Riverside Cottage 3

[Tim Lamb]

Now the data connection thread has moved to the willy waving phase;-), can someone kindly condense the advice (farmer level) to what is required to future proof my Internet needs? Should I be laying in ducts and cabling? If so, what?

Located in a rural lane, about 1 mile as the cables run to the exchange. Fibre unlikely for 9 houses over 800m from the nearest cabinet.

Currently none of our TVs are connected to the Internet although they have the facility. Devolo and wifi meet the i -pad, lap top, PC use but I suspect will prove inadequate eventually.

Any thoughts?

[Mark Allread]

What speed do you get? Less than 2mbps and you may be able to apply for a grant for a satellite installation if there is no prospect of it being improved.

[S Viemeister]

Interesting. Do you have a link for that?

[polygonum]

You most certainly can get a grant for superfast broadband, subject to various conditions, including where you live:

http://gov.wales/topics/science-and-technology/digital/infrastructure/superfast-broadband/?lang=en

Note, you need to at least double your broadband speed in order to be eligible. So, currently less than 15 taking you to about 30 with Bluewave is viable.

(I don't live in Wales but happened to know about this.)

[Tim Lamb]

Around 5-6 meg. Plenty for what I do but not much for streaming.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If you lay in cable (cat 5e?) capable of at least 100Mbps everywhere - no need to terminate it - just label it - that's good enough to move video around, which is about as fast as you get...

Wifi is inferior as two or more devices on wifi contend.

Powerplugs sort of work, till they don't. Not sure what it is that knocks them out but something does.

If you can terminate the star point of all the cables on a patch panel'

Its may be also worth wiring with satellite cable back to te same opint to distribute TCV and satellite signals via a distriibution amp.

Telephones can run over cat 5 if you prefer fixed phones that cant get lost...and of course if its IP VOIP works..

[S Viemeister]

We're a bit far from Wales, unfortunately (the north coast of Scotland).

[polygonum]

Well this is not the same, but ma be of interest:

[Michael Chare]

Try posting in this forum:

[Tim Lamb]

Huh! I succeeded in confusing myself by simply googling cat5e.

A gentleman from America was explaining how he had run 4 cables to each place he was likely to have a TV.

This could easily be 4 sites here plus the PC in the office. Do I really need 18 separate cables?

[S Viemeister]

Thanks - yes, we've been hearing about that for ages, but still have crap speeds. Even though fibre was laid right along the coast road, they haven't seen fit to branch off up our road.

[Andy Burns]

Probably not, it sometimes handy to run two cables to a location so you could connect e.g. a smart TV and a set top box, but for anywhere with more devices than that, a small switch is easy enough to "split" the ethernet any number of ways.

[Capitol]

If you're running cat5, 100Mbs, remember that a single cable can be connected to give 2 independent outlets. If you want to upgrade some to Gbs, then the two outlets can be recombined very easily.

[Tim Lamb]

A *switch* needing an ethernet feed and mains power? How likely is it that the average self employed electrician will be able to deal with this at first fix?

[Andy Burns]

Yes (it's possible to get switches that can take their power over the ethernet, but no benefit if the equipment it's connected to needs mains anyway).

Running cat5e cables from each location back to a suitable point for your main switch? They should all be able to handle that. As someone else pointed out a single cable could initially be wired as two 10/100Mb sockets in a twin euro faceplate, then later re-wired to a single 1Gb socket for a switch if required.

At first fix, just leave a foot of cable at each remote end, and a couple of yards coiled up on all the central ends, so you can decide what/where to deal with them later.

e.g. in a cupboard, I have a shallow 5U 19" rack, with a cat5 patch panel, a keystone jack panel for coax, hdmi, phone, usb connections, a small switch (careful not all will fit in a shallow rack) and my power distribution strip, router, firewall.

similar to this ...

might be overkill for your requirements, but better IMO than just a row of datapoints on the wall, or just bare wires terminated in plugs poking out.

[Tim Streater]

Our sparks could do that and terminate the connections into sockets with no trouble. I would expect a sparks to be up to speed on that.

[Mark Allread]

Follow the various links from there. You are checked to see if you qualify and then given an e-voucher to use against installation and first year running cost.

[Mark Allread]

Wow, compared to a c1.25mbps you are already superfast ;). Sorry it doesn't help you.

[Tim Lamb]

Does the rack need any attention once set up? I will have lots of eaves access spaces but behind doors.

My router has run for months without attention but there was a period when regular resets were necessary.

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[Tim Lamb]

In message , Tim Streater writes