skip to main content

Electrical Wiring

Comcast or electrician does ethernet wiring?

11 years ago

I'd like to have my house ethernet wired (cat6a or cat6 line), so all the computers in each room can be wire-connected. It's a 30-year-old house in the bay area with flat roof and underground crawl space. I don't know if comcast or electrician would do it.

Thank you very much.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (15)

weedmeister
11 years ago
Handyman.
tjdabomb
11 years ago
I live in the bay area, I can for it for a price. :)
Related Discussions
electrician vs home theater specialits
Q
Comments (6)
A lot of home theater specialists are jokes just as an electrician that claims to be one but is not really. A well rounded electrician would be best, one guy taking care of everything and integrating it together. Have to check out their website or research products they want to use, might check some references too. The price goes up with better quality in control and extra wiring for flexibility. For example my friends Electrical/AV business bid $60k on a 2 mill house for having distributed high def, audio, and everything. A big chain store bid against him at about $1,000 plus some equipment and tv's. At finish, nothing worked and the TVs only received standard cable TV. Turns out each place had only 1 cat5 wire or 1 cable TV wire, often running to complete random places. My friends business got called in to give them a bid to fix, post sheetrock. Going up $20k in price from his last bid, they had to settle with rigging the wiring together and using basic universal remotes. If you want control of all aspects, check out the website for Elan home systems, they can locate a dealer. It integrates nicely with several brands of alarms, t-stats, ipod, lutron lighting. They have a basic touchpad with an LCD screen that tells you what is happening. Also a full touch screen that can view cameras, have lots of buttons, and even watch TV on the screen itself. I use it in my own home and haven't found much it can not do. Adding the alarm system I just installed to it only involves adding a re-made driver to the touchpad/screen programming. The stuff is not cheap at retail, ($1,000 touch screen, $350 touch pad, $1000 radio tuner, $600 Ipod dock, $1,000 6 zone switcher/ amp) But it is serious stuff that will not be screwing up and breaking. For lights, if your A/V company is not already an electrician. Make sure to find an electrician that offers lighting control and that it is compatible with the A/V company you chose. It is often not good to have someone else come in to put lighting control on the other electricians wiring. Especially if you homerun lights to a control panel instead of conventional switch boxes. A very basic, lowest bidder would say, "Huhhh... we can't run the lights all the way there..." Just check what your getting. Telling someone you want sound in those rooms could result in them popping in an A-bus keypad that only does volume and sounds like crap with being powered by cat5.
...See More
Wiring through walls and attic
Q
Comments (11)
cobraguy says: "I'll make another off subject suggestion...use CAT6. May as well be ready to take advantage of it's capabilities when you want." It wouldn't hurt. It doesn't cost much more. But do you need it? Will you ever need it? The thing is, most people aren't even fully utilizing CAT5e right now. How many people have gigabit ethernet in their home? CAT3 handles 10Mbits/sec. CAT5 handles 100Mbits/sec. CAT5e handles 1Gbits/sec. CAT6 is expected to handle 10GBits/sec, but probably won't. As a rule of thumb, divide the bits/sec by 10, and 75% of that is about the practical data transfer rate in bytes you can expect. YMMV. Using the appropriate network interfaces, that makes CAT3/10BT good for 750Kbytes sec, CAT5/100BT for 7.5Mbytes/sec, CAT5e/1GBT good for 75Mbytes/sec and CAT6/10GBT good for 750Mbytes/sec. If you're mainly using your home network for internet access then it really doesn't need to be any faster than your provider speed. Depending on your broadband provider, you could be getting 500-600Kbytes/sec right now. A 10BT network would be marginally sufficient, and a typical 100BT network is several times more than enough. Even if your computers are talking to each other, then 100BT is plenty and 1GBT is luxury. It'll be a long time before you see 10GBT in consumer hardware. cobraguy says: "Noffo...why not use a stud bay with house wiring? I've had more than one person tell me it won't cause a problem (if you're talking about noise on the line) Are they wrong?" Its a general rule. You probably wouldn't be able to detect a problem. But there could still be a problem. For example, checksum errors will cause packet retransmits. You'll have a loss in performance even though things will work. http://web.anixter.com/anixter/anixter.nsf/StandardsGuides/ElectromagneticInterference
...See More
Pre-wiring your house for Network
Q
Comments (67)
rmverb - agreed. I did sort of a hybrid of that - I planned and laid out the low voltage locations and types, and paid my electrician to actually run the wire (which I purchased as well to make sure it was quality) in the walls. Once the sheetrock and paint are up I'll terminate everything on both ends (they have tools now which make this rather easy). It'll take him 2 days, which means it would take me 4 - and I just don't have the time or interest in that. My DIY time can be spent much better - both economically and enjoyment wise. If you don't mind my asking, how much are you paying per drop? I have about 40 drops, and with the cost of wire, boxes, plates, etc. It'll end up around $1600, or $40 per drop. I saw from other posts that new development builders charge around $100 (though of course that includes termination).
...See More
Wiring new home for tv, internet, phone
Q
Comments (19)
Hi As others have said, it really depends on what you want where. For example, we use Sonos extensively so regardless of whether we are running speaker cable out to wall or ceiling speakers or whether the zone players are located out in the ceiling, we know that we need additional power points for each of the zones so we work out the location and allow for them. With automated lighting/HVAC, there are complicated systems and simple ones that fit behind the light switch/interface with the unit and are simply controlled on an ios device. Again, depending on what is needed or desired we know that looking at the lighting plan and seeing what circuits/zones need to be wired eg two way will often dictate the solution. ie where you go to switch on the main lights to the living area is also a convenient location for the HVAC controls, intercom etc With entertainment, we always do multiple ethernet ports to entertainment locations as you quite often find both the TV, Xbox, cable tv also need connection to the internet and we prefer to hard wire. It is then simply a matter of running it back to a central hub to your signal source. I agree with the others it is how you want to live that needs the thought. Cheers
...See More
randy427
11 years ago
Basic handyman skills to run the cable.
Basic techie skills, tools and knowledge to install the connectors on the ends of the cables and, if needed, assist in hooking up your network.
I would expect the COMCAST hourly rate to be a lot more than you should have to pay.
yosemitebill
11 years ago
If this is the Bay Area, as in California, you want somebody experienced in low voltage installations and that has the proper equipment for terminating and then testing the network wiring.

That can either be somebody that specializes in home theater/network installations (licensed in CA by BEAR) or a C7 licensed low voltage contractor.
User
11 years ago
My house has cat5e in all the rooms (actually 2 cat5e and two RG6). One cat5e is for wired internet and the other is for telephone. Handyman to run the wires. If you look at Youtube, you can find all sorts of videos to help you crimp connectors and use punchdown blocks to add the end connectors.

Practice on extra pieces with the connectors.
petey_racer
11 years ago
I wouldn't let a handyman touch network wiring. I don't care how easy you all think it is to run.
stash-hdy
11 years ago
Get someone that is experienced in termination, ran the wires myself and then found that termination is not at all easy. If I was to do it again I would have an experienced person do the entire job. There is nothing like having to go back and troubleshoot connections when you find they do not work.
janesylvia
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you so much for all the responses. I found the Netgear Powerline adapter for wired connection, Netgear XAVB2501-100NAS Powerline. Is it good enough for a house of 1800 sq ft or is ethernet still the better way to go?

I found A telephone Jacks Company and Custom Home Theater who can run the ethernet wire and have good reviews on yelp in the bay area.

I need to choose a comcast internet plan, then arrange the ethernet wiring.

Really appreciate all your kindly help.
Ron Natalie
11 years ago
The one issue between electrician and "telephone jacks" people is that cat5 wiring is not just phone or electrical wiring. Assuming people are professionals they will read the instructions and install things correctly, but even in my own house I had to chase behind the electrical contractor pointing out that he wasn't quite doing cat5 terminations right. (It would have been fine for phone, but it wasn't going to work for networkng).
yosemitebill
11 years ago
Wired Ethernet is always going to be your most reliable and secure choice.

The power line adapter will not work during a power outage - your modem and router can always be put on a relatively small UPS.

And of course you can still have a WiFi network at the same time with a wired/wireless router.
Ron Natalie
11 years ago
The one issue between electrician and "telephone jacks" people is that cat5 wiring is not just phone or electrical wiring. Assuming people are professionals they will read the instructions and install things correctly, but even in my own house I had to chase behind the electrical contractor pointing out that he wasn't quite doing cat5 terminations right. (It would have been fine for phone, but it wasn't going to work for networkng).
janesylvia
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you very much for all the responses.

Is it enough to have my office and family room added ethernet outlets or is it better to have all the bedrooms ethernet outlets added? Living room has a cable modem coax cable outlet, do I still need to add a ethernet outlet?

Really appreciate all your kindly help.
yosemitebill
11 years ago
"Is it enough to have my office and family room added ethernet outlets or is it better to have all the bedrooms ethernet outlets added?"

Wired Ethernet in the bedrooms is a good idea since it can allow for streaming video to Blu-Ray players/televisions from services such as Netflix and Hulu. It can also allow for streaming of audio & video from network attached storage devices or for video security systems.

"Living room has a cable modem coax cable outlet, do I still need to add a ethernet outlet?

Yes, unless you want all those cables coming into your living room. Typically you pick some type of utility space with AC power to place the router. Then, the cables from each of the rooms terminates at this point where they are connected to the router. The output from the cable modem is also fed to the input to the router.

If they router does not have enough RJ45 connections, you can expand it with a network switch or only plug in the connections which will currently be used.
alan_s_thefirst
11 years ago
Whilst you're doing it, go for it. I'd wire for all possible contingencies, so more is more.

I'd use a low-voltage/media specialist over an electrician and definitely over a cable co person. Electricians tend not (in my experience) to be a little less particular about media/data wiring, and for best results, especially if you're wanting gigabit speeds, you need to do it right.

Comcast et al techs are usually paid for piece work, so they're not usually into clean, well-hidden wiring. Expect lots of ugly surface wiring.
janesylvia
Original Author
11 years ago
yosemitebill and alan_s_thefirst, thank you very much for your help.

Related Stories

MOST POPULAR 11 Things to Expect With Your Remodel

By Ventana Construction LLC

Prepare yourself. Knowing what lies ahead during renovations can save your nerves and smooth the process

REMODELING GUIDES 10 Tips for Renovating Your Basement

By Shawn Gauthier

A professional contractor shares her tips on what to consider before you commit to a basement remodel

Sponsored

Dave Fox Design Build Remodelers

49 Reviews

Columbus Area's Luxury Design Build Firm | 17x Best of Houzz Winner!

More Discussions

Kitchen backsplash Dilemma

10

How to place outlets within 24" of a sink (with dishwashers)

27

How much is reasonable to replace an exhaust fan in a bathroom?

15

Where to place outlets in primary bathroom?

11

Killing electric outlet behind cabinet

4