Cabling for the next decade: what to pull and where
Cable is the cheapest component in your network and the most expensive one to add later. Every other part of the catalog can be swapped in five minutes; the wire in the wall outlives three generations of access points. So this guide has one theme: while the wall is open, be generous.
Cat6 or Cat6a?
Without the religion: Cat6 runs 10 Gbps up to ~55 meters and gigabit/2.5G everywhere a house plausibly needs it. Cat6a holds 10 Gbps to a full 100 meters, costs a bit more, and is stiffer to work with. Our rule: Cat6 for typical residential drops, Cat6a for anything long, anything commercial, and the runs feeding 10G-uplink access points you haven't bought yet. If the price difference doesn't scare you, 6a everywhere ends the conversation.
The drop list
Walk the plan and pull to:
- Every AP location — ceiling-center per the sizing rules, plus one spare location you don't populate yet.
- Every TV — streaming boxes are the heaviest fixed load in the house, and the drop behind the TV is the one everyone forgets until the drywall closes.
- The office desk(s) — two drops, not one. The second one gets used within a year, every time.
- The doorbell — a PoE doorbell with no battery anxiety is a one-cable decision made now.
- Eave corners — camera positions, even if cameras are "someday." Coil and cap the cable in the soffit.
- The lanai / patio header — for the outdoor AP; Florida readers, see the block-wall playbook.
Pull two, label everything
The marginal cost of a second cable in the same hole is minutes. The cost of a second attic or wall-fishing trip is a weekend. Pull pairs to anywhere that might ever want PoE and data, and label both ends with actual words — "KITCHEN-AP," not "7." Future you has no memory.
Conduit is the real future-proofing
Standards change; smurf tube doesn't care. One ¾" conduit from the network closet to the attic, and one to each floor on a multi-story, means the 2036 cable standard is a pull-string exercise instead of a renovation. This is the single highest-leverage thing to demand in new construction.
Finishing the runs
Terminate into a keystone patch panel at the closet end — our accessories collection carries the keystones, patch cables in every length and color, and the rack hardware to keep it from becoming the drawer of shame. Etherlighting-compatible patch cables if your switch can light them; regular ones if you prefer your rack quiet.
Building or remodeling and want the drop list checked against your actual plan? Send it over — marking up floor plans with cable runs is free, and it's the part we're pickiest about anyway.
Prices current at publication.