Installing Ethernet cables

[tim...]

Some of you may have seen in another place that I am having trouble with my wireless connections in the house

So I'm thinking about how to add a fixed connection into my office

the distance of cable required is 8-10m

I have (I think) three choices:

1) add a telephone extension into the room, and move the router into that room and plug the Ethernet directly into the computer

2) run a standard cable (with a plug on each end) between the rooms.

3) add an Ethernet socket on the wall by the router, connected to another one in the office, plug the router into one, and the computer into the other.

In all cases I will have to run the cables round the walls, preferably in trunking.

In the case of (1), I am limited to where I can put it as the router needs power. This has to be the last choice option.

So, what are the pros and cons of each of these?

Specifically,

1) do I need a particular grade of cable for 10 metres

I have found this:

though it looks too cheap, but I can click and collect

OTOH

looks better, but is mail order only

If I install sockets on the wall, are they easy to wire up? How do I handle Rx/Tx crossover (or don't I need to?)

I have read that there are restrictions on bending the cable

Will I be able to get around the 90 degree corner as I go up the side of a wall and then turn to go along the ceiling, all inside trucking? Will I have to go around that corner outside trucking to avoid bending the cable too much?

Anything else?

Ta

Tim

[David]

You have linked to a 10 metre patch cable at TLC so that will only work for option (2). If that will work for you (and you have no issues getting the cable through doorways and still having the door shut) then that seems an easy option. Assuming that you really only need 10 metres. Again you cabling4less link shows a cable with plugs at both ends.

Cat5e cable is fine unless you want speeds over a Gigabit per second.

If you want to install a socket in your office and another by the router then you will need a length of Cat5e cable, two sockets and a punch down tool to wire up the back of the sockets. Plus a patch cable from the socket to the computer ans the socket to the router. More hassle and extra tools.

From your description I would go for option 2 but get a 15 metre cable because you always need more length than you think.

Cheers

Dave R

[Andrew]

A hardwired CAT5e link with wall mounted sockets is the best 'permanent' solution, but you don't need punchdown tools. Some CAT5e socket modules just have a press-on cover plate that pushes all 8 wires in in one go.

There are those plug-in things that carry ethernet over mains wiring for a quick fix. Lifetime before failure ? - variable.

[Tricky Dicky]

Do not connect your router/modem to an extension socket on the phone network it should be connected directly to the BT/Openreach master socket with the shortest modem lead you can manage. Option 3 to me is the obvious solution and rather than using cable with plugs on, use Cat5e cable and two sockets with fly leads to the router and computer.

Richard

[tim...]

yes

I know

I'm having a man drill holes through the walls.

It only needs to go up one wall

along two ceilings (hall/bedroom)

and back down the wall again

Yes, but better moulded plugs :-)

my WiFi give me 12 Mbps (when it works properly)

but thinking of upgrading to FTTC

do they have crossovers in?

won't one crossover undo the other

or do I have third crossover in the wall

Or doesn't Ethernet crossover at all?

That's clear, but is it DIYable with amateur tools?

tlc don't have 15m cable (or anything longer than 10)

starting with 2 gives me the option of converting to 3 later (when I next want to decorate), by the addition of two sockets, but if I do that, do I need new cable or can I just cut the plugs off the one that's there?

[tim...]

that sounds a weird solution starting with a circular cable?

I'm going to end up a with Christmas tree of plugs in the hallway, I don't think this will be a good solution

I'm also not sure that hall and bedroom are on the same ring (yes I know that I could test by turning it off at the CU)

The man's coming next week to do other work. It wont cost me any more for him to drill a couple of holes and fix some trucking as I pay him a day rate and don't have enough other work.

so 5 pounds of cable and 10 pounds for trunking is the cheapest solution

[tim...]

it what I had in the last house

admittedly it was a preinstalled extension, not a dIYed one

I'm concerned that if I do this I will mess up connecting the cable to the connections in the socket

tim

[Martin Brown]

That is rubbish. I tried an experiment and adding 30m of decent cable to my ADSL circuit. It was only borderline detectable with 0.1dB loss some of which was almost certainly the extra inline connectors. No difference in sync speed at all.

That said I wouldn't recommend running a long phone extension and split it near the modem. The way mine is done is to split it at the master socket and then run ADSL only down from the loft to my office and POTS on the other circuit. You don't want to encourage extra interference.

For reasons best known to themselves BT thought it would be fun to put my master socket in the loft on the front wall brickwork. This means a bit of a trek and faffing about whenever there is a reportable line fault. No mains in the loft so plugging a modem into the master socket requires a fair bit of effort moving things into position.

Belgacom in Belgium were worse - they installed my ISDN service as a feature artwork in the dining room with a myriad of blinking LEDs.

[spuorgelgoog]

The somewhat-lateral approach to that problem is to run the router's power supply over the ethernet cable between the router and a central location.

at and makes the point it can make it easier to put the router onto a UPS near all the other network equipment.

Owain

[spuorgelgoog]

You don't, that's handled by Ethernet - and most adapters now handle crossovers if they occur inadvertently.

Probably not.

Don't use CCA / aluminium cable.

Owain

[David]

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One thing - if your man is drilling holes in the wall they need to be a lot, lot bigger to take a moulded on plug than they do to just take a cable with no plug on the end. However if you are happy with that it seems straightforward.

About crossover. Modern kit detects if this is needed. Back in the day you had to worry about this, but not in the last {mumble} years. Anyway, if I understand correctly you are effectively just running a long patch cable from your router to your PC, just like you would use a short patch cable if the two were side by side. So if you go for that option crossover isn't an issue.

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail], Tricky Dicky [e-mail] writes

Limited knowledge alert.. don't you need to position your router where you get best wi-fi transmission? All my visitors seem to expect good links for their pads and phones!

I have a part used drum of cat6 you can fetch:-)

[John Rumm]

Not a good option really - you will get best BB performance with the router connected to the master socket fitted with a face plate filter. Preferably without additional extension wiring, or at least with the bell wire disconnected (and re-created at point of use with a PABX master socket)

Yup cheap and easy.

A more elegant solution, since you can now run the wiring in solid core CAT5e rather than with a stranded patch lead. Both do the job, but the solid core is easier to route and dress along the way.

CAT5e in either case. Preferably proper copper cable and not Copper Clad Steel (CCS) or Copper Clad Aluminium (CCA).

Its cheap because, patch leads are dirt cheap at trade(ish) prices, and, its CCA - so cheap cable. In reality at 10m it will work fine.

And still CCA.

Somewhere like :

|Cat5e,UTP%20/%20FTP|UTP,Length|10mt Usually only do copper.

Yup, especially if you get decent quality CAT5e modules. I like these:

They have wire retention that gets a good grip on the strands and hold the wire in place prior to punch down. They are marked with only the TIA

568 B colours, so they are less confusing to wire and that reduces the chase of accidentally getting different standards used on each end!

Note they are quite deep, which makes them less fiddly to wire - but you need the slightly deeper bevel edge frame:

No need to - router to computer is straight through, and in reality, all modern kit will auto detect and configure as required anyway.

The guideline is normally no tighter than 4x the cable diameter (about 1").

In reality on short runs you can go tighter. Cat5e UTP is quite flexible and will stay where you put it. STAP, or CAT6 and up, less so.

If you fit a reasonable size of trunking, then yup.

If doing socket to socket installs, it always makes sense to install a pair of cables and double CAT5e modules at each end. That leave options in the future, is little extra effort, and the materials are cheap.

[John Rumm]

You would have to try really hard! Basically eight wires, and the same number of terminals. Push each wire into the matching colour terminal, then punch it down. Just make sure you have the tool the right way round so that it trims off the excess length on the far end of the wire! :-)

[John Rumm]

FTTC tops out at 80 Mbps, so your ethernet speed is not going to be a limiting factor for a single connection.

No

Yes it would - but you don't need crossovers anywhere. Straight through connection from network card to network switch (i.e. the router) is normal.

(and modern switches have auto Medium Dependent Interfaces anyway - so will configure themselves to work with either cable)

It is. And a neater, more reliable and more "professional" job.

[Andy Burns]

Because it's copper clad aluminium.

[John Rumm]

Yup one of the common conflicts of interest in a "one box does all" router solution. Often the master socket will be at a far corner of the building, and the ideal place for a single wifi point right in the middle of it.

Multiple Wireless Access Points (either wired, or these days "meshing") can solve that problem nicely.

[Paul]

If you're made of money, you can fix this by drilling zero holes.

They're called mesh routers. The author of this article, works at Arstechnica today.

(This article is a bit silly. Not all the articles are keepers.)

On some of these kinds of sites, it's better to search them from Google, than use their local search. Google for

site:smallnetbuilder.com mesh router review

and Google will dig up more examples.

Price-wise, think of it as "buying 3 routers of a special type". A waste of money, except if money is not an issue.

Sometimes, pulling wire just isn't an option, depending on what's in the walls.

What you'd want, is backhaul done on 5GHz, leaving 2.4GHz for "the usual" 802.11N stuff in the computers themselves. Usually the computer end is behind the times. But 5GHz doesn't penetrate walls all that well, and if it does both backhaul and normal communications on 2.4GHz, then things could be a bit choppy.

There are also repeaters and access points. Perhaps running an extension cable is easier in the basement, to some sort of Wifi solution, then "point" the Wifi antenna towards the first floor. If the device has removable antennas, you can use a directional antenna to reach the first floor (that's if your first attempt to reach the first floor, didn't work). There may be a solution in three dimensions you can dream up, to reach an "inaccessible" spot.

There is also power line networking. But that's pretty low on my list. Spraying 2.4GHz and 5GHz is better, because those bands are already a write-off from an RF perspective.

Paul

[John Rumm]

Or cheat... work out the best place for the comms hub with power, central location, space for equipment etc, and move the phone master socket(s) to there!

(What "someone" did here was disconnect the cable between the master socket and the JB where it terminated after coming to the house via the drop wire, and routed new cable round the outside of the house, and then in to where they needed the master socket).

[Jake56]

Tricky Dicky [e-mail] wrote

That?s bullshit. There is FAR more copper lead between the master socket and the exchange or node than there is to any extension socket.