fiber internet installation

@mitch2 

 A single fiber optic line runs from that location to my music server.  My living room and outdoor systems are each hard-wired to satellite routers, which also provide internet coverage throughout my home, and outdoor porch and deck areas.

How are you running that fiber optic cable? Along the baseboards? I’ve been using clear cable clips along the baseboards but spouse says is “super” noticeable. Haven’t been able to find a better solution.

@OP - There's no reason the modem shouldn't be in your hi fi room, especially if you put an LPS on it. That location allows you to use the shortest quality ethernet cable to your streamer. You can take run another ethernet cable to a remote switch to feed wi-fi etc for all the non audio stuff.

@toro3 - My cable comes into our lower level, which is one-half walk-out with windows and doors and one-half unfinished and used for a work-out room, work room, closet and mechanicals.  The modem/base router/switches/converters are located in the unfinished side so my 15M fiber run simply goes from that side to the finished side where my main system is located.  I run it along the base plate at the top of the poured concrete lower level wall, and then down inside of the wood stud wall that separates the finished and unfinished sides of the lower level.  

If you have a lower level, or even a crawl space, and need to route the cable between rooms, the cleanest method is through the floor, under the floor joists either with some sort of hangers, or even inside of cheap plastic conduit fastened with U-brackets to the bottom of the floor joists, and then back up through the floor into your system room near where your gear is located.  I believe you can even remove and replace the fiber cable terminations (one end) to make routing the cable easier and the holes required through the floor smaller (I haven’t done it but I believe I have seen it on YouTube).

If you don’t have a lower level or crawl space, the next cleanest method is through the attic (safety first - don’t pull a Chevy Chase!).  The opposite of under the floor joists, you run it above the bottom chord of the attic joists.  There are tricks to running wires down finished walls.  Try and avoid joist spaces with ducting or electrical in them.  Also try and feed a wire snake down first to make sure it will go as far as you need.  Worst case, you would need to remove drywall and drill a hole through a cross member. You can also cut into the drywall (here is a link showing one example). 

Finally, rather than using clips, consider using some sort of micro-cable raceway (link).

Good luck.

@brbrock I installed ATT fiber into my home a number of months ago.  The fiber comes in from the outside and immediately goes to the modem, which is located in the front room of my home.  Next to the modem is the router (I am still using a third party router I did not use ATT’s built-in router - but if you use the built-in router you can eliminate this step).

Out of the router comes a single CAT cable, which then goes through the house via the basement, probably 50-60 feet, to a switch, however between the router and the switch I have an iFi Lan Purifier Pro device.  Out of that device comes a single CAT line to a switch.  

That switch then distributes the signal to everything in the house.  TV’s, streamer, Apple TV devices, NAS, receiver, 3 x extenders, one Roon computer and other miscellaneous devices.

Works flawlessly with a nice signal throughout the home.  Whether you need extenders is up to you but I needed them in my primarily stone and stucco home the WiFi signals were getting sucked all up.  The iFi LAN Purifier Pro was a big boost as well, signal got very clean and even the video on the TV got more crisp when that was utilized.  

As with all things video and audio, your mileage may vary.

I just recently migrated to fiber.  This isn't optimal yet, but this is my setup.  Modem is in my office that connects to mesh router.  My listening room which is adjacent to the office, high quality Ethernet cable from mesh router to listening room.  In the listening room, the Ethernet cable goes into a Muon Pro filter.  Muon then goes straight into the Aurender.  I'm very pleased with the result and the signal from the Aurender is smoother with this setup vs. copper.  

Future upgrades for me will be a LPS for the mesh server (maybe a Ferrum Hypsos) and a high quality network switch just before the streamer.  

My modem and router are very close to my listening room.  Is this better?  I'm not sure but one would think that running the fiber optic cable longer to get it closer to your listening space would be preferred over a long run of cat6.