data
Data and network cabling
A data point installed costs £80 to £160, less per point as the count rises. In a house being renovated it is the cheapest thing you will ever fit and the one people most regret leaving out, because retrofitting a cable into a finished wall costs several times what running it into an open one does.
What this covers
What it costs. A data point is £80 to £160 installed, falling toward £60 on a job with many. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Cat6 points to desks, TVs and access points
- Patch panels and comms cabinets
- Testing and certifying each link
- Wireless access point cabling across a building
- Fibre between buildings on one site
What is involved
Cat6 to every position that will hold something fixed is the sensible baseline: desks, televisions, and the ceiling positions where wireless access points will go. Wireless is what devices use and cable is what makes wireless work, because an access point on the ceiling of each floor fed by cable beats any single router in a cupboard. That is the thing most households get wrong and it is cheap to get right during a refurbishment.
Every link should be tested and certified rather than simply plugged in and tried. A link that passes a wiremap test can still fail on crosstalk or length, and the symptom appears months later as a connection that drops under load. Certification produces a result per link, and on a commercial job it is part of what is being bought. On a domestic one it is worth asking for and rarely offered.
Cables go back to one place: a patch panel in a cabinet, in a cupboard, a loft or a utility room, with a socket and some ventilation. Running everything to one point is what makes the installation manageable later, and skipping the panel to save fifty pounds turns a tidy cupboard into a bundle of unlabelled cable within two years. Separation from mains cabling matters too: data run alongside power picks up interference, and the fix after plastering is not a fix.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask for Cat6 as the baseline and for every link to be tested and certified, with the results handed over. Ask for a patch panel rather than loose cable ends. Ask where access points will go and get those ceiling positions cabled. If walls are open, add the points you think you do not need, because the marginal cost now is almost nothing.
Common questions
Do I still need cabling if everything is wireless?
Yes, and more than before. Wireless is what devices use; cable is what feeds the access points that make wireless work. An access point per floor fed by cable beats any router in a cupboard.
Cat6 or Cat6a?
Cat6 is the sensible domestic and small office baseline and handles far more than most households will ever use. Cat6a costs more, is stiffer to install, and earns its place over long runs and in commercial installations.