Renewal Confusion

[#1]

@Richchad 

Final couple of questions (for now anyway!!!).

Does the copper cable come out of the ground before entering your house or is there a duct under the wall direct to the MS?

Is there a suitable room at the front at the from - especially is it's in front of your study?

Having full fibre installed is an oportunity to rethink your house setup, especially if the ONT goes in a front room. Although it costs money you could, for example, take an ethernet cable outside, round the side of the house and back in at your study. This method can also be used to take an ethernet cable upstairs.

Brian

Edit : Just noticed an external cable has already been mentioned. Ethernet can be run for up to about 100 meters so distance isn't a problem.

[#2]

@bmc There is plastic capping on external wall from ground to location of master socket.

My study is at the back of the house and across the hallway is the master socket on the front wall, no rooms between or adjacent.

I have looked at running an ethernet cable around the house but a few obstacles such as a conservatory make it a very long run.

I will have to give it some more thought as I have to be sure whatever method I choose will work as once committed to full fibre there will be no going back.

[#3]

@Richchad 

As long as you use CAT5e or better Ethernet cable then as been stated you can use up to 100m without problems. We also have fairly recently installed solid oak flooring, which is SWMBO’s pride and joy. There’s no way that I would dare even suggesting lifting boards!

To connect my Router in the Hall  to the ONT the cable is routed back outside, along a side wall, up a duct into the loft, across the loft, down through the ceiling into a built in wardrobe, down through the wardrobe floor to exit in the kitchen behind a tall cupboard then along under the kitchen units, through a wall into the Hall. I estimate 20-30m. No cable is visible internally. Not the shortest route but that’s not important in the average property, you just need to seek out possible routes.

It was a right pain to install, but only has to be done once. 

[#4]

@Richchad Does your study actually need Gigabit speeds, and what FTTP service speed are you ordering? You could for example put the router in a convenient position near the entry point (I would) then connect to your study and other locations by the best practical means for each, including:

Homeplugs (ethernet over mains) which IIRC you already use to some extent. I have four on my network, the furthest being almost 50 metres from the house in a garden building.

Ethernet, including new runs and/or repurposing the 10-metre BT cable (may achieve Gigabit, definitely will do 100mbps)

WiFi, either direct from router and/or (better) from local access points connected via Ethernet/Homeplugs.

And remember the router doesn't have to be the "core" of your network, it's the connection to the outside world and can/does provide WiFi but switches and access points can be used very effectively and are not expensive.

This is a great opportunity to rethink your whole network. 😊

[#5]

@HPsauce Yes you maybe right that I don't need Gigabit speeds as I was going to the cheapest full fibre 74 which would be faster than my existing part fibre which is adequate for my use.

I suppose the cleanest way would be to reuse my existing BT cable.

I would prefer to keep the router in my study as I have my Deco WiFi, Hive & PC connected there.

I assume the Openreach engineer will just fit the ONT next to master socket in the hall and I would have to do the BT cable plug conversions to connect to my router?

I wonder if the engineer would do that for me for a few quid?

I wouldn't like to be without broadband for very long as we rely so much on it now.

[#6]

@Richchad Just be prepared and buy a suitable length (10m or 20m?) of pre-terminated Cat5e (gigabit) ethernet cable to sling temporarily  between ONT and router (where it is now) then you'll have minimal interruptions. Cheap as chips!

Once the new service is up and running you can then figure out how to reconfigure everything to best suit what you want/need. For example with router moved to near the ONT you could have a switch/WiFi node in your study connected to it by Homeplugs or get the old BT cable working as Ethernet. Lots of possibilities, but get that cable now so you can make changes at your leisure. 😄

[#7]

@Richchad 

While it is a good candidate for the ONT there is no guarentee the installer will agree to the hallway location. You talk to them on the day.

The suggestion by @Baldrick1  is extremely sensible. Wait until you have a location for the ONT before deciding how to sort your cables out. A cheap 20m cable should keep you running short term.

You can upgrade a FF speed at any time (at the cost of a new contract) but downgrades should only be done at contract renewal time.

I'm sure there will be plenty of videos online on how to wire phone cables for ethernet. I suspect you might have to get two ethernet faceplates to replace the phone ones and a simple punch down tool. What you might need to have a look at is how much space cable is there at either end. You need 2 or 3 inches to be able to wire the ethernet plugs.

Brian

[#8]

Trying to use telephone cable for Ethernet is at best a bodge. I tried it once just as an experiment with a gash length of cable and failed completely. Installing proper Ethernet cable (that's proper solid copper core stuff, NOT cheap CCA cored) only has to be done once, so why not go to the trouble to do the job properly.

The problem with bodged jobs is that if you ever have problems in the future you can never be sure if that's the cause.

[#9]

@Richchad said "I wonder if the engineer would do that for me for a few quid?" 🤣

Personally I wouldn't even bother asking. He may be great at drilling holes, screwing boxes to walls and splicing fibre but somehow terminating Ethernet cables....... 🙄 Plus he won't have the means to test it.

It's not that difficult, as others have said, plenty of guides available online.

But anyway, you may not need it in the end. Just rethink your network from scratch after getting it working with a temporary ethernet cable and see where that leads you.

[#10]

@Richchad 

I think you're at the stage where you make a choice - renew FTTC or upgrade to Full fibre.

If you choose the latter it's always good to hear how you get on.

Brian