Using coaxial cable to wire my house

[GregC]

Hey WCR tech guys, here's a question for you:

The guy who is wiring my house says he is seeing a comeback of coaxial cables for home LAN networks and wants to wire all my data sockets with both UTP and coaxial cable. W00t? I haven't seen coax cable used for LAN networks since hi-school and thought this was dead technology, can someone enlighten me why I would put coax into my walls in 2011?

This is NOT for TVs, he wants to install a separate cable for that.

[frozenfart]

Cable Housing

Coaxial cable, which is usually heavily insulated, is better suited for outdoor and underground use. Category 5 cable is usually thinly insulated and meant for indoor use. CAT 5 cable is capable of transmitting 10 megabits per second. The maximum speed of coaxial cable is also 10 megabits per second.

Length

The maximum certified length for a CAT 5 cable is 100 m, or 328 feet. Coaxial cable can be used for close to 1000 feet; however, the longer the coaxial cable, the slower the data transfer becomes.

Availability

Both CAT 5 and coaxial cable can be purchased in specific lengths at retail or in bulk at wholesale. Special crimping tools, wire connectors and large spools of both types of cables can be used to create cables of any desired length.

Cost

CAT 5 cable is typically 30 percent cheaper than similar quantities of coaxial cable.

You'll also need a modem that supports coaxial cables.

[Niebellung_ftw]

why would anyone use coaxial cables these days? That shit is ancient pretty much

[GregC]

I know! I'll probably tell him to just put CAT5 in there (or maybe get CAT6 instead of the price of coax?), but I wanted be sure there isn't anything I'm missing here.

One small thing here could be that a CAT5 cable just connects to a single device so you'd need multiple cables or a switch at the destination, but how many devices actually have coax network cards for this to be a practical consideration? (that was rhetorical, next to none probably)

The thing is, this electric guy doesn't know why exactly he'd put the coax there, just that many tech savvy customers had him do it recently, so it would be up to me to figure out how to actually put the coax to use. He is supposedly very good and does work for high profile clients, that's why I'm even making inquiries instead of flat out telling him to forget it. I still have a couple of days to make up my mind, but I'll probably tell him not to do it.

[frozenfart]

Probably use CAT 6 as it's better in dealing with interference than CAT 5. CAT 6 also supports higher speeds up to 10 Gbps, much higher than coaxial or CAT 5.