cost of wiring a house with ethernet ports?

Before I call someone I just want a basic idea of costs to make sure I don't get ripped off. Approximately how much do you guys think it would cost to install ethernet jacks, with wires inside wall (no external coverings of wires- raceway?) into 4 rooms in close proximity on the same floor. I understand I would need to supply a punch-down hub, and the wires and plates, but how much do you think is reasonable for labor, etc.? Any certifications I should be looking for?

If you don't want to go wireless, how about using those power line ethenet adapters? It would be so much cheaper.

pm'd with some info.

Tough call, and I imagine will vary with local labor rates and the type of labor you use. If you call a tech shop it will cost more than calling a general electrician. If you know how to connect networks yourself but don't feel like doing the labor of drilling and running wire, then just hire a general contractor to do that part for you. The supplies themselves will be minimal for 4 rooms. But since you'd be doing it with existing walls & floors it will take a lot more labor than doing it during rough-in.

I did all of my own phone, coax, and ethernet wiring when I built my house 8 years ago, so I didn't spend for labor. Spent probably $300 on CAT5, connectors, and modular wall jacks, but that was for an entire 2-story 3000sqft house with drops in every room, multiple drops in some rooms.

Pulling a figure out of my butt, I'd say you're looking in the neighborhood of $250-$300 worth of labor with a general contractor, more for a specialty tech shop. Plus materials.

id go wireless, seems easier and cheaper

add to the info I pm'd you that if you use wireless belkin routers (they're really cheap) you can extend the network by adding additional routers as access points...extends wireless and has local connection points as well. I have two, one in my computer room and one in my living room. Wireless coverage is 4 bars or more whole house, and the Living Room has its own jacks for guests or units like my Replay (Tivo).

Plus I dont know what pricing is like now, but I got them for next to nothing with rebates.

Wireless may be fine for you depending on your circumstances and useage, but hardwired is always better for desktop computer installations (i.e. non-mobile). Bandwidth is much better, and there is no problem with interference.

I have and use both -- wireless for the laptops and PDA's in the house, hardwired for every other PC on the LAN (I have 8 PC's on the LAN at home, currently, not counting laptops and PDA's).

If you only have a single PC in the house and it is cost prohibitive to install CAT5, then wireless will probably suit you just fine. If you have a LAN of multiple PC"s, however, you would be happier with hard connections.

It costs the same as wiring a phone line through the house.

In my case, my parents built the house and I said that I'd pay them to wire every room...it's cheaper that way...every room is capable but we only have an 8 port router. we might go and buy a switch to extend that to every room.

Wiring a whole house can be a bitch...it's a better signal than wireless, but a bitch.

An option is to go cat 6 or higher. That way, you could have your phone and your ethernet on teh same line, which a lot of ppl are doing nowadays (it'll split of course at the end, but the cable has an extra couple of wires inside to accomodate for a phone...pretty cool.)

As for cost...well it cost me $120 to get ONE jack put in my room in my old house, and the guy was a computer guy, NOT an electrician and did a shitty job that I could have very well done much better (he drilled a 3/4" hole in the floor between the 1st floor and the basement, and probably another hole equally as big going to the 2nd floor). Call some electricians and general contractors and get some quotes...just ask about what they would charge to wire X amount of rooms with phone wire. As for wiring the plugs/outlets, do them yourself, or provide a schematic as to how to do them (and make sure the schematic reads easily...you won't believe how much shit I had to go through with my new house b/c they wired it exactly backwards).


Overall, you shouldn't have to hire a special networking guy. Just a guy who can wire phone cord, has a pair of crimper and shit. Plenty of sites online let you buy 200' of cable (you may need more, i dunno) and cat5/6 ends and outlets. Overall, supplies shoudln't cost too much...labor's your thing, and that shouldn't kill you. The whole project shouldn't break $300 I imagine.

I can't go wireless because my company's vpn has rules against that. I already looked into powerline, and it is not much cheaper, not as reliable, not as fast, and just another piece of equiptment to worry about.

When I looked into doing this myself about 6 months ago, I read something about being careful about frequencies, and keeping wires separate from each other, etc. I have no intention of doing this myself, but do you guys think that the guy needs to have any ethernet cable knowledge or experience, or just know how to cable, and read and finish the cable properly?

All he needs to know is not to run the ethernet cable parallel to AC wiring. Keep them 2-3 feet apart where possible, and where they must run together, try to run them perpendicular (i.e. cross them). Also don't run them next to florescent light fixtures, but that's probably not an issue in your home. You also don't want to kink the cable or nail/staple it down too tightly.

Beyond that he just needs to cut and drill holes and run the wire. Something any general electrician can do. I would recommend he just run the wire to the J-box and you yourself strip and crimp the connectors or the keystone jacks, whichever you use. Unless he's a network installer who knows what he's doing.

if they are in close proximity, there is no reason at all not to go wirelss. W/ one of those netgear superG routers u could get 108mb/s . Faster than 100mb/s ethrenet (although there is 1gb/s ethrenet if you wanna shell out ever more). The wireless setup im talkin about w/ 4 comps will cost you about 130-180$.

why do that?

just run the wire around your house and be cool like the rest of us

I have a wireless Linksys router and access point combo and I link up to three computers to it and works great even when all of them are on at the same time. No connection problems.

Like other people said I believe that the elecrtical outlet may be the best bet for you. Or just doing it yourself, it is really not that hard. I prefer hardwired with a wireless network behind it for PDA's and laptops. You should have cat6 or cat5e to everyroom in your house which really is not that hard to do yourself. But if you want to pay someone 400+ may be the range you will be needing if it is close together like you are saying they may not change the rates (. So I would just do it myself. It is really not that hard. You will need a central room for the switch/router/hub/repeater/brouter ;).

My friend wired his whole one story house that is fairly bit, I do not know the square feet, for a cost under 100$ and the switch he used was free but can be gotten on ebay for fairly cheap (50$-) it was a old server switch that was 10/100 and had 24 ports. It is loud as hell but was in the office room which noone ever uses (it has excerise equipment in there and ev1 knows the room with excerise equip. never get used).

Wireless internet is nice and safe if you WEP encode it, I mean people can hack it if they have the right materials fairly easily but why would they want to?

[quote40def922cd="Allen626"]Like other people said I believe that the elecrtical outlet may be the best bet for you. Or just doing it yourself, it is really not that hard. I prefer hardwired with a wireless network behind it for PDA's and laptops. You should have cat6 or cat5e to everyroom in your house which really is not that hard to do yourself. But if you want to pay someone 400+ may be the range you will be needing if it is close together like you are saying they may not change the rates (. So I would just do it myself. It is really not that hard. You will need a central room for the switch/router/hub/repeater/brouter ;).

[shit we dont need here..][/quote40def922cd]

i have a wired network for the main PCs and then wireless for my laptop

[quote723e8e2ea1="amir89630"]if they are in close proximity, there is no reason at all not to go wirelss. W/ one of those netgear superG routers u could get 108mb/s . Faster than 100mb/s ethrenet (although there is 1gb/s ethrenet if you wanna shell out ever more). The wireless setup im talkin about w/ 4 comps will cost you about 130-180$.[/quote723e8e2ea1]

a) you'll be lucky to hit the advertised 108mbit
b) wireless transmission rates are "doubled" compared to wired ethernet - "108mbit" means 54mbit up and 54mbit down, at the same time. 100mbit wired ethernet means 100mbit up and 100mbit down, at the same time (assuming your equipment can speak full duplex).

Wireless is alright for casual usage but wired is much more worry- and hassle-free

Exactly, Admin. There isn't a wireless technology on the market yet that has the consistent performance of hardwired ethernet. Not only that but you have to be concerned with weak/dead spots and dropouts due to interference. Microwaves, 2.4Ghz phones, some garage door openers, and various other over-the-air interference in the 2.4Ghz band can and will impact your wireless performance.

Wireless is great for portable and transitory PC's and PDA's, but is not ideal for desktops.

Since security was touched upon if/when you do go wireless, makes sure you don't buy old equipment that is incapable of WPA. WEP is easily broken within seconds. WPA cannot be broken by any means other than brute force, and unless you have a potential hacker with a cluster of supercomputers hammering on your key 24/7 for several days, you won't be cracked. Also disable SSID broadcasts and change your SSID from the default to something harder to guess. Then enable MAC filtering and only allow connections from known MAC addresses. If you do all of that, for all intents and purposes your wireless network will be perfectly safe from everybody except maybe the government. ;)

Can anyone link me to a good tutorial how to wire in the walls myself. I can probably do raceway, but I can't do that for aesthetic reasons.

thanx

I know you're going hardwired, but to counter the previous suggestion (for anyone else), don't go Belkin for Wi-Fi. Anything but.

Our Netgear wireless router sucked. Our Linksys WAP is solid. I'm more a proponent of get a good router without wireless and get a good WAP and switch if you need more ports.

My current setup is Linksys Cable Modem BEFCMU10, Linksys 8-port Router BEFSR81, and Linksys WAP WAP54G with some High Gain Antennas for better coverage...

I work at Circuit City and right now Belkin Wireless-G routers are $29.99, no rebate to hassle with.

I think the desktop cards are $39.99 right now as well, no rebate.