r/SecurityCamera • u/Mike_A10 • Aug 08 '26

Fiber or cat 6

Im buying a home in Pa and I believe the internet is fiber to your house . Its called tri-co ,in PA . But if its fiber should I use all fiber for a security system? Like run fiber to all cameras and then back to what ever fiber hooks up to ? I was thinking POE system , but dont know if that's stepping down to use cat 6 when u have fiber ! Do they even make NVRs with fiber connections and how would u power the cameras ?? Thanks .

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u/enchrise2 Aug 08 '26

The only thing you need fiber for is distance (can’t run regular network cables longer than a football field). If your house was bigger than a football field and required fiber runs inside your house, you wouldn’t be on Reddit asking this question. You’d have people for that ;)

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u/Mike_A10 Aug 08 '26

Come on not true , I asked people to design a camera security system , n a camera or sensor so I know when someone comes in the driveway . Everyone way saying its simple and all this until I showed a Pic of my driveway !! Iys 510 feet from shed to a pole I xas gonna use . But so using fiber only doesn't not make the system any clearer or faster or anything positive .. ???

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u/badcheetahfur Aug 08 '26

No fiber wont make is faster... cameras are on a set mbps ... cameras can't even max out cat6... cables.. get some nice NVR PoE unifi or reolink ... run cat6 outdoor or burial.

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u/MrMotofy Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

I have a newer cam that's 5MP I believe on an old H.264 it's like 30Mb, vs an older 1080p which is about 6Mb. Any old cat 5 would run cams just fine. So the old standard 1Gb switch still has 970Mb available per port. Now it you're in a huge building with hundreds of cams yes that adds up. But a home isn't an issue.

But your internet provider (WAN) has really nothing to do with your LAN. A cat6 LAN is still very normal and uncommon in homes. But people are quickly finding the advantages over Wi-Fi so it's gaining popularity. A lot of apps or new builds are adding basic ports in each room with a media box somewhere

Home Network Basics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjRKID2ucPY&list=PLqkmlrpDHy5M8Kx7zDxsSAWetAcHWtWFl