Basic questions on home networking

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PeterBC

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#103284 2-Jun-2012 21:40

Can anyone please give me a bit of help with these basic questions?

Can someone post pictures or a link showing clearly how the cable management should be done for an ethernet patch panel and a Telecom 10pair disconnect?

Orcon help desk could not help with this! What is the power supply requirement for the Genuis lite? The Bob-lite web page says 12V AC 2 Amp. Surely they mean 12V DC? If it is AC, how would you provide UPS power?

I am not too bothered about a UPS for anything except my phone system i.e. the router, the phone base station and possibly an ATA. I was wondering if I could use a battery on permanent trickle charge to power these devices full-time, instead of their standard wall-warts? I realise that the voltage regulation of such a system is pretty awful but wall-warts aren't usually very good either and the devices must have some internal regulation. Presumably an alarm system works in a similar manner. Any thoughts?

I picked up a 6-power point multi-plug box with surge suppression, on special at Dick Smiths. Is there any likelihood of deterioration in signal quality if I put the TV arial and phone/DSL cables through this box?

My phone/data lines star out from the centre of the house. There's a 26m cable Cat5E run from the star point to the demarkation point. Is this likely to present any problems when fibre arrives? (I will have a few problems when that happens, 100+ metres from the street and a gazillion very large trees, including totara and kauri along the only practical cable route :-P)

Is it still the case that Alarms New Zealand is the only company actively monitoring alarms over IP?

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#634832 2-Jun-2012 21:52

Its not perfect, but you could provide DC to the Genius instead of AC. It should handle it, I do that with my modem so that 1 wall wart drives several network devices

I suspect that the surge protector would deteriorate the DSL signal a bit.

In an ideal world you would have 3xCat5e and 1xRG6 from the demark to the center of your 'star'. Ultimately, fibre may/will deliver video (RG6), ethernet & voice from the ONT, which will be placed as close to the demark as possible. So 1xCat5e is a bit lacking, but you could potentially use it to pull new cables through.
In the short-medium term, however, you will probably just need ethernet between the ONT and Genius, which will provide ethernet & voice from there, so no rush to change anything

webwat

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#635082 3-Jun-2012 16:20

The router would have to rectify AC power to DC internally anyway, so should be no big deal. I reckon a 3-stage trickle charger would do the job but could still just plug in the 12VAC to the UPS? Less efficient but still ok if you dont need a huge runtime from it, and the UPS may manage batteries better.

Run the cables/wires to the side of the panel through the cable management and then down to the management bar feeding the destination panel/switch. Try to avoid wires directly between panels, or folding them up inside the management pathway. The idea is to avoid a spiderweb or any kinks/folds in the patch cables, and to flow them in the same direction so they can be traced easily when someone wants to follow the wire and keep nice curves instead of tight corners.

Time to find a new industry!

sbiddle

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#635090 3-Jun-2012 16:33

Most hardware with ATA's won't run of a battery source unless it's using a DC-DC isolator, ie you can't run a typical ATA/router directly from a DC battery supply.

As for IP monitoring I'm aware of two companies who offer this to residential users - Alarm NZ and Safe Guard. Most of the major companies still don't even understand what IP monitoring is, and seem in total denial that UFB is on it's way,

antoniosk

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#635100 3-Jun-2012 16:54

sbiddle: Most hardware with ATA's won't run of a battery source unless it's using a DC-DC isolator, ie you can't run a typical ATA/router directly from a DC battery supply.

As for IP monitoring I'm aware of two companies who offer this to residential users - Alarm NZ and Safe Guard. Most of the major companies still don't even understand what IP monitoring is, and seem in total denial that UFB is on it's way,

When the Chorus copper is physically pulled out, reality will occur.

There seems to be some debate over whether that should be done though....

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sbiddle

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#635101 3-Jun-2012 17:02

antoniosk:
sbiddle: Most hardware with ATA's won't run of a battery source unless it's using a DC-DC isolator, ie you can't run a typical ATA/router directly from a DC battery supply.

As for IP monitoring I'm aware of two companies who offer this to residential users - Alarm NZ and Safe Guard. Most of the major companies still don't even understand what IP monitoring is, and seem in total denial that UFB is on it's way,

When the Chorus copper is physically pulled out, reality will occur.

There seems to be some debate over whether that should be done though....

It's going to hit them when their solution for customers who move to fibre is to continue spending $45 per month on a copper line just for alarm monitoring.

There are alarm companies who are using SPA's, which is just insane. ContactID is not 100% over VoIP.

cyril7

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#635108 3-Jun-2012 17:24

Hi Peter, exactly what about the 10pair Krone module do you need to know ala cable management.

26m of cat5e from demarc to start/hub point, is not an issue assuming you just want to pump Fast Ethernet or GigE over it, both are good for 100m.

Cyril

richms

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#635282 4-Jun-2012 00:38

Sharing a wall wart between devices that interconnect with eachother is a recipe for groundloops and noise issues.

IMO just stick to the supplied power supplies and a standard PC UPS.

Richard rich.ms

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PeterBC

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#635367 4-Jun-2012 10:54

Thanks all of you for your replies.

It's looking as if it will have to be a UPS. I was reluctant to go that way because, for one thing, it seems totally ridiculous to take a 12V battery supply and then to invert it back to 230 VAC, then reconvert it back to 12V in a plethora of wall-warts. Inefficiency and fire risk at every conversion point! I also have the problem that my modem and my cordless phone base station are rooms apart, so 2 UPS systems possibly required.

Another problem is that for some reason the affordable UPS systems are all designed to be used on or under a desk in an office. As a result they are in small fancy boxes and have only got room for ridiculously small batteries. Most homes in NZ have acres of space in the attic and decent capacity batteries that are good enough for the very occasional deep discharge are relatively cheap, e.g. car batteries, possibly second hand. Can anyone suggest an affordable solution system suitable for that environment, using components available in NZ?

As an aside, isn't it about time that someone starts thinking about some system like POE for homes? Actual POE at 57V is hardly suitable for homes, its designed for massive office blocks, with costs to match. 12V, or even 5V, should be fine for fractional watt devices and 10m cable runs.

Cyril, I am happy with the theory but I fail at the practice. I have googled widely but I have not been able to find any pictures showing how the weird lumps along the sides of the block and the loops at the ends and bottom are supposed to be used. There are some written explanations but they mean nothing to me, a picture is truly worth a thousand words in this case. I am afraid I have the same problem of comprehension with Webwat's explanation for the Ethernet patch panel as well. I can cobble things together so that they will work, but I'm afraid of the spider web look that may result, in which case God help anyone else who has to modify the system!

PeterBC

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#635374 4-Jun-2012 11:03

I forgot to mention that Dick Smith claims that their Surge Catcher is actually designed to pass ADSL. I will have to check it out in practice, which I will do as soon as I get the cables made up. The ports on the Surge Catcher are RJ12. Why does NZ have to standardise on a port that nobody else in the world uses for phones?

cyril7

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#635378 4-Jun-2012 11:08

The NZ standard phone socket is a BT, which means British Telecom, its used in the UK and many other commonwealth countries. There are roughly 28 different phone sockets in use throughout the world of which the BT is 2nd most used after the Registered Jack (in RJ12 and 45 format) both of which you are quite legit to use in NZ if you wish and is the norm in commercial installations where structured cabling systems are deployed, which is also how you should now wire your house.

Cyril

PeterBC

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#635385 4-Jun-2012 11:45

Hi Cyril,

Didn't realise that BT was quite so widespread. However it's the past and no computer gear uses it. We are now going to rj45 however, whilst almost everyone else seems to use rj12 for wall jacks for phones, judging by the gear available to buy here. I still cannot buy RJ45 plug phone cables at ordinary consumer outlets, are sparkies actually putting rj45 into new homes or is it still BT in practice?

richms

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#635393 4-Jun-2012 12:06

Rj45 is the recommendation for structured wiring and has been in all the new builds I have seen with the sparky leaving a couple of pabx masters for peoples phones etc.

Richard rich.ms

cyril7

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#635424 4-Jun-2012 13:14

Hi, all depends on how switched on the sparkie is, but if your sparkie is not offering even a basic structured setup (as per the TCF) then find another.

Here are some RJ45 to Rj12 phone line cords.

http://www.cablesdirect.co.nz/catalog/entry?entry=384

Cyril

sbiddle

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#635458 4-Jun-2012 14:13

PeterBC: As an aside, isn't it about time that someone starts thinking about some system like POE for homes? Actual POE at 57V is hardly suitable for homes, its designed for massive office blocks, with costs to match. 12V, or even 5V, should be fine for fractional watt devices and 10m cable runs.

802.3af (the active PoE standard) is 48V and is common in homes and there is no reason why you can't deploy it. I know a number of people who power everything from PoE switches, using active to passive adapters and/or splitters to power other devices in their home such as routers and AP's.

If you want lower cost then there are a number of PoE passive switches are a lower cost than 802.3af switches.

richms

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#635462 4-Jun-2012 14:27

I have a couple of tplink af switches. Only 100 meg tho but were cheap as. However the splitters are another issue. Many are just passive so dont signal the switch to enable power. Linksys ones for their IPphones seem to work with the least problems I have found.

Richard rich.ms

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