I wired the basement of our new build myself and ran Cat6 to every drop, crimping my own ends as I went, so I know the cable behind our drywall better than most wires in the house. It took me a while to clock that those runs do more than carry internet. Put the right adapter on each end, and one twisted-pair cable will push HDMI, USB, power, audio, or control signals down the same wire. My spool of Cat6 turned into the handiest cable I keep around, and I quit thinking of Ethernet as a one-job wire.

Power rides the same cable as your data

Power over Ethernet delivers both at once

The clearest example in my house is Power over Ethernet. My four ceiling-mounted UniFi access points do not have an outlet anywhere near them, and they do not need one. Each pulls its power and its network connection from a single Cat6 run back to a PoE switch, and my wired cameras work the same way. One cable, one pull through the joists, and the device on the far end comes to life.

The wattage tracks the standard you use. Plain 802.3af gives you about 15 watts at the port. PoE+ (802.3at) roughly doubles it to 30, and PoE++ (802.3bt) climbs toward 90. Access points, cameras, VoIP phones, and plenty of small displays and lights all live comfortably inside that budget. If you are pulling new cable for anything that draws power, run Cat6A for those drops, because the thicker conductor runs cooler and holds up better under a PoE load over the years.

HDMI over a network cable, minus the network

How an HDBaseT kit moves 4K down one Cat6 run

A bare HDMI cable starts to struggle past about 30 feet, which becomes a problem the moment a projector or TV sits across a large room from the source. This is where a category cable earns a second job. An HDBaseT extender kit puts a small transmitter at the source and a receiver at the display, each with an RJ45 jack, and sends the video down one Cat5e or Cat6 cable strung between them.

The reach is the draw. HDBaseT holds 1080p out to roughly 330 feet (100 meters) and carries uncompressed 4K to about 230 feet (70 meters), reaching the full 100 meters on Cat6A. None of that traffic touches your local network, which trips people up. The two boxes talk over a private point-to-point link, and your router never sees it. A pull this long still looks only as good as the source feeding it, so check the HDMI settings you have probably never switched on before you fault the cable for a soft image.

Keyboards, mice, and other USB gear at a distance

USB over Cat for peripherals across the room

Video is not the only signal that benefits from the extra reach. Plain USB quits around 15 feet, which strands your keyboard, mouse, and webcam the moment the PC lives in a closet or a basement rack. A USB extender fixes that the same way the HDMI kit does, with a sender and a receiver joined by a single Cat cable, and some models run as far as 100 meters. Many HDBaseT kits fold this in as KVM support, so the one cable carrying the picture also carries the keyboard and mouse. You end up controlling a machine you cannot see or hear from the next room over.

Audio, IR, and the “and more” part

Control signals and analog audio share the run

Credit: Jack Mitchell/MUO

That “and more” in the title earns its place. HDBaseT’s full stack, sold under the 5Play name, folds video, audio, 100 Mbps Ethernet, power, and control signals such as IR and RS-232 onto one cable. Aim a remote at the receiver and the infrared command runs back up the line to the source. Most receivers also break the audio out to a separate jack, so a sound system does not need its own long home run either.

You can go far simpler than HDBaseT, too. A pair of balun adapters can send analog audio, or even an old-style phone line, over the spare pairs in a cable that is not using all eight wires. It works because those colored pairs are just conductors, and the RJ45 plug on the end is the same 8P8C connector Ethernet has always used. The cable never cared what signal you sent through it.

Brand

True Cable

Length

1000 ft

Why a spool of Cat6 is the most versatile cable in the house

None of this changes what I actually run through my walls, and that is the point. The same familiar cable covers internet, power, video, USB, audio, and control, and all that changes from job to job is the adapter on each end. Save the cheap spools for short patch cables. For long 4K runs, buy solid-copper Cat6 or Cat6A, because thin and aluminum conductors fall apart over distance. Pull good cable once and you bank options you will never have to open a wall to add.