[danbolt]

When my parents had a house built in the early 2000s, my father was adamant that Ethernet should be wired to every room. It seemed like a good way to future-proof the building for the 21st century at the time. The year we moved in, tweenage me asked about connecting my Nintendo DS to the internet in order to play Animal Crossing online.

I wonder if we would have done the Ethernet again if he knew that Wi-Fi was going to become so common.

[zer00eyz]

> I wonder if we would have done the Ethernet again if he knew that Wi-Fi was going to become so common.

Today, if your wiring up a house you put ethernet drops everywhere.

POE is a thing, and it's getting more popular.

Cameras, blinds, MM wave... It's almost to the point where one should be putting a media box in every closet as a mini wiring hookup.

[humanfromearth9]

Close to the floor as well as close to the ceiling.

[kjellsbells]

Even with wifi, big houses or tough RF environments need mesh units to get ubiquitous wifi coverage. And there, ethernet wired backhaul is far, far superior to wireless. So maybe your dad was prescient in a different way.

The issue with wiring your house for Ethernet is that 2003-era Cat5 that a random builder or DIYer grabs from Home Depot isn't going to carry nearly as much as the Cat6A cable you would want if you need the cable plant to have a chance of keeping up with network capacity growth. But that needs quality installation.

[ghaff]

I had a fairly extensive Ethernet and audio speaker setup in the course of a couple of house renovations. Much of that is trashed from smoke mitigation after a kitchen fire. Will pretty much just use WiFi from here on out.

[j45]

Ethernet in each room remains valuable for other reasons, such as set top box devices, etc.

The issue wasn't whether wifi was going to become so common, it was the guaranteed improvement in reliability and speed of wifi.

Anyone could use ethernet, and still can.

[xandrius]

I would still do this in 2025, just with different category of ethernet cable, that's it.

[j45]

Ethernet in each room remains valuable for other reasons, such as set top box devices, etc.