I thought this might be a bit neat to share. In June of 2020, I accepted keys to a brand new home. While it was under construction, my friends and I ran a TON of cat6 network wire and RG6 coax TV wire through the house. I completely understand that wireless has gotten crazy better over the years, but copper is still the fastest. Dating my self a bit, but I remember when if you wanted a gigabit connection, you had to use fiber. Now, 10/100/1000/2.5gig/5gig/10gig speeds can all be ran from cat6 copper cable. And honestly, best time to put cable in a home (even if I abandon it and never use it, in the grand scheme, the cable was cheap.

So, we ran a LOT of cable! After I moved in, because I work from home these days AND had other things to do around the new home I just moved into, I hustled to establish a temporary base. I have two overgrown desktops I use for "servers". It started long ago when I was still in high school with one device as a server. It helped expand my knowledge and provided some helpful things for me to do at home (such as large central storage before having a NAS was a thing). Eventually, expanded to a second server (for those who know about "virtual machines", this second server runs VMware ESXi). These days, I run multiple things on these devices to justify keeping them around (they have changed over the years, so not the same first two servers I had) and they also help as a mini-test lab.

Any case, here are some before pics, the white material on the walls is insulation with a white barrier on it:

 

And now some "during construction" pics. Some information. First, the cat6 is colored for a reason. White is for IP cameras (which I have a NVR, network video record for), yellow is infrastructure (three runs of yellow are in my ceiling for wireless access points, at the moment, I am using one of those), blue is typical data connections, gray is for anything phone related (at one point I was working with a VoIP system with Cisco phones you find in a business, I can also use this for a landline phone if I ever had a reason for it, or I can use it in the emergency of "I need another network connection), blue is traditional data.

I got lucky the before the house was under construction, I was able to get an equipment cabinet for free. It is not deep enough to be a server cabinet (unless I wanted a rack mount server hanging off the back). And I did have to buy stuff, like the rails for the back so I can rear mount things, some bars for the back to help with cable management, patch panels and some other misc stuff. But, no complaints. My need for a cabinet is really limited, but I have it, I can use it. I built a pedestal to put it on and put it on wheels, which is AWESOME, so handy. No I cannot wheel it far when it is fully loaded, but just to pull it away from the wall and such, super nice!

Since I setup things temporary, I was powering all the equipment off an extension cord that went to a bunch of UPS Battery units. So I ran a new electrical circuit. I put the outlets into a half wall I built. Instead of drywall, I used plywood to finish the wall and hung it in three pieces so if I ever need into a cavity, it might not be super easy, but I can remove a small panel.

And I had a LOT of cable re-routing and fixing up to do.

 

And as of yesterday, it is DONE! Well, almost lol! I have some longer power cables on order to move a UPS/Battery where I want it. I have to run an actual proper network wire for a camera I use to watch my sump pump (the cam also gets audio, I have a wifi water alarm and if the alarm goes off, I can get a visual and audio on the sump if I am not home). And, when I do a few things in the basement and hopefully get my dream garage built, I will be running a few more connections to this center.

On the bench I built are my two desktops/servers. I have one monitor and under that is what is a server/rack mount KVM (a fancy switch box to allow connecting one keyboard, monitor and mouse to multiple devices). Those two desktops and my camera NVR connect to it (and I still have multiple open connections). It is an older unit, by the fact it says "Compaq" proves that (Compaq server products disappeared shortly after HP bought Compaq). I also have an OLD Compaq keyboard with built in trackball. This was meant to be on a tray in a server rack. It is so old, it pre-dates having a Windows key on the keyboard (and the fact it has a track ball). But, it is perfect for what I need at the moment. Admittedly, I originally planned to have the keyboard in the equipment cabinet and the monitor on the top, but before I started this project, I got thinking that might bot be the best.

Things are labeled, color coded and good to go. I kinda feel I should have an old school LAN party (like Age of Empires or Quake 2 or 3 type games, total nostalgia).

Any case, here it is, my finished networking center. And for the record, I don't sit down here unless I need to. But it is set up pretty well for what I need it for.

 

I'll admit, I don't understand everything you've got going on there, but I'll say it looks very impressive!

I definitely know what you mean about cat vs wifi. Our first house had 2x cat + phone + cable wired to every single room (plus a handful of exterior camera runs) that all came together in a cabinet in the master closet. We ran virtually nothing off of wifi except our phones. It was great having the option to easily plug stuff in and have full speed everywhere which was nice being it was almost 4k sq ft.

I do miss it at our current house as its about 40 years older and doesn't have any of that stuff. The house only has a single coax run for the router haphazardly run across the roof and down the exterior wall. We had to upgrade to a mesh setup to get rid of some extreme low spots. I still struggle with exterior wifi camera positioning (presumably due to the exterior wall construction).

 

No problem. I have a lot more going on than most hobbyists. Some of it started years ago to improve my IT skills for my career and then bled into things I like and keep to this day because it works well. I am also not much for cloud storage. Not saying it is bad, but you are now trusting your data elsewhere. And any "free" service makes me wonder "will they ever flip like PhotoBucket did". Also when talking cloud storage, I get concerned about ownership, privacy and their ability to keep my data secure. I still prefer my storage on site and control my backups myself. Some might find my views old fashion, but I have my concerns when talking about my data as a whole (don't misunderstand, cloud storage can be awesome, I just prefer my use of it limited).

Something I might suggest, look into the Unifi products from a company called Ubiquiti. They sell professional grade networking products and usually for vary fair pricing. They are honestly great for the home user to the small business. In some cases they offer products that have high end functions at lower than Cisco pricing. At the moment, I have only worked with their Unifi NanoHD access point and the Unifi U6 Pro access point. These things are AWESOME! I think myself and another 6-7 people I know are using them. I proved at two different locations, one NanoHD solved some difficult wifi strength issues. Mine is on the ceiling in the middle of my home and I can get coverage all around the property (I am on a half acre). And they have range extenders and a host of solutions to help. I am sure there are situations that perhaps the NanoHD or U6 Pro by themselves may not handle (or your mesh network devices might already be the best answer), but might be worth exploring. You will still require a router for your Internet.

Any case, hope the pics were fun to look through and see what was a chaotic mess take form and look more organized. Certainly not a setup you find in most homes.

 

Any idea if they've got a stronger signal to help cut through things blocking the path better? I'm admittedly pretty ignorant on the topic, so I'm not sure if there's some kind of power cap on transmission limits and/or ways of sending a signal that are better at cutting through interference.

I think the issue we've got is the exterior walls are block and are nearly a foot thick. From what I've seen doing repair work, it appears that every other cell is 100% concrete filled with a few pieces of vertical rebar in each. Around the door / window openings, it seems like they 100% filled 5 or 6 cells on each side.

To make things worse, the block was stucco'd over at some point and for some reason, they used that metallic lath (like a chicken wire almost) in some areas. It's not required for stucco to block, and its not 100% around the house, so I'm not sure the logic for using it.

The interior issue we had is that some rooms protrude beyond the basic rectangle of the house. Anywhere that required a signal to pass through an exterior wall before getting to the router dropped the signal strength substantially. Adding the mesh setup helped with that.

But anything outside of the wall is a struggle to play with placement to maximize signal strength as it can vary dramatically just moving a foot left or right (presumably because it gets one of the rebar filled cells out of the way). The one I struggle with the most is the front door bell. Its only maybe 10-12' from the router, but as its receptacle is chiseled into the block, I can't really move its location. That area also appears to have near complete coverage with the stucco lath which I think isn't helping things.

I think whenever we have to re-roof, we'll pull some roof decking off and run some hard line like you did to help make things a bit easier in the problematic spots.

 

Like Bumpin' said, quite impressive. Here I thought it was a big deal running a couple hundred feet of CAT6 under my house for the kids' computers.

That keyboard... Ive used the same one (maybe not exact model) for years, even had to change the pots a couple years ago. Do you also need the ps2 adapter or is your MB old enough to accept ancient tech? I love vintage Compaq stuff as that was my first PC when I was young. Well, the first I was allowed to use.

 

How's the Internet? Spectrum or ATT?

 

That is a PS2 keyboard. So under the monitor sits this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/23350599489...Bk9SR9qFlsXRYQ

My two workstations and my Lorex camera NVR connect to it. One workstation supports PS2 still and I do have to use PS2-to-USB adapters, but they work well. I did not put the KVM in the equipment because most of the equipment connecting to it is not in the rack and I don't have the rack mount ears.

 

I have a 300meg Spectrum plan. ATT can only offer me 74meg for some odd reason (yet I know someone in my county with a 2.5gig ATT).