I’d like to second your callout regarding surge suppression and LAN protection from your blog. A few months ago we had lightning hit a tree that was just 15 feet from our electrical entrance with is underground.
@upshift Sorry to hear that but really interesting.
I want to warn you not to use grounding Ethernet arrestors inside your home. Use those, if any, outside or as close to that edge. Inside stick to isolators. The most recent thinking I’ve seen is that grounding Ethernet cables during a surge just allows a high current surge to form through MORE devices when otherwise you wouldn’t have one. Better to isolate the gear and let lightning find a path through a single device and it’s power cable than to form a long circuit and let it take out even more devices downstream. So far during the worst of the lightning I’ve only lost a cable modem, which wasn’t mine anyway. 😁
Alternatively, use fiber converters to air-gap your gear.
After installing my whole-house suppressor lightning took out a laptop. It was the only PC in my home that was plugged in but NOT on a surge strip.
The same way audiophiles are kind of ridiculous with having too much gear to play music, we also have a lot more Ethernet devices hooked up than the average person, though hard core gamers are close. For many Americans who have Internet access Wifi is the only connection they use and lightning is not the same problem than for someone like me who has a dozen items hooked up via copper networking cables.