Home Networking

Yesterday Ruby and I bought a town house! We’ve been working and planning for months. If you’ve ever bought a house you know how involved it can be.

This blog post isn’t about the house as much as the home network. I’m gearing up to wire the whole house before we move in. Well actually only a few rooms. Ruby’s office (second floor), my office (basement), and the first floor. The main goal is to get a reliable internet connection to computers on each floor. In other parts of the house connectivity will be provided by wireless access points. (like for laptops on couches in the living room) But instead of putting one powerful wireless AP out and hope everyone can get a good signal on three floors I’m going to put wall jacks in rooms. This will be critical for VOIP applications

I have all the tools to do this except a fish tape. This is a long thin stiff bit of metal tape that helps you pull cable through walls. I’m also looking at a 12 to 24 port patch panel.

The fun part is deciding where to put the patch panel and small rack. I have a utility room but its rather moist with the sub-pump. Its a basement in North Carolina after all. There are a few under-stairs type closets. But they are small and hot. I’m tall and computers like air-con. This leaves the main basement room.

To get my mind set on this project and fill in the gaps of my knowledge I did a bit of Googling (TM). I found this cool NetDay Cable Installation Guide. If you have any suggestions or neat gear ideas let me know.

Update I bought a fish tape. You were so worried about it weren’t you…