Period fibre-optic broadband

[Penners]

I'm astonished to tell you that BT have recently finished installing fibre to our telephone exchange and our street cabinet, so we're about to get Infinity broadband. As of next Wednesday, our broadband speed will increase from about 2.5 Mbps downstream and 400 Kbps upstream to around 35 Mbps and 9 Mbps respectively! Wha-hay!

I'm amazed that this service has reached us, out here at the Back Of Beyond. I know that they're rolling out fibre to much of the country over the next two or three years, but I imagined that they would be concentrating on areas of high population density. Ours is around 3.5 farmers per square mile, so I can only assume that someone, somewhere has some pull! Still, gift horse... mouth... and all that.

Anyway - to my question. I shall be asking the engineer to connect the new router to our main phone socket by running a cable through a couple of walls The location and path of the holes that will needed for this is quite critical, so I want to drill them myself, before the engineer arrives. Can anyone tell me what sort of cable he will use to connect the router to the socket? I presume it's not just ordinary telephone extension wire - could it perhaps be an Ethernet cable? And will there be plugs on the end that will need to pass through the holes, necessitating larger holes than are needed just for the cable? Or would he crimp on the plugs after routing the cable?

Any and all information gratefully received.

 

[mattice]

Hi Penners, looking at my router BT Infinity looks to be a CAT5 type cable.... if only we had it, I think we're almost on dial up some of the time :mrgreen: They should be terminating CAT5 themselves and not having to pass plugs through holes.... but you never can tell. .... Edit < quick search says that some of their engineers come with fixed lengths with moulded plugs....eeek>

 

[Feltwell]

Penners,

In an obscure, hidden, dusty and somewhat unfinished corner of Feltwell Towers lurks a BT Fibre installation done about a year ago.

The BT Openreach man will need to replace your master socket with a not-very-pretty one that sticks out from the wall, the white plastic one here:-



The stainless socket on the right is where I connect my router into Cat5e cabling that I've ran to various data sockets round the house.

The top socket with the grey cable is the one that connects to the new box-of-tricks that the nice man will give you. The cable is short and comes with a pre-crimped socket, I can measure it for a drill size if you ask nicely:-



I don't know what these cables are called but you can buy them online, I bought a longer one when I fitted a speech dialler to our alarm system.

This cable connects to a new white box of tricks, which also needs a power socket - it comes with one of those nasty plug-and-transformer-in-one things. This new box of tricks can sit under your router or can sit elsewhere, it's connected to it by a standard RJ45 patch lead. The one they supply is short but you can buy a much longer one and crimp your own connectors on if you only want to drill small holes.



Really should have dusted before I took that picture

Be warned, the white box of tricks runs quite warm, hence why mine is sat on a highly technical bit of cardboard to keep air flowing round it better than if it was sat directly on the carpet. A quick temporary fix that like all the best ones seems to have become semi-permanent!

Hope that helps.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

The trouble with high speed technology is that it comes with miles of 'spaghetti' which has somehow to be routed around the house! That's ok if one is in the early stages of renovating, it can be hidden away behind skirtings and under floor boards etc, but after painstakingly repairing, preparing and finishing----

 

[paulb33]

Upgrading from that HomeHub 3 to the HomeHub 5 allows you to lose that white modem and RJ11 cable you're holding. It let me do a very long run with just one Cat5 cable from the socket to the hub. Important here because multiple big chimney breasts makes placement (reach) a nightmare.

 

[Feltwell]

I don't know what these cables are called but you can buy them online, I bought a longer one when I fitted a speech dialler to our alarm system.

At the speed of an asthmatic sloth on crutches, my outstanding memory kicks in and reminds me that it is an RJ11 cable. I think!

 

[Flyfisher]

Having no experience of BT Infinity I can't really help with the basic question, but I'm very encouraged to hear it's rolling out to the back of beyond.

Assuming that BT have to replace the cable to their new master socket, is it not possible to have the master socket itself relocated? I ask that because I'm assuming the new cable is connected within the master socket using 'punch down' connectors, meaning that the cable has no connector pre-fitted to it, meaning that it would be easy to route through small holes.

The trouble with high speed technology is that it comes with miles of 'spaghetti' which has somehow to be routed around the house! That's ok if one is in the early stages of renovating, it can be hidden away behind skirtings and under floor boards etc, but after painstakingly repairing, preparing and finishing----

Although fixed data wiring within the home is by far the best system in terms of performance, you're quite right about the practical difficulties of installing such cables in any home with even half-decent decor. One thing to consider might be to have the master socket installed in a secluded area (cupboard under the stairs, perhaps?) and to locate the router in the same place. Then use powerline networking devices to use the existing mains wiring to distribute the network around the house and powerline-wifi repeaters to convert any mains socket to a wifi access point. Complete flexibility without any need to install new cables.

 

[paulb33]

Although fixed data wiring within the home is by far the best system in terms of performance, you're quite right about the practical difficulties of installing such cables in any home with even half-decent decor. One thing to consider might be to have the master socket installed in a secluded area (cupboard under the stairs, perhaps?) and to locate the router in the same place. Then use powerline networking devices to use the existing mains wiring to distribute the network around the house and powerline-wifi repeaters to convert any mains socket to a wifi access point. Complete flexibility without any need to install new cables.

In our case, we have two separate ring mains (circuit boards?) serving upstairs and downstairs. I understand powerlines are locked in to a single rm (cb?).

If wifi reach is a problem (stone walls, thick chimneys, etc), then router placement is important. Putting next to a wall/under the stairs/in a cupboard will degrade the signal.

The nice thing about the new HomeHub 5, is the integrated modem. This allows remote placement with just a long CAT5 (in the floor void here). Previous HomeHubs need a RJ11, which loses signal quality on a long run, I believe. We now have it placed in the open, which has transformed wifi reach and stability.

We use a discrete plug in BT Extender 600 (less than 50 quid if you shop around) half way up the house. Belt and braces, nevertheless, first time we've had stable wifi on the 3rd floor. V pleased. http://www.amazon.co.uk/BT-Dual-Band-Wi-Fi-Extender-600/dp/B00D84GVN0

The HH5 also has push connection, allowing new devices to be added with just the push of a switch.

A disadvantage of our approach vs power line is the Extender 600 only repeats the signal it receives. So, some loss is inevitable.

(caveat: I don't know what I'm talking about most of the time, when it comes to tech stuff)

 

[paulb33]

The other period gizmo I can't praise too much is Apple TV. Brilliant piece of kit.

I'm not a fan of Apple's locked in environment. But, it really is amazing if you have iPads, iTunes. And another wire gone from PB33 Towers: we're dumping Sky now.

 

[Feltwell]

Upgrading from that HomeHub 3 to the HomeHub 5 allows you to lose that white modem and RJ11 cable you're holding. It let me do a very long run with just one Cat5 cable from the socket to the hub. Important here because multiple big chimney breasts makes placement (reach) a nightmare.

Hmmm - that's good to know. Mind you, I'll probably leave my router where it is now - I don't think there is any one position for it where I'll get decent wireless in every part of the house, having tried it in various places, I need to invest in a repeater or a powerline range extender.

I presume you'll get the new HomeHub 5 then Penners.

 

[Feltwell]

Assuming that BT have to replace the cable to their new master socket, is it not possible to have the master socket itself relocated?

They didn't replace the cable into ours.

Mind you, the BT Openreach chap was very friendly and I reckon if I'd got the cable path prepared, holes drilled etc he would have moved the master socket for me.

The pain for me was that my old setup was that the router was in a different part of the house to the master socket and was connected to it by a phone extension. This wasn't possible on fibre - BT chap did say that if the phone extension had been ran in 8-core telephone cable he could have done something, but it was only ran in 4 core.

Hence at first I had to have my non-wireless PC next to & plugged directly into the router which was plugged directly into the master socket. Now I've ran Cat5e cable from a wall data socket next to the router down to another wall data socket where my PC lives. I could have gone with powerline but decided not to.

 

[paulb33]

[the BT Openreach chap was very friendly and I reckon if I'd got the cable path prepared, holes drilled etc he would have moved the master socket for me.

I'm not so sure. Now it has an integrated modem, repositioning the HH5 router has become as simple as the master socket. It probably wouldn't make sense for the engineer to break BT policy (unless you contracted him/her separately).

(*caveat: I know just enough to be dangerous)

 

[Penners]

One thing to consider might be to have the master socket installed in a secluded area (cupboard under the stairs, perhaps?) and to locate the router in the same place. Then use powerline networking devices to use the existing mains wiring to distribute the network around the house and powerline-wifi repeaters to convert any mains socket to a wifi access point. Complete flexibility without any need to install new cables.

You have exactly described the installation that we have at the moment, FF. The master socket is in the understairs cupboard and the router is the other side of two walls, connected to the master socket with a telephone extension cable. Our two computers (and our TV) are connected to the router by powerline units.

However, with our sparkling new superfast connection, I'm not sure whether these powerline units might "throttle" our network speed. According to BT's estimate, our downstream broadband should average between 35 and 40 Mbps. Even taking that with a pinch of salt, I'm hoping for one side or the other of 30 Mbps. Our powerline units have "200 mbps" printed on them. That would seem to suggest that they are more than capable of handling our increased speed, provided I'm reading the spec correctly. My understanding is that "mega" is represented by an upper-case "M" but the powerline units have a lower-case "m". Should that worry me or not, do you think?

Incidentally, the reason that I locate the router outside the understairs cupboard is for the benefit of Mrs P's tablet computer (to which she is addicted!). The wi-fi range is poor when the router is in the cupboard, and much improved in its current location.

 

[Flyfisher]

You're right that 'M' is for Mega but it is frequently misused and 200 mbps would strictly mean 'milli' bits per second, which would be exceedingly slow!

The other area for confusion is 'b' for 'bits' or 'B' for 'Bytes'. I'm sure you know that a Byte = 8 bits, so Mbps is very different to MBps.

But pedantry aside, 200 mbps/Mbps will be a maximum possible speed of your powerline units and the condition of the mains wiring, distance, types of appliances plugged in and general electrical interference will all conspire to reduce that speed, mainly because the data being transmitted becomes more and more susceptible to corruption so the units have to resend it many times before it finally gets through correctly.

The only real way to estimate the speed is to compare it to a fixed ethernet cable, which can usually be relied upon to work at the full rated speed of the router and PC. Select a large file or number of files (photo or video files are good for this) and copy them from one PC to another using a network cable, timing how long it takes. Convert the result to Mbps. Then remove the cable and do the same thing over a powerline network connection and compare the result. I have a selection of long cat5e cables that I use for such things - though I'm probably a bit odd in that respect.

I'd like to think that 200 Mbps powerline units would be able to operate at about 30Mbps but it's impossible to guarantee.

What I would say is that I'm able to stream iPlayer videos with no problems and our broadband connection is about 6Mbps, so unless you are constantly uploading/downloading huge amounts of data I'd be surprised if you encounter any practical problems.

Like period properties, there are no universal configurations for home networking and each case is unique. The good news is that the various technologies and products available today are fairly cheap and very reliable and can be mixed-and-matched to suit any situation.

 

[Penners]

That's very useful information - many thanks, FF. I'm embarrassed to say that I am sufficiently pedantic to be aware that "b" indicates bits and not bytes. I find it virtually impossible not to correct anyone who refers to their broadband speed as "8 megabytes"! I make lots of friends that way!

I think I probably need to stop agonising about whether our powerline setup will be sufficient to satisfy my need for speed, and just make a subjective judgement when it's all up and running. Like you, I am currently able to stream the iPlayer without buffering pauses, even at our current average of 2.5 Mbps, albeit at poorish resolution. So I imagine that our new setup will easily allow HD streaming.

I'd love to have a Cat5e (does "Cat" mean "Category"?) network in the house, but we have solid walls with little or no prospect of running the cabling unobtrusively around the place. I would happily festoon it along walls, draped from nails, but I don't fancy spending the rest of my life cooking my own meals.

 

[Penners]

I'll probably leave my router where it is now - I don't think there is any one position for it where I'll get decent wireless in every part of the house, having tried it in various places, I need to invest in a repeater or a powerline range extender.

I presume you'll get the new HomeHub 5 then Penners.

That's what I like to hear, Feltwell, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

If you did want to set up a powerline system, the cheapest units that I've found come from 7dayshop.com. They do single units, pairs of units and Wi-Fi range extenders. My original pair of units came from Devolo, and I find that 7dayshop units are fully compatible with these (at a much lower price).

http://www.7dayshop.com/7dayshop-network-500mbps-mini-homeplug-powerline-ethernet-network-adapter?backUrl=L2NvbXB1dGVyLW5ldHdvcmstd2lmaS9uZXR3b3JrLWFuZC13aWZp
Just note that this unit does not have a piggyback three-pin socket, which the Devolo units do.

Yes, we shall have an HomeHub 5, but that doesn't necessarily make me a better person.

By the way, many thanks for your photo-briefing, which is extremely helpful.

 

[Flyfisher]

I think I probably need to stop agonising about whether our powerline setup will be sufficient to satisfy my need for speed, and just make a subjective judgement when it's all up and running. Like you, I am currently able to stream the iPlayer without buffering pauses, even at our current average of 2.5 Mbps, albeit at poorish resolution. So I imagine that our new setup will easily allow HD streaming.

I'd love to have a Cat5e (does "Cat" mean "Category"?) network in the house, but we have solid walls with little or no prospect of running the cabling unobtrusively around the place. I would happily festoon it along walls, draped from nails, but I don't fancy spending the rest of my life cooking my own meals.

Yes, I suspect you'll be fine with the powerline units and wouldn't worry about it unless you do discover a specific problem. Even then, I'd be confident of finding a solution.

Cat5e cabling (yes - "category") is by far the simplest, fastest and most reliable method of networking and it's such a shame that understandable physical constraints can limit its installation. Wifi is certainly convenient but is far more complicated and nowhere near the performance and reliability of fixed wiring. Powerline units are a valuable addition to the home networking armoury.

 

[Flyfisher]

In our case, we have two separate ring mains (circuit boards?) serving upstairs and downstairs. I understand powerlines are locked in to a single rm (cb?).

I don't think that's strictly correct, though depending on the state of the wiring, distances, interference and the other things I mentioned, it might be the case in a particular installation.

Our new kitchen extension includes a new consumer unit, separate from the main one in the house. The two are interconnected by a large and quite long armoured cable. I've just tried a pair of powerline units - one connected to a ring off the kitchen CU and one connected to a separate ring off the main CU - and they worked OK with no noticeable reduction in performance, though I was only using an ipad for web browsing and music streaming.

So I wouldn't discount powerline units completely in such circumstances. They would certainly be far less useful if they could only be used on a single circuit and I would think such a restriction would render them far less popular.

 

[Penners]

I'm not sure whether this comment relates to the setup that paulb33 is describing or not, but we often use powerline units upstairs, on a different ring to the one that the router is connected to. My (extremely amateur and possibly flawed) understanding is that, provided there is an uninterrupted electrical path between the circuits, powerline units will successfully talk to each other (within the limits of their range).

Having said that, would this mean that (e.g.) semi-detached next-door neighbours might be able to connect to each other's powerline circuits, assuming that their main switches are both on?

 

[paulb33]

I'm not sure whether this comment relates to the setup that paulb33 is describing or not, but we often use powerline units upstairs, on a different ring to the one that the router is connected to. My (extremely amateur and possibly flawed) understanding is that, provided there is an uninterrupted electrical path between the circuits, powerline units will successfully talk to each other (within the limits of their range).

Ah. V good to know, Penners. That would have saved me some trouble..... :roll: