fiber optic cable

I was thinking of the cat5 wire in my house and I was wondering if there was any benefit to installing fiber optic cable in your home. There are a few companies that are doing it for cable vision and the internet like Verizon and ATT.

I know it has become much cheaper. I don't have any overwhelming desire to do it but I wonder if it is being done in new homes.

Is it ever going to replace cat5 data wire ?

Replacing all the CAT5 in your house with fiber would require fiber compatible routers/switches/network cards which are all NOT cheap right now.

The fiber that the large companies route to your home are just to the router, it switches to CAT5 or wifi after that and even that is rare. Most companies are just doing fiber to the box outside your house and then a normal line in.

No

Thanks, I am not going to do it, just an idea.

Well you could just buy adapters from fiber to ethernet/coax/hdmi...whatever.

Originally Posted by ryanwhite74115

Well you could just buy adapters from fiber to ethernet/coax/hdmi...whatever.

Not this.

Originally Posted by ryanwhite74115

Well you could just buy adapters from fiber to ethernet/coax/hdmi...whatever.

Originally Posted by morningisbad

Not this.

Originally Posted by SamDoe1

Look...I never said it was the proper solution but some people are set on a certain cable. In the perfect world all houses would be run with fiber and all devices would run on fiber (minus power cords and speaker wire basically). But it's not. I recognize this too. I was just saying if he was absolutely set on fiber there are adapters.

In all reality you should probably just have 4 CAT-7 wires run to every room and then back to a centralized unit. Just my opinion however.

Originally Posted by ryanwhite74115

Look...I never said it was the proper solution but some people are set on a certain cable. In the perfect world all houses would be run with fiber and all devices would run on fiber (minus power cords and speaker wire basically). But it's not. I recognize this too. I was just saying if he was absolutely set on fiber there are adapters.

In all reality you should probably just have 4 CAT-7 wires run to every room and then back to a centralized unit. Just my opinion however.

Sigh...

OP. Don't waste your money on CAT7 or fibre. You will gain nothing from either. CAT5e is just as fast as CAT6, CAT7 and MOST fibre installs. Even if you got 10gbps fibre, none of your devices will support it and you'll run at gigabit at best.

If you're doing an in-wall setup, use CAT6. It's better insulated and will have a lesser chance of interference. It will cost a little more than CAT5, but you were considering fibre, so CAT6 is the cheap option, haha. CAT7 is a waste unless your house is a giant mansion (and even then, CAT6 will do just fine).

If you're concerned about speed on your wired network, make sure all your devices are capable of gigabit. If they're not (and you care about getting top speed out of that device), pick up a gigabit NIC for <$40. If you've got any switches, make sure they are gigabit as well. If not, replace them. If you get your entire network running gigabit, congrats, you're now doing better than 95% of houses. (no source...haha)

All this said, none of this will make your internet faster because you're likely already exceeding your internet speed with the system you've got now.

My (professional) advise decent router (I prefer cisco's home line) + DD-WRT + CAT6 + Upgrade old components.

Also, if you'd like in-wall AV cabling. Do it right. Run high quality cabling through the walls. Don't try any "fancy" options, you'll lose out in the long run.

No. Those last few feet don't really matter.

Originally Posted by ryanwhite74115

Well you could just buy adapters from fiber to ethernet/coax/hdmi...whatever.

You have to do that no matter what. That's what makes fiber $$$$$$$$