Moving a Fibre Router

Yes

Yes, (though the connector is RJ45 not RJ11, RJ11 you may know as the old ADSL cable). A CAT5e cable is what you require. Ethernet craps out at about 100 yards on a single run.

though the connector is RJ45 not RJ11, RJ11 you may know as the old ADSL cable

Depends what you mean by "fibre" - if it is "Fibre to the Cabinet" (FTTC) then it could still be an RJ11 that connects router to the "wallbox". If its Full Fibre (FTTP) then RJ45.

Also if using PoE make sure it's solid copper not copper coated aluminium. The latter is not considered safe cabling. (Learned from this very forum)

Excellent. Take it this will do?

https://www.screwfix.com/p/philex-grey-unshielded-rj45-cat-5e-ethernet-cable-5m/50334

Is it a WiFi router? If so, how big is your TV? 

I have friends who have put the router behind their TV's in the past and have then had awful WiFi connectivity because the TV was screening the router.

May be absolutely fine but worth considering.

Not as bad as behind the fish tank though.

Depends what you mean by “fibre” – if it is “Fibre to the Cabinet” (FTTC) then it could still be an RJ11 that connects router to the “wallbox”. If its Full Fibre (FTTP) then RJ45.

That's an interesting point.

A photo would help before you spend money, or at least a description of what service you've bought.

It’s the full fibre 300. Ie no phone line. Pic now included.
TV is only 40”, only router has been there for years. No fish tanks involved.

Listen to what @vmgscot said. It depends on what is in your house.

I would need a RJ11 if doing the same as my router and modem are the same device and I've got fibre to the cabinet which enters the house via the 'telephone' wall box.

Assuming its the red one your swapping out then the screwfix cable will work just fine.

Then that Screwfix cable will be fine.

Related question, is the cable on the left a power cable, i.e. it's going into a plug socket at the other end?

We're due FTTP in the near future (fingers crossed), but if it needs to be powered then that could be a bit of a PITA, as we're in a very old house with, to modern standards, sod all plug sockets...

Related question, is the cable on the left a power cable, i.e. it’s going into a plug socket at the other end?

We’re due FTTP in the near future (fingers crossed), but if it needs to be powered then that could be a bit of a PITA, as we’re in a very old house with, to modern standards, sod all plug sockets…

Yes it is and yes it does need power.

Left to right:

power, cable to router, cable to external box.

@IHNyou need two sockets, one for wall box, one for router

We’re due FTTP in the near future (fingers crossed), but if it needs to be powered then that could be a bit of a PITA, as we’re in a very old house with, to modern standards, sod all plug sockets…

Yes, you need power to the box on the wall and power to the router.

Yes. My ONT (a CityFibre one) needs power.

Yes, you need power to the box on the wall and power to the router.

That's not a router. You do also need a router, but that's an Optical Network Terminator which connects your router to the fibre network.

Sorry. I read your comment properly now... As you were.

zomg
Free Member
Yes, you need power to the box on the wall and power to the router.

That’s not a router. You do also need a router, but that’s an Optical Network Terminator which connects your router to the fibre network.

Yes, hence I said that you need power to the box on the wall (the thing pictured) and the router.

@IHNyou need two sockets, one for wall box, one for router

Thanks

*mutter, grumble, stupid bloody house*

*mutter, grumble, stupid bloody house*

I've just got a few 6 plug extension things in my ancient house.

Take care around the green ended one as that appears to be the fibre  optic "cable". Break that and Openreach will probably want to bill you. City Fibre went into the back of our ONT with the fibre optics. Nothing for the dog to snag.

Take care around the green ended one as that appears to be the fibre optic “cable”. Break that and Openreach will probably want to bill you.

In the (openreach) exterior box, there should be a flat spool of excess fibre wire, so you can feed some more through and re-terminate in this kind of eventuality, technically it's still an openreach job, but its not quite as big a headache as it would be if there was no 'slack'.

quite as big a headache as it would be if there was no ‘slack’.

If there's teenagers in the house Openreach will be but a clap of thunder in the distance compared to the protests at losing internet access for a couple of days!!

Yeah I have an issue with poor sockets too, so just use a tower for the ones on the living room. 

They broke the fibre (green one) during the install and had to fit a 2nd.

Only the two of us and it’s tucked out of the way so should be fine

Take care around the green ended one as that appears to be the fibre optic “cable”. Break that and Openreach will probably want to bill you.

You should just be able to unplug it and extend it with another fibre using a back to back connector....

Ethernet craps out at about 100 yards on a single run.

100m and it's a latency issue with the ethernet protocol, over 100m run and it just stops working completely, no matter how good the cable. You can extend it with a switch or hub half way along the run.

 

100m

I had it in my head it was 97m and (badly) rounded by saying yards instead. In any case, it shouldn't be an issue unless the OP's living room is Old Trafford.

100mts

I had it in my head it was 97m and (badly) rounded by saying yards instead. In any case, it shouldn’t be an issue unless the OP’s living room is Old Trafford.

Yeah, for a domestic install it's neither here nor there...unless you have 100's of users shunting around gigabits of data 24/7 between your NAS drive, ipad and smart tv...

If you are going to lay a cable (Fnar) anyway, it might be prudent to use STP (shielded twisted pair) rather than UTP (unshielded twisted pair) for the negligable difference in price.

Honestly, for a single 5m cable run in a domestic property I'd be astonished if either copper/CCA or UTP/STP mattered (and the posher cables can be more awkward to work with).

I've laid countless cables (fnarr indeed) in Structured Cabling environments. The horizontal runs came off a big drum of single core and the patch cables were whatever was the approximately correct length (and still had the tabs on the jacks because life's too short for that crap) out of a big box of spaghetti. No-one ever died.

I Am Not A Network Engineer.

Oh I agree with you...even the cheapest cat 6 in a domestic application is massive overkill compared to cat 5...

But I always have in the back of my mind:

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

Allegedly said by Bill gates in reference to sys RAM,   ;-D

I know I'm comparing apples to oranges here.

STP might come in usefull if you are laying cable (fnar again) next to power cables etc... but it's not realistically going to be an issue in a domestic environment.

even the cheapest cat 6 in a domestic application is massive overkill compared to cat 5…

This is an argument I've posited several times. A CAT6 cable in isolation does not provide a CAT6 connection.

But I always have in the back of my mind:

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”

Allegedly said by Bill gates in reference to sys RAM, ;-D

It's an urban myth, but I take your point.

There's an argument that if you're installing cables - burying them in the wall - then CAT6 makes more sense. Personally in this scenario if your concern is futureproofing then I'd want to bury trunking so you can pull whatever cable you want for when your new 20Gbps internet feed requires CAT8.

STP might come in usefull if you are laying cable (fnar again) next to power cables etc… but it’s not realistically going to be an issue in a domestic environment.

Lengthy parallel runs alongside power lines perhaps, or (EMR) noisy environments. Eg, I'd want STP in a machine room filled with lathes and press drills and the like.

There’s an argument that if you’re installing cables – burying them in the wall – then CAT6 makes more sense. Personally in this scenario if your concern is futureproofing then I’d want to bury trunking so you can pull whatever cable you want for when your new 20Gbps internet feed requires CAT8.

Screw CAT6, I'm going straight to CAT8.

CAT9, Shirley?

As the proverb says... so it should be!

C'mon, I've been waiting for years to make that joke, I'm still premature but not even one like?

hehehe!

We are having FTTP installed next week (CityFibre). We currently use a Nest mesh around the house. Given that there appears to be a LAN connection on the ONT, does anyone know if I can connect the Nest router directly to the ONT rather than using the Broadband suppliers router?

does anyone know if I can connect the Nest router directly to the ONT rather than using the Broadband suppliers router?

Yes you can connect any router straight to the ONT and put the supplier’s one in the bin. You’ll just need to be able to make some PPPoE settings in the router for the correct connection. Googling should find them. I used my own Asus mesh router firstly with BT FTTP and now Sky (albeit the same physical connection and ONT).

I was able to use my existing ASUS MESH plugged directly into my BRSK ONT box.

It took a while to get an IP assigned first off but it worked and I did not need to use the supplied HUGE BRSK router.

Thanks both. Look forward to giving it a try.

Yes you can connect any router straight to the ONT and put the supplier’s one in the bin.

I'd check with your supplier on the latter. It's exactly what I did, but they wanted theirs back and sent a man in a van to collect it. You might get a bill if you just toss it, it's their property.

You’ll just need to be able to make some PPPoE settings in the router for the correct connection.

I don't think I had to change anything on mine, it Just Worked. But I was coming from Virgin cable Ethernet to Brsk FTTP Ethernet.

IDNet required a VLAN tag to be set on our router. Otherwise it was plain sailing.

I’d check with your supplier on the latter. It’s exactly what I did, but they wanted theirs back and sent a man in a van to collect it. You might get a bill if you just toss it, it’s their property.

I assumed the dear reader would realise I was being facetious.

I assumed the dear reader would realise I was being facetious.

Poe's Law

I should always remember Mr Edwards The English Teacher’s (Probably Stolen) Law…

“Never assume, it makes an ass out of u and me”

I’d check with your supplier on the latter. It’s exactly what I did, but they wanted theirs back and sent a man in a van to collect it. You might get a bill if you just toss it, it’s their property.

They wanted the one they sent me (by mistake) back, and the one my FiL had, they wanted that back.

No idea why, the routers probably only cost about 10 quid each. (and they wanted 5 or 6 quid a month as a "service contract" on them.)
Probably something to do with disposal of electronics.

Update:

We ran the new longer cable for a couple of weeks to make it worked ok, before @ahsat placed it under the carpet. All good, thanks for your help ☺️ 

Good stuff.

There's no proplem running longer ethernet cables in most domestic environments... assuming the cable legnth is 'sensible'...

I can't imagine many sceanarios when you'd need to run more than a 20 or 30m cable, never mind 50m+...it's a more reliable way of doing it as you're not relying on wi-fi or power adaptors or anything like that... you should basicaly get full speed all the time.

We run twin 50m CAT-5 cables down to the workshop at the end of the garden...

Why twin? is it the distance or a redundant one incase one fails?

Not going to lie that turned into a more epic afternoon than expected - especially as there was mission creep and I ended up deep cleaning the sitting room in the process! Anyway, I avoided putting the carpet grippers through the Ethernet cable, and hard wired several other devices in too. Success!! Thanks all.

I know it’s all done now, but as someone else mentioned on the first page, you can extend the fibre “passively” and run that (much thinner) cable to wherever you want to have the ONT. One advantage of this is you don’t need power near the original location where they bring the fibre into the house. I’ve moved my ONT to a cabinet where I have a UPS, router, switch etc. You need a fibre “coupler” and a length of fibre preterminated to the length you need (or longer, you can coil the slack).