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[rajkosto]

well, if you dont need anything other than wifi in any room other than your office then just run no cables, if the ISP guy can drill the wall of your office directly and put the incoming fiber through that.
if you EVER need 10gbps(right now) or more (in the future) in the rooms OUTSIDE of the room your isp will bring the incoming line to, well, you should probably run both cat6 and OS2 through those walls.
i wish i had better than cat5e (which was the recommended copper cable to put inside walls at the time) recently, but didnt 15+ years ago when the cable was put in.
OS2 is as future-proof as you can get right now, and the cost is the same as an additional cat6 cable...

 

[OZ9000]

well, if you dont need anything other than wifi in any room other than your office then just run no cables, if the ISP guy can drill the wall of your office directly and put the incoming fiber through that.
if you EVER need 10gbps(right now) or more (in the future) in the rooms OUTSIDE of the room your isp will bring the incoming line to, well, you should probably run both cat6 and OS2 through those walls.
i wish i had better than cat5e (which was the recommended copper cable to put inside walls at the time) recently, but didnt 15+ years ago when the cable was put in.
OS2 is as future-proof as you can get right now, and the cost is the same as an additional cat6 cable...

Tbh I didn't think home media devices needed anything more than 10G (which is the limit for CAT6). Some TVs don't even have gigabit ethernet.

10G+ would be nice for my PC and PS10 or whatever it will be in 2 decades time. But I'll put that in my office.

I actually have ordered the OS2 cables but didn't even think the fact that they could easily install the router in my office if need be. I was only planning to put fibre there anyway.

With the OS2 cables I'll be required to buy new switches and receiver's on both ends for no reason whatsoever - seems like a waste of cash tbh.

 

[Simms]

I would of thought getting duct/conduit would be most future proofing method so you can get whatever cabling you need round the house without breaking walls, flooring and ceilings. Saying that, fibre around the house is overkill. As long as your ISP can get fibre to the property is enough then cat 6/ethernet from their ONT/ONU around the property.

 

[rajkosto]

What if in 15 years + you want a faster than 10gbps link to your NAS in your office from some other room, or vice versa. Your office might not stay your office forever.
Also, even 10gbps now is just... 1.2GB/s. That's a couple of times slower than the sequential read speeds of nvme SSDs TODAY, let alone the future.
Definitely put at least cat6 to all the rooms so you dont have to rely on wifi through walls/powerline hackery nonsense for a stable connection.
With just cat6, you get rock solid 1gbps now, and 10gbps in the future, higher speeds than that might be possible, but not guaranteed.
You can run the much more expensive, thicker, less flexible, and more annoying to terminate cat8 instead: This will get you 1gbps now, and 40gbps+ in the future.
Or you can run both cat6 and OS2. This will get you 1gbps now and PoE if you need it (for cheap), 10gbps now (via the OS2), and then in the future maybe 10gbps for cheap via cat6 and 100gbps via the OS2 (and you can move your ISP router to any other room without the ISP drilling new holes, by using one of the OS2 fibers).
If you only run OS2 then you CAN get 1gbps through it for cheap (20$ for a pair of conversion boxes to/from ethernet), but this is an extra expense that gains you nothing at the moment vs running cat6 (ive actually done this across wall/floor/ceiling corners with transparent 1mm fiber cable stuck to the crevices simply because its invisible, where cat6 cable would not be, but if youre going through walls you have to use the visible kevlar'd optical cables that are as visible as cat6 anyway).

 

[Northeastmonk]

Rely on the ISP for the fiber box and just run CAT6. Idk how people are getting these crazy speeds. Even the clients I deal with who have fiber run CAT6. Of course you’ll need some sorta transceiver to convert it if you have a big house, so you aren’t dealing with a degrading signal. The biggest thing is what you’re getting for your internet speed. That’s the type of cable for the walls, be that CAT6-8.

I guess CAT6a - CAT8 are more prominent in other areas of the country. Even when I run cable at a business they’re usually sticking with CAT6. The only time I’ve ever ran fiber was to piggy back switches or they’ve done it to connect another building. I’ve never seen a home utilize fiber wire beyond the modem.. Typically the ISP does that and you just need to have the proper cables to each room of the house.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Your Cat cable should be sufficient for many many years to come. I'm not clear that many devices would even interface with the fiber connection, though I haven't looked much into this and could be very wrong.

 

[jshackles]

I'm a network engineer. Running Cat6a or Cat8 cable throughout your house is a great idea and should keep your devices connected and talking to each other at fast speeds and low latency for years to come. Most devices come with an ethernet port, so it's very easy to connect. You'll want to pull all of these connections back to a central space like a utility room, where you can plug everything into a common Ethernet switch. Make sure the switch you buy supports the speeds you want.

If you're thinking of running fiber - you'll want OM4 (50 micron) multimode fiber, which is capable of 100GBASE-SR10 (100Gbps) at a distance of approximately 500ft. But - what the hell are you going to be hooking up to this? This type of fiber is typically used to interconnect high density data switches together in data centers. Do you have devices that can utilize these connectors? If you have a high end rack mounted server, you could use this fiber to connect it to your switch... if they were in different rooms? If you put media convertors on them, they're only going to be as fast as the cable your connecting them with (hint: 10Gbps, tops). At that point, you might as well have used Cat6a or Cat8.

I've been doing this job for almost 30 years. Over and over again people have said "any day now, fiber-to-the-desktop is going to take off in a big way", and it hasn't happened yet. Category cable is cheap and easy to repair. What if a rodent chews through your fancy fiber cable? Do you have a spare arc fusion splicer on hand to repair it yourself?

Worst case scenario: it's 2042, and you've been in your house for 20 years. You buy a new gadget and think "well shit, this can only connect at 40Gbps, because they only had Cat8 cable invented when I built this house 20 years ago." And then, if it really bothers you that much and you're constantly working against this limitation - you can pull new Cat14 wire throughout your house to replace your existing Cat8 wire, and both of these projects together will have cost you less than if you would have run OM4 multimode throughout your place now while it's being built.

 

[ViolentP]

I'm a network engineer. Running Cat6a or Cat8 cable throughout your house is a great idea and should keep your devices connected and talking to each other at fast speeds and low latency for years to come. Most devices come with an ethernet port, so it's very easy to connect. You'll want to pull all of these connections back to a central space like a utility room, where you can plug everything into a common Ethernet switch. Make sure the switch you buy supports the speeds you want.

If you're thinking of running fiber - you'll want OM4 (50 micron) multimode fiber, which is capable of 100GBASE-SR10 (100Gbps) at a distance of approximately 500ft. But - what the hell are you going to be hooking up to this? This type of fiber is typically used to interconnect high density data switches together in data centers. Do you have devices that can utilize these connectors? If you have a high end rack mounted server, you could use this fiber to connect it to your switch... if they were in different rooms? If you put media convertors on them, they're only going to be as fast as the cable your connecting them with (hint: 10Gbps, tops). At that point, you might as well have used Cat6a or Cat8.

I've been doing this job for almost 30 years. Over and over again people have said "any day now, fiber-to-the-desktop is going to take off in a big way", and it hasn't happened yet. Category cable is cheap and easy to repair. What if a rodent chews through your fancy fiber cable? Do you have a spare arc fusion splicer on hand to repair it yourself?

Worst case scenario: it's 2042, and you've been in your house for 20 years. You buy a new gadget and think "well shit, this can only connect at 40Gbps, because they only had Cat8 cable invented when I built this house 20 years ago." And then, if it really bothers you that much and you're constantly working against this limitation - you can pull new Cat14 wire throughout your house to replace your existing Cat8 wire, and both of these projects together will have cost you less than if you would have run OM4 multimode throughout your place now while it's being built.

This is the correct, professional response.

 

[lefty1117]

Check with the builder and see what would be involved in pulling new cable after the house is built. If there's an easy way to do that then you're future proofed.

 

[Boneless]

By the time in house fibre would hypothetically become relevant in a house, which is many many many years away, full wifi will have taken over as default.

 

[nocsi]

Ethernet is the one cable to rule them all. I can already run data, media (HDBaseT) and low-power stuff (PoE). With optical, you’re not going to get power unless they’re in lining copper. In general there’s really no use for fiber at home unless you want to run something a long distance.

 

[BabyYoda]

You make it sound like it was a life or death situation, unless OP is into competitive gaming, Wi-Fi is more than enough for 99% of people.

Not if you want minimal issues, it's worse than you're saying, unless you live in a shed of a house

 

[OZ9000]

Not if you want minimal issues, it's worse than you're saying, unless you live in a shed of a house

I actually ran to my office:
3x CAT 6 Ethernet (via wall plates) - rated up to 10GBit (for TV/AV receiver/game console)
1x CAT8 Ethernet (via FS.com) - rated up to 40GBit (will go directly to my PC)
3x OS2 Fiber Optic Cable (via FS.com) - rated up to 100Gbit (just in case...)

Probably overkill but fuck it - need maximum speed for the future.

 

[BabyYoda]

I actually ran to my office:
3x CAT 6 Ethernet (via wall plates) - rated up to 10GBit (for TV/AV receiver/game console)
1x CAT8 Ethernet (via FS.com) - rated up to 40GBit (will go directly to my PC)
3x OS2 Fiber Optic Cable (via FS.com) - rated up to 100Gbit (just in case...)

Probably overkill but fuck it - need maximum speed for the future.

Good man, it's easier now than later huh, you'll have no regrets.

 

[OZ9000]

Good man, it's easier now than later huh, you'll have no regrets.

Yep - far easier to do when the walls are being erected, before plasterboard/drywall and plastering.