Router Placement

[Jonj1611]

Bit of a strange one this. I am going back to a normal DSL modem from Virgin, now my telephone point is in a corner of the house and no matter what type of router I place there the wireless is no good.

So I am using my AX1800 router for the wireless and just leaving the Sky modem doing its modem thing. Now my question is I want to get the router into its current position in the lounge which is probably going to use around 15 meters of cable once I have gone around the skirting boards etc.

So my question is, is it better to :

Get a longer RJ11 cable (yes I know RJ11 is the connector) to go from the telephone point to the modem in the lounge which is then connected to the wireless AP

Or

Is it better to have the router next to the phone socket and use a long network cable instead to have the AP point in the lounge?

Reason for asking : Will I lose less signal degradation between the two methods if any at all. What cable is best over say max 25 meter distance if any.

[DDY]

A long Ethernet cable would be my preference over a long phone cable, especially at 25m

Long phone (RJ11) cables have been known to degrade internet connection performance and the rule-of-thumb is to keep phone cables as short as possible. On the other hand, Ethernet cables can run many tens of meters without any impact on performance.

[Saracen999]

Your biggest signal degradation is almost certain to be in the wifi bit, not the wired bit. Wifi, whether 2.4G or 5G or higher for Wifi 6, 6E etc is pretty high frequency signals and, the higher they get, the more susceptible to interference. Even walls and ceiling can have a big effect, but large lumps of metal, like an oven, fridge/freezer, etc can be devastating.

The good news is that it is possible, and I put it no stronger than that, is that a fairly small relocation can make a huge difference .... if you move it so that such items aren't a blockage. You might find that, quite literally, even a few feet (like two or three) can.

Failing that, move the router (IMHO) so as to get the antenna as centrally located between areas you want coverage as you can, and remember, multiple antenna (if you have them, and they're visible) aren't necessarily completely omnidirectional, and that applies to vertically with bells on. Even rotating the router, say 90 degrees, is worth trying. It might well not help, but it's worth a try. As is (if you haven't already) getting a wifi analyser app for your phone and checking you're not set on a frequency that happens to be very busy locally to you. If so, move to a quieter/empty one.

You may have already done all that but if not, it's quick, easy and pretty much zero cost so I suggest giving it a try before getting cables, etc.

If you do end up getting cables, then yep, I'd go ethernet over phone unless you live in a massive house and are moving it huge distances.

Also note - not all ethernet cables are born equal, and I highly suggest buying a decent brand, not cheap and cheerful. If in doubt, find a youtube vid on people that have done cable testing. I think LTT did USB and HDMI, though I don't remember seeing LAN cables. Still, maybe some hints on brands.

[Jonj1611]

Thanks for the replies.

The wireless router I currently have is absolutely fine in its location in the lounge. Strong signal in everyroom. But its not an ADSL modem which is where the problem lays. At the moment the Virgin cable comes into the lounge and connects to the router in the lounge and that router connects to the wireless router.

But the telephone point is in a corner near the front door. Which brings me to my question of what is best, to either bring the modem into the lounge or leave it in the hallway and run a cable to the wireless router.

Are flat network cables any good? I mean do they differ much from the normal variety apart from being flat?

[DDY]

Flat network cables have a bad reputation in some circles. It’s true that they’re physically and electrically less robust than your typical round network cable, pragmatically, I’m not convinced that there’s a performance penalty for typical home use.

[Jonj1611]

Yes thought that might be the case. Being practical flat cable would be ideal as I need it to look like it belongs and go under some carpet in places and under a door

[DanceswithUnix]

The easy way is to keep the phone cable short, and use a long ethernet cable.

The RJ11 cables are usually not twisted pair and shielded like ethernet cables. Now, you only need two conductors, and you can make a cable from some spare ethernet cable if you have an RJ11 plug and a crimping tool by using a single pair in the cat6 cable. But really, it's a faff, and still won't be ideal as you want to keep that phone side as short as possible and 15m is a very long run.

I personally keep the VDSL modem close to the phone point, and run Ethernet to the WiFi access point (which these days is a mesh, so probably not so critical).

[Jonj1611]

I think after the advice on here will keep the modem next to the phone socket and run a flat ethernet to the lounge with the wireless router in it. If there is a problem with the flat wire I will change it to normal, its pretty cheap now for short runs even decent cable.

[Hoonigan]

Long phone (RJ11) cables have been known to degrade internet connection performance and the rule-of-thumb is to keep phone cables as short as possible. On the other hand, Ethernet cables can run many tens of meters without any impact on performance.

Do you have anything I can read about this please? As a BT engineer, I reckon that isn't correct. The signal has already travelled many hundreds of metres, sometimes thousands of metres, adding a 20M telco cable with an RJ11 connector on the end is no problem.

We move master sockets all the time, often to another room, and have no issues with it.

Having said that, if you buy a telephone extension cable and use that, they can kill your signal because they're often not the correct type of cable.

[Hoonigan]

Yes thought that might be the case. Being practical flat cable would be ideal as I need it to look like it belongs and go under some carpet in places and under a door

When you mention the cable going under a carpet, will that be across a section where it will get stepped on? I've seen some cables get absolutely destroyed even when they're beneath underlay and a carpet.

[Jonj1611]

No I mis typed it doesnt actually go under the carpet. It will go around the skirting board and across a door, because we have a puppy at the moment there is brown tape going across the carpet under the door to stop the puppy eating the strands of carpet, so I will tape the cable under that tape if that makes any sense at all. It will probably get walked on but its a low traffic area. Hardly anyone apart from me goes in the lounge these days.

[DDY]

Do you have anything I can read about this please? As a BT engineer, I reckon that isn't correct. The signal has already travelled many hundreds of metres, sometimes thousands of metres, adding a 20M telco cable with an RJ11 connector on the end is no problem.

We move master sockets all the time, often to another room, and have no issues with it.

Having said that, if you buy a telephone extension cable and use that, they can kill your signal because they're often not the correct type of cable.

I used to work in electronics retail and with few exceptions; everything with RJ11 connectors on both ends was 4 core non-twisted flat cable, which from training and my own experience I know that long lengths of this cable can be problematic for DSL. Put it this way, we had enough customer complaints that it became a topic for training, and of course an opportunity to promote the "high-performance designed for DSL" cable.

I was simplifying the options a bit, I agree that an appropriate cable would not have any impact on performance, crimp on RJ11 connectors on a length of twisted pair, say CAT5, happy days. It’s quite a bit of work finding such a >20m cable for sale, online or otherwise, that won’t turn out to be a regular non-twisted phone cable.

Given the complications of phone cable construction, my simplified recommendation is to extend the network rather than the phone line.

[Iota]

I personally keep the VDSL modem close to the phone point, and run Ethernet to the WiFi access point (which these days is a mesh, so probably not so critical).

Similar, modem by the access point, attached to a mesh router. I also had an ethernet sockets / cable run in the cavity of the wall to another point in my bungalow connected to another mesh router. Benefits of both wired connection and also being mesh, extends the wifi coverage for everything. Otherwise I just get piss poor signal over a large area.

So now running mesh with wired backbone. Eliminated all of my problems, and can be extended if needs be with additional mesh points.

[Saracen999]

Similar to Iota. A few differences, but similar.

[Hoonigan]

So now running mesh with wired backbone. Eliminated all of my problems, and can be extended if needs be with additional mesh points.

That's the dream set up right there

[DanceswithUnix]

Do you have anything I can read about this please? As a BT engineer, I reckon that isn't correct. The signal has already travelled many hundreds of metres, sometimes thousands of metres, adding a 20M telco cable with an RJ11 connector on the end is no problem.

We move master sockets all the time, often to another room, and have no issues with it.

Having said that, if you buy a telephone extension cable and use that, they can kill your signal because they're often not the correct type of cable.

Electronic Engineering degree here: You basically nailed it there in the last sentence, the cable is sometimes cheap junk not really suitable for the job which kills the high frequency response. So I'm sure what you've been doing is fine as I can't imagine they gave you the wrong cable. In fact, it's probably more perfectly matched to the cable coming into the house than anything I could get my hands on.

The copper on that "last mile" from the cabinet is all twisted pair, and that is what a (v)dsl system is designed to drive. Then it gets to the house, and it's all too easy to drop in some straight modem cable that kills the signal.

But it's a little more nuanced than that. How fast a dsl connection is depends on the frequency response of the cable, and that partly depends on its length. So if you extend a cable, then you are at best eating into the noise margin and probably dropping the connection speed if only a bit. Hence my comment above: If you have a choice, use a short cable to the dsl modem and then run the long bit with Ethernet. That way the Ethernet is a fresh signal which even at gigabit speeds a cheap cat5e can manage across the average house and that's a simple off the shelf cable.

In terms of reading, it sounds like you are already getting it right but that would be transmission line theory (urgh!), how unshielded twisted pair cable works and how dsl modems use the available spectrum on a cable.