This is the second article in our Home Wiring series.  In this article we will cover materials need to wire your house for telephone outlets and computer networks.  We will examine all the materials needed to cable your house from the demarc of your service provider to the outlets in your walls, and everything in between.  We will cover everything needed to install a modern residential structured cabling system in your home.

What is a structured cabling system?  A structured cabling system is a telecommunications cabling infrastructure made up of a number of standard components.  When it comes to your home, this simply refers to the cabling system made up of standardized components installed based on current cabling standards.  Components can be easily added or removed without adversely affecting the rest of the system.  Want to add a telephone or network outlet?  No problem, just buy the cable and faceplate and jack and add to your system.  Want to eliminate or remove an outlet?  Simply disconnect it from the system.  In either case your existing infrastructure will not be adversely affected and new components from end to end will not be needed.

When you get ready to wire your home for technology infrastructure,  there are several questions you should ask yourself before you begin.  What type of cable will I need?  How much cable will I need?  Where will I run the cable?  How will I connect the cable to my equipment?  These are just a few of the question you will need to answer before you can begin wiring your home.  This is the first in a series of articles which you should find helpful for answering these questions and completing your wiring project.

The first question, "What kind of cable will I need?" is probably the most important when it comes to making sure your equipment and systems work properly when your cabling is complete.   Lets start with cable for your telephone and computer networks.  You may have heard or seen the terms Cat3, Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6, etc.. while shopping for computer network or telephone cable.  These are all categories of UTP cable (unshielded twisted pair).These category ratings refer to the signal transmission capability of the cable.