New home, PoE info

J-Will

[H]ard|Gawd
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Most likely getting a new build house over the summer, and wanted to start thinking about some of the networking options. Ideally I want Cat6 run for data, though Cat5e is standard (and is run for voice and data). However, I will be adding cameras and such later on, and want to get a grasp on it now for ease of install later.

For PoE, is Cat6 mandatory?

Aside from wireless APs and cameras, are there any other common devices that could be used in a home environment?

I understand that there are different standards for PoE, is there one that is probably more common? This will probably come into play more with the switches (or injectors) and the devices chosen, but I just wanted some guidance on this side of the fence.

I'm thinking about just a handful of devices, probably 2 or three cameras and then a wireless AP in the second level (I'm thinking about the linen closet as it is pretty center to the entire house).
 
Cat5e will run POE just fine, and gigabit up to 100 meters. There is no reason to run cat6 in your home unless you plan to do 10Gb ethernet.
 
Cat6 IS a standard, Cat5e is not. It was artificially turned into a standard and if you're going to run new cabling always go Cat6 over Cat5e. The price is no different at this point and you can avoid some issues with Cat5e over 100Mb. Both support PoE. In fact PoE has very little to do with the cabling. That's the support of switches/routers/end-user devices more or less.


The best way to prepare for any network is to take what you need now and double it when considering new gear. Add up things you can think of that would require PoE and then start looking for which PoE device you need and whether you need the newer version that supports higher power output or can make do with a cheaper device based off the devices you plan on connecting to it.
 
....ou can avoid some issues with Cat5e over 100Mb....

I'm curious what these "issues" are?

You can use CAT6, but you really are not going to gain anything over Cat5E... 5E is perfectly fine for Gigabit. CAT6 doesn't really buy you any future proofing as its only rated for 10Gb Ethernet for short runs (up to 10 meters). You need CAT6A for 10Gb runs longer than that, and Cat6A is considerably more expensive.

If you do go with CAT6 make sure you get jacks, punch downs, RJ45 connectors, patch panels etc.. that are all CAT6 rated. They are not interchangeable as CAT6 has slightly thicker wires.

As for PoE.. CAT6 is not required. When most people say PoE they mean devices compatible with the 802.3af standard, which is what most PoE devices on the market use. If you have a 802.3af compatible switch or injector, it will power any 802.3af compatible device. So as long as you do not exceed the switch or injector's power budget. There is also a newer standard called 802.3at or "PoE Plus" that offers double the power, however few devices on the market use it as of now.

There are some devices out there that do not use the 802.3af standard, such as Ubiquiti's line of wireless access points and IP cameras. They use their own 24v standard and usually include a power injector with each device.
 
For the cost of doing it right, once, I'd do decent Cat6. Cat5e is fine for now, but consumer devices will very likely get into the 10GbE space within the next 5 years. An extra 20% now, or would be an extra 2000% if you need to re-run after construction.

Which bring me to the next point - if you have the budget, run conduit everywhere. At least 2", just for data lines. If it's a bungalow, you can get away with hangers or raceway in the basement, and just do conuit to the wallboxes - it can easily be a sub-$500 project that will save a lot of sanity for the life of the house.

Standard PoE is 48V, the standard is called 802.3at (2009-updated standard) or 802.3af (2005 standard). Some devices, such as the non-Pro UniFi WAPs, and some security cams, force you on using their own non-standard 24V PoE injectors.
 
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For the cost of doing it right, once, I'd do decent Cat6. Cat5e is fine for now, but consumer devices will very likely get into the 10GbE space within the next 5 years. An extra 20% now, or would be an extra 2000% if you need to re-run after construction.

Which bring me to the next point - if you have the budget, run conduit everywhere. At least 2", just for data lines. If it's a bungalow, you can get away with hangers or raceway in the basement, and just do conuit to the wallboxes - it can easily be a sub-$500 project that will save a lot of sanity for the life of the house.

Standard PoE is 48V, the standard is called 802.3at (2009-updated standard) or 802.3af (2005 standard). Some devices, such as the non-Pro UniFi WAPs, and some security cams, force you on using their own non-standard 24V PoE injectors.

If 10Gb is your justification, why would you recommend cat6 and not 6a?
 
I'm curious what these "issues" are?

You can use CAT6, but you really are not going to gain anything over Cat5E... 5E is perfectly fine for Gigabit. CAT6 doesn't really buy you any future proofing as its only rated for 10Gb Ethernet for short runs (up to 10 meters). You need CAT6A for 10Gb runs longer than that, and Cat6A is considerably more expensive.

If you do go with CAT6 make sure you get jacks, punch downs, RJ45 connectors, patch panels etc.. that are all CAT6 rated. They are not interchangeable as CAT6 has slightly thicker wires.

As for PoE.. CAT6 is not required. When most people say PoE they mean devices compatible with the 802.3af standard, which is what most PoE devices on the market use. If you have a 802.3af compatible switch or injector, it will power any 802.3af compatible device. So as long as you do not exceed the switch or injector's power budget. There is also a newer standard called 802.3at or "PoE Plus" that offers double the power, however few devices on the market use it as of now.

There are some devices out there that do not use the 802.3af standard, such as Ubiquiti's line of wireless access points and IP cameras. They use their own 24v standard and usually include a power injector with each device.

Cat6 is specified for 10GBe for 55 meters or 180' assuming you are using solid,
 
I'm curious what these "issues" are?

You can use CAT6, but you really are not going to gain anything over Cat5E... 5E is perfectly fine for Gigabit. CAT6 doesn't really buy you any future proofing as its only rated for 10Gb Ethernet for short runs (up to 10 meters). You need CAT6A for 10Gb runs longer than that, and Cat6A is considerably more expensive.

If you do go with CAT6 make sure you get jacks, punch downs, RJ45 connectors, patch panels etc.. that are all CAT6 rated. They are not interchangeable as CAT6 has slightly thicker wires.

As for PoE.. CAT6 is not required. When most people say PoE they mean devices compatible with the 802.3af standard, which is what most PoE devices on the market use. If you have a 802.3af compatible switch or injector, it will power any 802.3af compatible device. So as long as you do not exceed the switch or injector's power budget. There is also a newer standard called 802.3at or "PoE Plus" that offers double the power, however few devices on the market use it as of now.

There are some devices out there that do not use the 802.3af standard, such as Ubiquiti's line of wireless access points and IP cameras. They use their own 24v standard and usually include a power injector with each device.

Cat6A is not crazy expensive at this point. The punch down blocks are end are.

Go ahead and wire up in cat6 or cat6a....just use cat6 ends for now. If you find you can not link at 10GBe swap out the ends. It'll be way less expensive to do down the road and the cat6A is already in the walls. Or just use cat6 instead if your runs are shorter than say 150'
 
Cat 6 is $106, Cat 5e is $80; spend the extra $25 and get Cat 6. As for PoE switches, the only one you have to worry about are Ubiquiti gear, but they include an injector if you don't want to buy their proprietary PoE switches. PoE cameras are pretty much all 802.3at compatible so you rarely have to worry about that if you buy reputable cameras like HIKVision or Dahua (or rebrands). I run Cat 6 to my 8 PoE cameras along with my room ethernet drops into a 24 port PoE switch, and as noted earlier, my AP from Ubiquiti uses it's own injector albeit it doesn't play nice with my patch panel.
 
Cat6 will run 10GbE over 40-50 meters under optimal conditions (single wire, direct device to device; computer to switch, computer to computer, whatever). Once you start adding patch panels or wall jacks, that drops off really quickly as cross talk and reflections become real problems. Add poor terminations to the mix, and the chances of getting reliable 10GbE starts to drop off more. It's just finicky, but it can work.

I might be starting to show my age here, but 1Gbps connections to the edge are going to be plenty fast for most uses for the next 20 years... (in the rack is a different story) Figure that the highest bandwidth use at home is streaming video content, even 1GbE is going to handle multiple 4K streams (even with today's compression, before taking into account newer compression like h.265). Unless you want to do something crazy like edit uncompressed 4K/UHD video at home (I hope you have a big budget for drive space), 1Gb is going to give you plenty of bandwidth for streaming high quality 4K content.

But, OK, say 15 years from now you want to back up your snazzy new 20TB SSD, which is just full of digital cruft you've accumulated... 10GbE will allow you do do that bachup in an afternoon as opposed to a weekend. So, if that's the route you want to take, go Cat6a and skip Cat6.
 
"1Gbps connections to the edge are going to be plenty fast for most uses for the next 20 years"

A 1Gbps connection equals a transfer rate of < 125MB/s...a decent HDD can saturate that completely. A single SSD can destroy that.

I for one do NOT believe 1Gbps is going to last another 20 years...We didn't even have 100Mb Ethernet 20 years ago...We already have Wireless tech that is capable of beating a 1Gb connection.
 
Gig will likely be fine for an average user, but this is [H] we are talking about here. 10gbe is already in use by some and we can only hope it will be here soon enough for the rest of us. I have pictures from 2008 of my Vista PC maxing out a gig connection doing file transfers. I've been waiting to upgrade my 7 year old gigabit switch to 10gbe but sadly the gear is a bit out of reach yet.

Never mind your hard drives or SSDs, my thumb drive can max out a gig connection. Others can use their WAN connection!

@J-Will: If you are going to take the time to run cabling you'll want to throw drops everywhere. Think of devices like HTPCs, smart tvs, blu ray players, VOIP phones, printers, radios, alarm panels, smart devices (things like the nest or controlled lighting), etc. It's always better to hard wire anything you can to save the bandwidth for the devices that need wireless.
 
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"1Gbps connections to the edge are going to be plenty fast for most uses for the next 20 years"

A 1Gbps connection equals a transfer rate of < 125MB/s...a decent HDD can saturate that completely. A single SSD can destroy that.

I for one do NOT believe 1Gbps is going to last another 20 years...We didn't even have 100Mb Ethernet 20 years ago...We already have Wireless tech that is capable of beating a 1Gb connection.

The point isn't whether some other device or interface can saturate the connection today, the point is whether there are going to be applications which requirements drive more bandwidth to the edge?

You're right, we didn't have 100Mbit Ethernet 20 years ago... It's 18 years old now, (released in 1995), and I was certainly installing it en-mass in 1997. And I would argue that there are plenty of places that are still happily plugging away on 100Mbit Ethernet and would barely tell the difference if you swapped out their 100Mbit switches for gigabit.. And there are still SOHO routers for sale today that only have 10/100 FE ports on them. So, there's a good chance that 100Mbit will make it to 20 years and beyond.

Now, think to the people who are still running 100Mbit. How many of them really, truly see benefit in day to day operations of switching to Gigabit? How many average home users see an honest to goodness benefit from Gigabit at home? How many run their Netflix, Amazon streaming, Pandora, and YouTube on that lowly 100Mbit connection without any problems? Why would they upgrade? (most people wont notice until we can get the telco's and cable co's to get us better bandwidth to the premises; and that progress has slowed in the past few years for most of the US... I digress.)

Most edge devices today barely stress 100Mbit connection. Why would I believe, with a 10x improvement with Gigabit, that 1GbE wouldn't have some legs under it to last in a typical environment for another 20 years? With 4K or 8K video being the most bandwidth intensive application most users are going to run into in the next 10 years; and with gigabit ethernet able to handle those requirements, what is going to drive the typical consumer beyond that? (not being sarcastic at all? I'd love to hear someone tell me what's going to drive the needs of greater bandwidth to the edge in a typical environment!)

(Again, remember that I'm talking about the average user usage patterns here... Not the usage patterns for us geeks who like to move multi-gigbyte blu-ray rips, or virtual machines around on Saturday afternoon for fun....As much as we like to think that's a common practice among the general populace, it's not. :) I'm also not talking about interconnects between switches, big iron, or servers; purely edge devices and mostly focused on the home........)
 
Since when has computing technology been a linear growth?

Tech has NEVER been pushed by typical home users. General every day use has never been a factor in the advancement of technology. As it becomes cheaper and cheaper to manufacture and produce 10/40/100Gb Ethernet it will slowly phase out 1Gb. Even if 1Gb is more than is needed. Find me a NEW computer that doesn't have a gigabit NIC. The 100Mb switches will go away, honestly I don't know why they haven't yet as there's no financial benefit in buying 100Mb today as you can get Gigabit switches just as cheap.

Your argument that because it's not needed (today) means it won't be mainstream in (x number of years) is basically the same tech argument that has been wrong time and time again. The same arguments have been made for HDD sizes, RAM requirements etc. etc. etc.
 
If you can find me a 2960g for the same price as a 2960 i would be impressed
 
Well #1 we're talking about prices of home equipment, not enterprise. Of course a 100Mb and a 1Gb from Cisco are going to be priced accordingly. Cisco is some of the most over priced hardware on the market performance wise. Price / Performance.

I can however show you plenty of 24 port 1Gb managed switches for basically the same price:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/370807860710?lpid=82

And that was 2 seconds Google shopping: 24 port 1Gb managed switch.
 
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Consider home automation/monitoring and security system too, run cables to each window/door or location where you'd want to put a sensor. Wired security alarm system is always better. For home automation think of where you'd want to put temp sensors and such around the house. Lead all those cables up to a DIN terminal block or something and label where each cable goes. At least it's there if you want to use it in the future.
 
if you aren't running cat5e, you should run cat6a /thread

cat6 lies in a nowhere zone and really isn't good for anything... the only truly sure way to plan for the future with cabling is running conduit...
 
Cat 6 is $106, Cat 5e is $80; spend the extra $25 and get Cat 6. As for PoE switches, the only one you have to worry about are Ubiquiti gear, but they include an injector if you don't want to buy their proprietary PoE switches. PoE cameras are pretty much all 802.3at compatible so you rarely have to worry about that if you buy reputable cameras like HIKVision or Dahua (or rebrands). I run Cat 6 to my 8 PoE cameras along with my room ethernet drops into a 24 port PoE switch, and as noted earlier, my AP from Ubiquiti uses it's own injector albeit it doesn't play nice with my patch panel.

The tough switches (pro) model and above are software selectable between 24V and 48V on a per port basis. No need for any type of injector if you're using any of the toughswitches except the base (5 port) model.
 
Just to add fuel to the fire....


I sure as hell are not going to be wanting to rip open the walls on my new house 20 years from now. I'm running cat6 with (2) runs to each location. All my runs are under 100', and my network cable was free. If I had to buy it myself I'd use cat6a.
 
Just to add fuel to the fire....


I sure as hell are not going to be wanting to rip open the walls on my new house 20 years from now. I'm running cat6 with (2) runs to each location. All my runs are under 100', and my network cable was free. If I had to buy it myself I'd use cat6a.

Because everything will still be using CAT6 in 20 years, right?
 
if you aren't running cat5e, you should run cat6a /thread

cat6 lies in a nowhere zone and really isn't good for anything... the only truly sure way to plan for the future with cabling is running conduit...

This right here.
 
Cat5e cabling is something like 30 dollars cheaper per 1000ft, depending on where you buy it, maybe even more.

Cat6 is just not worth it. By the time you run 10g in your house, how old will your cabling be? 10 years? 15 years old?

If you can, conduit at least out of the walls. That's true future proofing, not cat6.

I think it's so funny though, people running cat6 to their TP-Link switches. Save the 30 or more dollars (if you run 1000ft++) and buy a better switch. You'll be far better off for it.
 
Because everything will still be using CAT6 in 20 years, right?

No but I assume I can "get by" with 10GBe at that point. If both my cables are working I could make a 20GB lag. I 'm not really worried about it.

Seriously....this thread is going into the weeds.

The OP's questions were:

Is cat6 a requirement for POE?

The answer is no.

The other question was (subphrased) do you think anything else will be using POE in the future?

I'd say yes. As POE becomes more common more people will use it and more devices will support it. 802.11af will probably become more commonly used in homes, but 802.11at is starting a re-emergence in the enterprise. So expect both markets to expand.



As for the in 20 years comment....

In 20 years:

You'll be able to use wireless at 2.4Ghz ,5Ghz and 24Ghz at speeds over 10Gb (Still half duplex)

Powerline networking: Gen IV (2017 release) is expected to be rated at speeds as high as 1800Mbps (Might actually work at 1Gb by then :rolleyes:) future specs may have even higher data-rates.

Ethernet cable: Cat6A is already spec'd for 40Gbe for distances under 10 meter (already ratified by iEEE) They have copper CAT7 and an unofficial Cat7A. There is also a unofficial CAT8 that in theory should be good for 100GBe at 50 meters.

MoCA: probably 500Mbps or 1Gb by then
 
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