Router RJ11 cable extension.

[#1]

I have an interesting problem - for me, that is !

I have an old, very long house with very thick walls.  Getting a wifi signal from my router throughout the house is impossible.  I therefore have a master (BT Home Hub 5) and two (Thompson) wifi routers connected via ethernet which works fine with one exception.  The furthest point in the house involves a signal passing diagonally through one thick wall (making it effectively even thicker) and then through a second thick wall and finally through another wall two walls (the house is long and thin as it was originally three cottages).  Ideally, to reach this furthest point, I could install yet another router but there is no easy way to lay an ethernet cable from the master router unfortunately.

All I need to use this furthest point for is to operate a remote internet switch - nothing else.  I have been racking my brains for a solution and the idea has occurred to me that the telephone cable serving all the telephones has four redundant wires in it - only two are needed for modern telephones, but there are six in the cable run around the house.  There is also a telephone socket near the desired internet switch which I used to use for the same thing using an old-fashioned DTMF tone switch using the telephone

My question is whether I could borrow two of these wires and plug them into the BT master NTE5 socket output which goes to the main BT Home hub router ?  That would mean disconnecting the BT Home Hub router.  The idea is that I would connect yet another router at the other end to the two "borrowed" wires at the BT socket near the internet switch whenever I need to operate the internet switch - this router would then become the temporary master router and all the other routers would be switched off, as I would only need this internet switch when I am not at home.

Obviously, I could not "borrow" these two wires to use for an ethernet cable because they are not twisted pairs and would not work therefore.  But I am hoping they could be used to connect a master router to the BT line for direct ADSL service.  The question is would two wires in a cable run of about 20 meters provide a working signal from the BT NTE5 Master socket to the router ?

I hope someone can advise.

[#2]

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@shermans wrote:

I have an interesting problem - for me, that is !

I have an old, very long house with very thick walls.  Getting a wifi signal from my router throughout the house is impossible.  I therefore have a master (BT Home Hub 5) and two (Thompson) wifi routers connected via ethernet which works fine with one exception.  The furthest point in the house involves a signal passing diagonally through one thick wall (making it effectively even thicker) and then through a second thick wall and finally through another wall two walls (the house is long and thin as it was originally three cottages).  Ideally, to reach this furthest point, I could install yet another router but there is no easy way to lay an ethernet cable from the master router unfortunately.

All I need to use this furthest point for is to operate a remote internet switch - nothing else.  

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Have you thought about Homeplugs?

Connect one to the router, and the other to the remote switch. Job done

[#3]

If they are not twisted pair they are likely to severely degrade the broadband speed when you use the switch. Worse it's likely the DLM will intervene and set a high target noise margin so that when you go back to your normal router the speed of that will also be impacted until it's been stable for long enough for the DLM to relent (days if not weeks). Worse still it could be capped and you'd need to raise a fault to get it uncapped.

[#4]

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@shermans wrote:

Obviously, I could not "borrow" these two wires to use for an ethernet cable because they are not twisted pairs and would not work therefore.  

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Presumably this is normal CW1308 telephone cable? If so, it will comprise 3 twisted pairs.

[#5]

If it was a self install extension it may not be - some of the kits I've seen on sale for DIY extensions were rubbish!

[#6]

Quite so, @jelv, but @shermans says that the whole system is run in 6-wire, which suggests a "proper" original installation with no dodgy add-ons.

[#7]

Thanks for the replies.. The telephone installation is six wire throughout the house.  When I bought the house 40 years ago, there was only one telephone socket.  I eventually re-wired the whole house and at the same time installed a new telephone circuit using 6 wire cable as technology was starting to develop.  Unfortunately, ethernet was not thought about at the time, and I installed the ethernet LAN later after all the building renovation was done, and so it was too late to be able to run the ethernet as comprehensively as the telephone circuit.

I had not thought of Homeplugs.  That may be a solution and I will investigate.  I fear that it may not work as, being three cottages originally, two of them are served by a slave consumer unit fed from the master consumer unit by a 10mm twin and earth supply... When I re-wired years ago, the cable runs for the ring mains would have been frankly too long to have only the master consumer unit, and so it was easiest to keep the original structure, although they are both modern units, the slave with RCBs and the master with RCBOs.  I have no idea whether Homeplugs would therefore function in such a layout but it is worth a try.  Thanks for the idea.

[#8]

I've used homeplugs across a master and slave consumer unit before. As long as all the circuits are off the same meter it should work. I've seen a post where someone accidentally managed to connect to their neighbours homeplug because they didn't have the security set up correctly!