd say your better off this way in the long run anyways...Especially with the advent of VOIP and such on the horizon, it's probably only a matter of time before phone companies start pushing for cat6 <or higher> to carry voice/data in the future...Now you're ready for it.  Remember it's always easy to go from 4 pair down to 2...But a royal pain, to run 2 pair, and then need 4 in another year.

Xar256

[ChadTower]

Well, remember, it's only one jack, and the worst case was that I end up using the other cat6 that runs next to it.

[sirwoogie]

Sounds like you already own the Cat6 cable, but I wanted to point out it's a waste of money. Cat6 is still not ratified yet, and Cat5e can be had much cheaper that will have the same tolerances.

A typical run I would make to anything that will be a "media" area is:

2 RG6 (dual cable). This can be usefull for pretty much any combination (OTA + Sat, OTA + Cable, 2 Sat, OTA + FM, etc.)
3 Cat5e strands (2 for data up to 4 Ethernet lines - 1 cable for up to 4 phone lines if necessary)
4 pull strings (just plain nylon cord for future runs.

Cat5e is so cheap, it's silly not to pull a bunch. Then, with the pull stings, if you need to do anything else you have it there to pull.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, I have a bundle of 1000' of cat6 that I picked up for like $40 a few years ago.  Well, it's 900' now.   

[ChadTower]

So, I recrimped both ends of the bad cable run, works now...

...but I can't get tuner 2 of the freakin' DirecTivo to see anything.  I'm starting to suspect that tuner 2 died in this process, which would really piss me off to no end.

[sirwoogie]

Oooo, yeah, that would suck. Easiest way is to swap cables on the tuners and see what happens. I have a DirecTivo as well, and you'd have to pry that thing from cold, dead fingers... then my wife will hold on.

[Santoro]

Did you try the tuner at a different sat drop somewhere else in the house?

What he said ^.

[ChadTower]

No, didn't have to do that... turned out I had three issues going, as the Tivo is fully functional now.

• One of the new rg6 runs had a bad crimp.

[ChadTower]

Okay, one of that cat6 lines gave link and communication on first try... the other, no link light, gotta recrimp I guess.

[ChadTower]

Both cat6 lines now get link lights and can pull http pages from the router... so I'm going to wrap it all up as good.  For some reason the laptop couldn't see the outside world from those lines, but that's probably some config issue, not a wiring issue.

[ChadTower]

Done, plate installed... just have to get the phone connection done on the other side... I chipped the sheet rock a bit on the side of the old work box, I'll have to fix that when I repaint the room in the spring.

[ChadTower]

Forgot to conclude, completely done.  All lines work and there is a phone line operating off one of the cat6 runs.