Home Support Centre Wiring for broadband Wiring for homeowners

Wiring for homeowners

If you are building or renovating, ensure that you can access the best possible broadband services over our new fibre or existing copper networks.

Who does the work?

  • Your electrician can work with you to design a wiring plan to meet your needs. As home wiring requirements become more complex, you can also choose to use a specialist cabling company.
  • If you are laying a driveway you and your builder or electrician need to ensure green telecommunications pipe is laid from the property boundary to the external termination point at the house. You can find more information on the lead-in pipe in the Contractors section.
  • Many home security systems are dependent of a copper line. If you are connecting to our fibre network ensure that the security company is aware that you will need a system that will work with fibre.

Three things to keep in mind
When you are building or renovating your home it is the ideal time to ensure that you are future proofing to deliver the best broadband experience. Three important things to consider:

  • Use Cat6 cabling
  • We recommend star wiring configuration
  • Treat jackpoints like you do electrical outlets - you can never have enough of them

Cat6 cabling 
Although Cat5 cabling may be able to deliver your current needs it isn't designed to handle the capacity that can be delivered by our new fibre network. It can handle 100 Mbps speeds. 

Cat5e is designed to reduce interference between different circuits and channels and can handle speeds of up to 1000 Mbps. Keep in mind that we have just launched a 1 Gig broadband service in Dunedin.

Cat6 is suitable for up to 10 gigabit broadband and has enhanced features that reduce interference further. 

Star wiring 
We recommend star wiring configuration.

Star wiring

Re-wiring existing home
Where you are rewiring an existing home we recommend the use of a composite cable:

Re-wiring existing home

Jackpoints 
Treat jackpoints the same as you do with electrical outlets. You can never have too many. We are connecting more and more devices to the internet and you shouldn't underestimate the need for jackpoints in most rooms. We recommend RJ45 jackpoints.

For many homes the focus for delivering fibre will be in the living room near the TV. Don't forgot about smart TVs that may be installed in second living areas, bedrooms or kitchens. Will one of the bedrooms become a home office?

We suggest:

  • At least two RJ45 type jackpoints with two ‘F’ co-axial outlets  on the same faceplate in each bedroom and normally occupied room. Don't install any in wet areas such as bathrooms and laundries. Two or more such outlets are recommended in the lounge, family room room and study/home office.
  • However, four ‘F’ co-axial and four RJ45 jackpoints should be installed at the main TV position.
  • At the home distributor box the Cat6 cables should ideally be terminated on RJ45 jackpoints type modular sockets mounted in a patch panel. 

Other telecommunications equipment requirements 
Who supplies what equipment:

  • You, your builder or electrician need to supply the home distributor box, RJ45 jackpoints and the cable. If you are laying a driveway you and your builder also need to ensure green telecommunications pipe is laid from the property boundary to the external termination point at the house.
  • We supply the Optical Network Terminator (ONT) which connects your property to our network. When it is installed it still belongs to us so if you move you need to leave it in the house for the next occupents to use. We will install this in the home distributor box.
  • Your broadband provider may supply a modem or router - or you can provide one yourself. This may also supply WiFi. The residential gateway (RGW). Chorus’ optical network terminal (ONT) will be installed in the home distributor box when the fibre service is installed.

Testing and verifying is critical 
We strongly recommend that newly installed cabling is tested and verified by the installer as being able to operate at the speed it is rated for. The performance of communications cabling can be affected if:

  • Too much cable insulation is removed
  • The communications cabling is too close to electrical cabling, causing interference
  • The correct bend radius is exceeded
  • Wiring is incorrectly terminated
  • Copper pairs are not kept twisted as close as possible to the point of termination
  • Poor quality components (e.g. patch cords and connectors) are used