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I stole this question from codeproject. It is clumsy there and I need a proper answer.

Update

If you guys insist on cables, do you really use cable internet at home? If not why spend extra money. Wiring for wifi is by no means a simple task. There will be lots of joints and a lot of troubleshooting, poor signal etc. that adds costs

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Use cat6 cable it you are going to do it – Moab Nov 8 '11 at 15:39
I think this is too subjective too be a good question, unfortunately. – Shinrai Nov 8 '11 at 15:41
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Personally i use a cat5 cable, because i game and would prefer performance over ease and use a desktop. My girlfriend uses wifi as she prefers the ease and has no use for performance with her web browsing. – HaydnWVN Nov 8 '11 at 16:27
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Voting to reopen. while subjective, i do believe that both options have objective advantages and disadvantages – Journeyman Geek Nov 9 '11 at 0:44
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closed as not constructive by Shinrai, music2myear, studiohack♦ Nov 8 '11 at 15:48

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5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

Building a new house gives you an oportunity to get lots of cables in without having to lift up floor boards later. I'd say go for it and get cabled.

Also, use cat6.

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Cat5e should be plenty source – Nifle Nov 8 '11 at 15:50
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up vote 2 down vote

Time and time again we have gone with the wifi and it has always been a bad choice. It has bad latency, dropping packets, dropping the link and sometimes the router just needs rebooting.

Go with cat5 if possible. If you have to use wifi try to use clear line of sight with all equipment from the same vendor.

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I prefer wired ethernet for performance also. – Moab Nov 8 '11 at 15:41
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up vote 1 down vote

I would install optical fiber, no doubt.

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optic ports in switches cost a fortune. Transceivers are not that expensive but they need power and again a point of failure. – anttir Nov 8 '11 at 15:38
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He didn't comment anything about cost. Wifi is way cheaper than cabling the entire house with cat5/6. – m0skit0 Nov 8 '11 at 15:40
Why would you do this? Could you elaborate? – Simon Sheehan Nov 8 '11 at 21:06
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Are there consumer grade fiber optic setups? We cabled up the apartment we use as an office with standard cat 5 and it wasn't too costly - i'd doubt it would be any different from putting in power cables or phone cables. Wireless also has lower speeds ,suffers from dead zones, and requires proper securing. – Journeyman Geek Nov 9 '11 at 0:41
@Simon Sheehan Fibre is by far the quickest and very future proof - all you need to do is change the equipment plugged into it, rather than the cable itself to increase speeds. – HaydnWVN Nov 9 '11 at 9:59
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up vote 0 down vote

I would absolutely install cat5/6 cabling with telephone lines in every single room in the house. For one thing, the cabling is really quite inexpensive and is really easy to install as you build the house. Afterwards, the job is more difficult and costly. The second thing is a wired connection (although not always faster) is more secure than a wireless connection. There is also less troubleshooting when things don't work as planned.

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-1 Since when has standard home Wifi gone faster than gigabit over wired cat5? – HaydnWVN Nov 8 '11 at 16:25
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@HaydnWVN: In theory, Gigabit LAN is always faster than WiFi in theory. In practice, it is not always faster. For example, a 10 Mbps internet connection over wired and wireless LAN might have the same speed... – Dennis Nov 8 '11 at 16:33
My comment was to wbeard52's comment 'a wired connection (although not always faster)'. In my experience A cat5 gigabit wired connection will suffer from a huge amount less loss and lower latency that any wifi connection, no matter the standard used. There was no mention of internet connections. Read anttir's and Moab's comments above, they back mine up. – HaydnWVN Nov 8 '11 at 16:56
@HaydnWVN There are wireless devices like the ASUS RT-N12 that can give 300MBps which is faster than wired 100Mbps. I would agree with you that gigabit is now the standard but there are people still using the older 100Mbps cards or router/switch. In those cases, some wireless devices are much faster. In the end, if you want speed you will need to pay for it. – wbeard52 Nov 10 '11 at 17:47
Isn't it best to use generalisations in these situations rather than specific equipment? Generally the use of gigabit over cat5 is more common than the use of 300MBps wireless. – HaydnWVN Nov 11 '11 at 10:08
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up vote 0 down vote

I would install an easily accessible cable chase. Because who knows what the technology will be in three years, let alone thirty. Then you can fish whatever you need.

Between floors is always the biggest pain, so that gets priority; and some method for sideways, too.

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