Extended cabling question

Not really hardware...But I couldn't figure out where else to post it!

I'm trying to sort out my grandfathers PC and part of the problem is that the telephone socket is 'miles' away (60(ish) feet) from where his PC is and he has a multitude of extension cables dangling from everywhere!

So....Would I be better off having a telephone extension cable running through the house to the room where the PC is, then attach the router to this and have just a short Cat5 cable from the router to the PC?

...OR...

Attach the router to the telephone socket at its current location and run Cat5 cable all the way to the PC?

Basically I would like to know which is going to the best out of his internet connection.

Cheers
Glenn

P.S. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are building up to a Happy New Year.

Plan B I think as you can sometimes have problems with telephone extensions unless you use a high quality cable, etc.

Cheers tech_guy, I was kinda hoping that was gonna be the answer as I can get my hands on cat5 cable easier than telephone cable!!

I agree... you need to keep your telephone line as short as possible and as high-a-quality as possible (i.e. high quality cable and minimal number of joints).

Of course, you don't always have the option of not moving the socket.

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Originally Posted by gloriousglenn

Cheers tech_guy, I was kinda hoping that was gonna be the answer as I can get my hands on cat5 cable easier than telephone cable!!

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telephone cable is not at all hard to get hold of - maplins for instance, but I wouldn't go with either of the options mentioned...

Just connect his router to one of the new draft-n access point with a good antenna and wack a PCI wifi card in his PC. I know connectivity may be an issue if the signal has to travel through a brick wall but the experience should be more than adequate for a silver surfer.

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Originally Posted by tech_guy

Plan B I think as you can sometimes have problems with telephone extensions unless you use a high quality cable, etc.

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Huh?? Phone cable is "as cheap as chips" and is much less critical in its installation and termination than CAT5. I'd extend the phone line myself (you may not want to, depending on your bolshi-ness towards the phone company) especially if you have the two-part master socket designed for customer extension wiring. Cable and sockets from CPC or Maplin.

This way, not only do you get broadband at the PC, but you can have a phone point too!

Depending on the quality of the phone line, extending it any further will more than likely lead to a poorer broadband signal. That's one reason why it is recommended to connect ADSL modems to the master socket.

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Originally Posted by webman

Depending on the quality of the phone line, extending it any further will more than likely lead to a poorer broadband signal. That's one reason why it is recommended to connect ADSL modems to the master socket.

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Exactly.

Another vote for option B. You want the ADSL modem as close as possible to the master socket.

Worth noting thou that you can use cat5 cable as telephone cable, infact most modern telephone installations will do this. Even BT now appear to, as my parents recently had the cable replaced on their phoneline from their master box to the road, and BT used cat5 cable for the job!

Mike.

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Originally Posted by maniac

Another vote for option B. You want the ADSL modem as close as possible to the master socket.

Worth noting thou that you can use cat5 cable as telephone cable, infact most modern telephone installations will do this. Even BT now appear to, as my parents recently had the cable replaced on their phoneline from their master box to the road, and BT used cat5 cable for the job!

Mike.

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Yes, I've seen that done by BT too. And I've done it in my own house when I wanted a phone extension in the shed.

Must admit I don't own any drums of phone cable anymore, when they ran out that was it, I just use CAT5e for it, its cheaper than phone cable and TBH a better product, also means if for some reason you want to change it to a network socket you still have all 4 pairs to go at :)

I would opt for a plan C,

Use a pair of powerline adapters to provide ethernet connectivity from the router to any where in the house, no rewiring.

or Plan d,

Simply make it wireless!

It's so cheap nowadays is it really worth the hassle of running Cat5 around your home?

Any extra, reasonable, cabling within your house will have only the slightest impact on your ADSL connection.

If you think about it, the cable has traveled miles to get to your house so an extra 100ft isn't going to make much difference :)

But always remember that you need £30/metre, oxygen free cables for speakers :lol:

regards

Simon

If you already have a weak broadband signal, extra length of cable and breaks/joins may make it bad enough to be unusable. Also remember phone extension cable isn't shielded (or twisted) and may be running next to all sorts of interference sources in your home which can again, degrade the already-low broadband signal.

I would go wireless or run the CAT5e from the router & have a short telephone cable. I think 60ft of CAT5e would have less impact on the signal than 60ft of telephone cable, but as said previously, you could use the CAT5e as telephone cable. Telephone cable is still twisted pair, but I think it is slightly thinner.