Just run standard cat6 phone wire to all the places you want either a phone or network outlet. Make sure the plans include separate cat6 runs to a central wiring "closet" that will be in the same place where the phone company wires in your phone service. If you do that, you can do whatever you want to later. Standard cat6 includes 4 twisted pairs of copper wire. You need one pair for a phone line and one pair for a network connection. Cat6 is a little more expensive than cat5 or cat5e.

Once you have the wire runs, you can buy faceplates with any combination of RJ11 and RJ45 outlets on them and wire them up yourselves. It's not hard to do.

You can go nuts with this stuff and buy all sorts of connection blocks for the wiring closet to make it easier. But you don't need all that to get started. The independent runs of cat6 are the only important thing when building.

-David

where to buy spools of CAT6?
 

This thread seems to be heading this way anyway, but I'll hijack it and ask where people buy bulk CAT6 from. I'm about to wire my new house and have just started looking online for good prices. I'm not sure if I'm going with PVC or plenum. Most likely plenum, shielded.

I get mine from work--snag the leftovers. I've also bought from Black Box in the distant past, but that's largely because (at the time), I lived 20 minutes from their HQ and knew a few people (so got great pricing).

Monoprice :)

http://www.monoprice.com/products/su...02&cp_id=10234

i've bought from monoprice before, checkout FW there is usually a 20+% off coupon for them. I paid 80$ for 1Kft with tools last year.

Will do! Thanks.

If you are technically inclined and have money, try the Cisco Catalyst 3750G. It is $4K but you can filter ports to get the maximum bandwidth and speed. I use these at work.

If you want something that is good and little to no fuss, get the Netgear Prosafe JGS524 for 1/10 the price for 24 ports. I use one in my home for my media center and ReplayTV devices. BTW, used switches generally work as well as new.

There are not any good home switch comparison sites but this one will get you started. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30041/51/

Almost lastly, I have not found any actual (real world) throughput differences between Cat5e and Cat6. Are you seeing a difference?

Lastly, why are you not going wireless "N" ? Just curious.

I got my 5e/6 as scrap (from large unused spools) from a local install company. They gave me about 240 ft of 5e and 110 ft of Cat6. More that enough for my home 14 point project. Total price was $10USD

The other place is ebay, where end of spools are sold.

Thank you for all your recommendations.

I looked at the HP Curve. My local dealer suggested 3COM SWITCH 4200G. Anyone have experience with this?