I am mapping out a path to run Cat6 thru my house. I know not to run Ethernet parallel to power and the Intartubes say to try to cross at right angles.
But how much interference will I get by crossing at right angles? Does it totally negate the interference or is the interference just not as severe?
The easiest path from my patch panel to the two most important wall jack locations would cross Romex three times at/near 90 degree angles. Once inside a wall cavity and twice in the attic.
Inside the wall cavity, the Romex runs "East/West" between wall studs.
The Cat6 (12-18 total drops) would run "North/South" in the same cavity.
Half of these drops would come up from a 1" hole to the crawl space. The other half would be terminated in keystones on one side of the wall.
The Cat6 would then run up the cavity and out a 1.5" hole near the ceiling into a closet on the other side of the wall.
The cables would then be fed thru a hole in the ceiling into an unfinished attic. In the unfinished attic they would run across some joists, along a joist, then back down into another closet where the patch panel is
Along the attic path they cross two more Romex runs at right angles. The switches for the bathroom light and fan (2 Romex cables) and another Romex cable from a bedroom light switch. The bathroom switches and bed switch are maybe 5 feet apart
How much interference/network slowdown would I encounter?
Best Answer
Darn near none. Even less if you do it right and run conduit so you can replace it when you can't live without Cat9, or 12 pair fiber, or whatever everyone will have in 5 years.
The whole point of the fancy-pants wire is that it is, in fact, resistant to interference pickup, in places a lot more challenging than your house. Though I hardly see the point of Cat6 - it can barely run 10Gbit, and Cat5e runs gigabit just fine (I have over half a mile of it (in sections less than 100meters, of course) connected to switches that report error rates, which are pretty much 0)