There has been quite a bit of discussion on Geekzone lately discussing structured cabling for voice, data & TV. There is a great thread here that talks about home wiring with GZ's resident expert cyril7 providing some great advice on the topic. As my family are currently building a new house (that is for sale if you're after a place in Lower Hutt!) I thought I'd give a quick DIY guide for anybody who's looking at options for a new house or renovating an existing one.
Now I must confess that I am no expert when it comes to wiring and I don't do this for a day job! I'm sure there are probably a few others out there who can probably give me a few tips or advice and correct me on some things! :-)
So why install a structured cabling system? My answer? Why would you not install a structuctured cabling system! Telecom have recommended now for several years that all new houses be wired with a minimum of cat5e cable in a star configuration back to central point to replace the conventional method of running phone cabling in series between jackpoints. There are still a surprising number of "experts" in the trade who are still stuck in the dark ages and continue to stick to this but the reality is no new home should be wired like this any longer.
With multiple phones, multiple internet connected PC's and cable or satellite TV now the norm in many homes a structured cabling system is a logical approach and also doesn't need to cost the earth - for an average new house the cost of an entire fitout consisting of cable (cat 5e and RG6), patch panel, and all sockets shouldn't cost you more than $500. Right now wireless is still nowhere near as fast as Ethernet for computer networking and cat5e cable can also carry a myriad of signals ranging from phone, ethernet right through to component video and HDMI with appropiate baluns. With the VoIP era also about to approach you've got to be crazy to not be prepared while you have the opportunity!
This is a 3 bedroom house with open plan kitchen and lounge with a semi detached dining room which could easily be used as a study or kids play area or converted into a bedroom. My plan has been to use 12 cat5e jackpoints around the house and F connectors for RG6 for TV in all rooms. This is all run back to a 16 way patch panel in a hallway cupboard. The lounge has 3 RG6 sockets allowing for a terrestrial aerial, satellite dish and a return feed so the output from your STB can be viewed on any other TV in the house.
Master bedroom: TV + dual RJ45 + single RJ45 next to bed for a phone
Bedroom 1: TV + dual RJ45
Bedroom 2: TV + dual RJ45
Dining/Study: TV + dual RJ45
Kitchen: Single RJ45 for phone
Lounge: TV + dual RJ45
The choice of a 16 way patch panel allows 12 sockets wired back to jackpoints with the last 4 jumpered back to the incoming phoneline so they can be patched as required. The incoming phoneline is terminated in a standard jackpoint on the wall (which also serves as a test point as required by Telepermit regs) and this is then connected to port 16 on the patch panel and jumpered across to 15,14 and 13.
This house will have TelstraClear cable service provided to it so there is no provision for a central ADSL line splitter however this could obviously easily be retrofitted if needed. If you're like most of the country and rely on ADSL for your broadband this is something you will want to factor in as it's so much simpler and tidier than requiring filters on every jackpoint that will have a phone on it.
This layout is probably about the bare minimum you would want to install in a house, it's certainly much cheaper to run extra cable when a house is being built than later on wish that you had done it so!
Choose a logical place to wire all your cable back to. A garage makes a great place but a hallway cupboard is really your only choice if you don't have an internal access garage. Remember to also install a power point nearby as you'll need this for your modem/switch and things such as a VoIP ATA. A wall mounted rack cabinet makes things look nice and tidy if you have space and remember that you may want to have your network running off a small UPS since they are so cheap these days so factor options such as this in when you're working out the dimensions.
So on with the pictures. First up is a quick view of the inside of the house with most of the electrical wiring now done.
Use 25mm drill bits for all wiring holes. Be wary of any structural walls if you're drilling multiple holes in the same beams - ask a builder for advice if you're unsure. Also remember that flush boxes need to be flush - if they stick out you'll have trouble attaching the jib to the wall. Also try and avoid running cable near power, if at all possible try and stay a minimum of 200mm away with the main cable runs. Running plugs on the opposite side of a stud is an easy way to keep cables seperate at the jackpoints. If you do need to cross power cables (and there are times where this can't easily be avoided) ensure the cables cross at right angles and do not run parallel to each other.
Use electrical tape to bundle cat5e cable together. While solid cable is fairly robust it is not invincible. Do not staple this cable or run it at extreme angles. Cable ties stapled to beams are a good way of attaching cable but again do not tighten these up fully as it could easily damage the cable.
Cable all running back to the hallway cupboard. RG6 coax and alarm cable is still to be run back to this same wall.
Well that's about it for part 1 - I'll update this as the work proceeds.
Read MoreRead More
Well we all love the classic favourite "Brick phone"
(bad pics teken with Nokia 6275 as I cannot find real camera's charger! I'm buying a camera that takes regular AA's next time)
SEE! it's just massive.
Motorola brick sitting in intellicharge. (thanks NZBNW)
Wells it's just TOO portable.
This beast would give you a very sore arm rather quickly.
(1987 Mitsubish "Transportable") with Motorola brick on top. (thanks NZBNW)
Not big enough huh?
If there was one phone that makes any phone look "ultra sleek" then this is it.
(1967 Motorola Car Telephone that runs on a 16 channel Full Duplex system IMTS)
it's not the "brick" it's the original PAVING SLAB!
Circuitry is fully discreet! it was "fully transitorized" as most systems back then were still valve based.
This sucker is built like the Apollo 11 stuff, It's all shock mounted, through-hole eyelet and double redundancy PCB. The foam and casing has deteriorated over time but the internals look brand new.
This beast is Pre-cellular, but it was the first system to support direct dialling and full duplex operation just like a "real" telephone. Motorola have a sole old yellowed stock picture of one on their website but I'm wondering if there are any other actual devices around anywhere?
Read More
During the last weekend at Kiwi Foo Camp I came across a very interesting project called The Free Net. Rod Drury went as far as saying this was one of the Best of Foo.The whole idea is to use accessible wireless mesh repeaters to extend a wireless LAN (wi-fi) network and cover Wellington with free wi-fi. The Meraki solution was adopted by the project because they manufacture a few hardware options including an indoor version (pictured), an outdoor version and an upcoming solar battery-powered outdoor version.
Individuals and companies would "donate" part of their bandwidth to the project. Companies could subsidise this through advertising shown in a narrow bar on top of the webpages visited (I saw that and it's really not a problem).
The project is being initially sponsored by Webstock 2008 and Govis, who are creating a fund with their donations of NZ$5,000 and $9,000 respectively to purchase those devices and donate to individuals and companies who want to start sharing their networks.
This will be a lot of devices, since the Meraki indoors costs only US$49 and the Meraki outdoor costs US$99.
The whole thing is based on a "pay forward" concept where you don't charge others to use your bandwidth while you can use someone else's bandwidth for free.
The project established a 1 GB limit that any MAC address can use during the month which is a lot in a shared model aimed to be used only when you are away from your own network.
Hopefully with more people joining in all the traffic won't be going throug a handful of companies and individuals.
You don't need to donate your bandwidth though. You can donate the space and power required for these devices to run. Providing they are in range to another device then the network will be extended and Internet access will be provided through the shared gateways in the system.
At the end of the day you will be hard pressed to find individuals who can afford sharing their bandwidth in th current New Zealand broadband landscape. In this country there's no concept of "unlimited" bandwidth. People are still being charged in plans that go from a minimum of 1GB (yes, believe me), going through 5GB, 10GB and so on.
We are here on a 80 GB plan, for example, and only use about 60 GB a month. I would be happy to share the other 20 GB but there is currently no way to limit this on the project. You can limit the bandwidth throughput (to say 512 Kbps instead of the native 10 Mbps on my cable conneciton) but you can't limit the number of users.
There are other projects and products that allow people to share their Internet connections around, but none incorporate the mesh aspect of this project which means it does not require every single node to be directly connected to the Internet. You can have a look at FON (not available in New Zealand), Tomizone or Zenbu (both New Zealand-based businesses).
FON allows you to share your connection for free, while using other people's connections for free as well. Or to make it available for free to other people who share their connections, while charging "visitors" that do not share their own connections.
Tomizone and Zenbu both work on the same commercial view. You purchase a router with a modified firmware and can then establish your own hotspot service, charging people for access.
I would be much more inclined to use the FON model for example, to cover the basic connection cost, but wouldn't mind going completely commercial to cover all the costs.
What do you think?
Read MoreOpera Software has announced Opera 9.5, its new web browser version for smartphones. The software is not available yet, but it will be hosted at Opera Mobile sometime after the Mobile World Congress 2008.
In the meantime, there's a demo video available and shared below.
I am looking forward to having this installed on my Windows Mobile device.
Is just me or does it show all the features Internet Explorer Mobile should have had for the last few years already?
Read More
If you are planning the deployment of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 in your organisation or at home, here is a tip I got from a conference call with the Windows Vista team in Redmond: the last Windows Vista SP1 RC2 (build 1800) released to beta testers contains the same bits as the Windows Vista SP1 RTM announced a couple of days ago.It means that for all of you out there planning compatibility tests, migration, etc you can safely use the RC2 as a base platform for testing.
Read MoreThe use of data encryption could make organisations vulnerable to new risks and threats, warn security experts Read More
TechNet and MSDN subscribers remain out in the cold for now Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment