Internet signals need copper (Cat5/6) or glass wire (fiber
optic) in order to travel from point to point around our planet. The longer it
travels on a wire the stronger the signal remains. As soon as that signal
becomes wireless, you lose reliability and speed.
Current home networks using Cat5e wire are only capable of 1Gb
or Gigabit speeds. Don’t confuse
this with GB/gigabyte, which is a 1000 times larger, and refers to RAM or hard
drive sizes. Cat6 wiring will allow up to 10Gb.
Cat6 can handle 10Gb in the PERFECT scenario; but, HDMI 2.0 (4k
and UHD TV’s) need 18Gb for pure (lossless) streaming and HDMI 2.1 (coming
soon) will transmit up to 48Gb. Future homes will be combo copper and fiber
network switches, similar to what we see in commercial office buildings these
days. Note: we can make sure your home is future ready!
5g Internet (not phone) service is partially here and will be
commonplace by 2020. It can bring 5Gb of wireless Internet service to your
home. FiOS, or fiber optic Internet service will run at
10-50Gb of speed someday (currently its only 0.5 – 1Gb). If you end up with
this faster service, how will you get the signal around your home?
You’ll use the higher speeds for TVs, video conferencing, voice
control, backups and all of your streaming needs.
Ultra High Definition TV’s, whether 4k or 8k need 18-48Gb of
speed for the perfect signal. Future Wi-Fi will only handle speeds up to 14Gb,
so hard wiring will be required in order to get those amazing quality high
definition videos on your home screen. (See graphs below)
What does this mean? Wi-Fi is deficient, so installing as much
copper or fiber optic wire in your house can help to prepare your home for
smart appliance technologies and the optimum entertainment experience.
Installing copper and fiber while the walls are open can save
you substantial money. The cost of the networking gear for fiber is still quite
pricey, but at least you’ll have the cable in the walls when the price of this
home equipment starts to drop in 2020. The other benefit of fiber optic cabling
in your home is that you won’t need separate wiring for your Internet signals.
HDMI video and Internet will all be able to run on the same wiring.
Next post: Understanding how your system will work with a better
backbone.
Contact Technical Visionaries for help on designing a cost
effective wiring system for your home.
