Thank you for the reply. The reason I was thinking of going with a cable better than 5e is because we don’t know what the future holds, but it’s possible that speeds will be much higher and 5e will be holding us back in the future, and since everything is open right now, I might as well install a better cable. The original owners of this house took the time, money and effort to install 10 cable jacks with RG59 cable at the time of construction 40 years ago and it probably served them well until recently so I’m just trying to think ahead of what might be useful, but of course it’s impossible to predict the future.
@gs0bwrote:CAT5e is fine for speeds up to 1G. If you think you'll want faster speeds within the lifetime of the install, then consider faster cables. Otherwise, stick with CAT5e. Have you tried online stores for Ethernet cable? Amazon and others often have decent selection and price.
I plan on making the install extremely easy for the tech. The current ONT is on the outside of the garage wall and we can move it right inside the garage, basically on the inside of the same wall, and fiber will not need to be extended. I will run coax and Ethernet to this location so it’s ready to connect to the new ONT. The ONT may have to go much higher on the wall so it doesn’t interfere with the electrical panel door swing, but I can see the length of the fiber and it will not need to be extended. We added an electrical receptacle to this wall specifically for this purpose. Believe it or not, the closest receptacle *was* 20 feet away on the other side of the garage so there was a cat 5e cable stapled across the garage ceiling and down the wall to get the power to the old ONT. Can the ONT be attached to drywall with anchors? Will the vibrations form the garage door harm the equipment in any way? Also, what cables are required for the phone service? I still have the old phone cables that I removed from the house. I was thinking that they might just plug into the router. But if someone in the future *only* wants phone service, would a router be needed? Or could a phone be plugged into the Ethernet jack?
@gs0bwrote:The fios ONE main box requires a coax connection to the router and ONT. The mini boxes can use coax, WiFi or Ethernet.
The ONT will connect to both coax and Ethernet. Coax is for the TV signals sent to the fios ONE box. Ethernet is the WAN data link sent to the router. Run both to the ONT location. Verizon does prefer having ONTs indoors. If you can find a location that is close to the current location and has power, Ethernet and coax nearby; the installer will likely put it there. Note they will have to relocate the fiber if the ONT moves indoor. If it's just on the other side of a wall, that should be easy for them to do. Longer, more complex runs may not happen; the tech will decide.
Bottom line, the easier you make it for the tech by having lots of stuff pre-installed, the more likely they are to do what you want.
I have seen other people online installing patch panels and I am very confused about their purpose. The shape of the rooms in this house makes it so that the location of furniture and TV’s is not intuitive. The original owners installed 2 cable outlets in the living room for instance, because they probably weren’t sure how they were going to place the furniture. The other rooms had cables running along the walls from the cable outlets to the TV’s. In the family room, there seems to be only 1 good place for the TV, which is why I decided to go with 1 outlet at that location and wireless for the whole house. The wireless system will give us flexibility to move TV’s around without running cables all over the place. We also have wireless computers and a wireless printer, so we have no need for outlets in multiple locations.
@gs0bwrote:Also consider an Ethernet patch panel to terminate all the runs from your rooms. This makes management and updates simple. Here's an example:
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-12-Port-Vertical-Bracket/dp/B00UVQI8B6I also suggest you pull more than one cable where ever possible. Having two (or more) Ethernet runs helps in a variety of ways. For example, you can have a centralized switch back at the patch panel. I do this by using one run for the WAN connection between an ONT and router while another feeds the LAN back to my centralized switch. This allows you to easily move the router around (but don't forget the coax connection for the fios ONE boxes). And of course, more cables gives you redundancy if a failure occurs.
I will seriously consider your suggestion for streaming service. The deciding factor will be if we can get specific channels that we like as well as things such as hockey games, which we currently get with cable.
@gs0bwrote:If you go with a streaming TV service such as YouTube TV or Sling, you can eliminate the need for coax. Depending on the number of boxes you need and the channels you want, streaming services are often cheaper than fios' TV service. Something to consider...
