Long network wire or 'phone line?

[zcacogp]

Slightly hypothetical question ...

Scenario: I move into a new house, and want to have my PC in an upstairs bedroom/office which has no telephone point in it. The telephone point (singular) is downstairs.

Do I:

1. Run a telephone extension cable up to the bedroom and then plug my modem/router into it there, with a short network cable from the router to the PC, OR:

2. Put the modem/router next to the telephone socket downstairs, and run a long network wire up to the bedroom to connect to the PC?

Given that I want to put a telephone in the office as well, it would seem to be easier to go for option 1), as I will then only be laying one cable. Are there other factors I need to consider?

(Wireless networks are not an option, neither are radiophones. No particular reason, just that I want my main PC to be on a wired network and if I had a wireless 'phone it would never be where I am when it rings.)


Oli.

Edited by zcacogp on Friday 20th October 10:22

[Plotloss]

You can extend both the telephone and the filtered DSL port seperately if you want.

The router should go where the bulk of the equipment is, if there is only one machine then you may as well leave the router next to the phone line and run a long Cat5e.

[obi]

zcacogp said:

Given that I want to put a telephone in the office as well, it would seem to be easier to go for option 1), as I will then only be laying one cable. Are there other factors I need to consider?

Oli.

you hit the nail on the head there...
run a phone line extension upstairs into a secondary BT socket, fit ADSL filter and jobs a good 'un. Dont forget to use an adsl filter on the phone socket downstairs if you plan to have a phone plugged in there as well..

[GreenV8S]

If you're expecting to run broadband over it, you need to make sure that you use the right type of copper phone extension cable and not just an aluminium cheapie. I think for broadband performance/reliability it's best to minimise the amount of wiring between the master socket and the broadband modem, but I don't know how important that is to you.

[zcacogp]

Guys,

Thanks for your answers.

The question is hypothetical, because I have already chosen one option and installed it, and it works fine! I chose option 1, but was wondering whether I could have done better via option 2.

(I have also noticed an error in my previous post, where I wrote 'upstairs' when I meant 'downstairs'. I have corrected it - apologies for any confusion it caused.)

Plotters, you talk about entending the telephone line and the filtered DSL port - what do you mean by the 'filtered DSL port'?

Obi - thanks. Yes, I did remember the filter for the telephone downstairs (you get awful audio quality on the telephone line if you don't use a filter, but the broadband continues to run just fine, as I discovered.)

GreenV8s, I used semi-decent copper cored cable, so I should be OK here. I think that the reliability/speed issue of extending the telephone cable as opposed to using a network cable is the nub of the question I asked. I can get about 2mb BB speed; I was wondering whether I could expect more had I arranged it differently.


Oli.

[GreenV8S]

zcacogp said:

I can get about 2mb BB speed; I was wondering whether I could expect more had I arranged it differently.

How does that compare with the predicted speed shown by the usual availability checkers, and is the difference important to you?

[Plotloss]

If you use the ADSL Nation filtered faceplates you can extend the telephone line and the filtered DSL socket seperately. It obviates the need to have microfilters at every outlet on your phone network.

[zcacogp]

GreenV8S said:

zcacogp said:

I can get about 2mb BB speed; I was wondering whether I could expect more had I arranged it differently.

How does that compare with the predicted speed shown by the usual availability checkers, and is the difference important to you?

That's a good question - I don't know the answer. Does it matter to me? <Am I bovvered?> Ummm, probably not, really. In which case I should wind my neck in and stop bleating, eh?

Plotters, what are the filtered faceplates you speak of? I am guessing a telephone socket with the filter built-in, or possibly a faceplate which allows you both a network socket and a telephone socket. Am I right?


Oli.

[Plotloss]

Faceplate with a filter built in and IDC's for punching down a DSL (RJ11) socket and a telephone socket network seperately

www.adslnation.co.uk