Caecilius wrote:

I'll soon be wiring a new house, and I want to install some
communication cabling at the same time. It's a small two-bedroomed
house, which will be rented out when it's complete, so I'm not looking
to do anything exotic or complex.

I'm thinking about TV, network and telephone. My thoughts a

1. TV

Standard 75 ohm coax from the loft to a socket in the living room.

I've not used TV for ages, so I assume the new digital TV still uses
the same cable and connectors as the old analog TV from 20+ years ago.
Or have they finally replaced those horrible belling-lee connectors
with something better?

2. Network

CAT 5e from RJ45 sockets bedrooms and living room to a multi-way
socket in one of the bedrooms.

I did something like that once. The multiway outlets could be used as a
crude patch panel with 20cm leads.

3. Telephone

Might as well use CAT 5e for this as well I guess, to avoid getting a
seperate reel of telephone grade cable.

Yep - terminate with Cat5e sockets and use adaptor for phones.

Can I install a BT master socket and just leave it to BT to connect
the A/B pair, or are only BT allowed to do that?

Is it actually worth installing telephone, or does everyone just use
mobiles or VOIP now?

A Dumb (unpowered) phone is essential in emergencies when the power fails
and the mobile base station goes out (happened everytime our village blacks
out) - only thing that works is a dumb handset powered from the batteries in
the BT exchange.

Any thoughts or pointers to guides Etc. would be welcome.

First - just put loads of conduit in (20mm oval will take 2 ELV cables, eg 2
Cat5e, aerial etc). Have an empty backbox next to every socket outlet (or at
least every 2nd) with conduit. If lifting the floor to thread cable is hard,
then buy a drum of Cat5e and thread cables to everything even if you do not
terminate - leave coil of cable in back of box and fit blanking plate.

I'm looking for anything that would be seen as standard or desirable
in a small new build house without adding too much complexity. Bearing
in mind that cabling is dead easy at the moment because the
plasterboard isn't up yet.
--
Tim Watts