Hardwired internet

T50GSW

Apologies if this is in the wrong place

We’ve moved into a new house and I want to hardwire internet points into soon of the rooms.

At the moment it looks like the master phone socket is in the loft and it drops to a phone point and a dsl cable into one of the bedrooms. The dsl cable plugs into a white bt box then takes an Ethernet connection out of that into a bt infinity hub.

I want to move the router into the loft so I can mount a switch next to it and drop cables to each room that needs it.

I have a few questions about this and hopefully someone could help.

Can I do away with the phone line and get an internet provider to just fit an internet feed in the loft or does it still need the phone line too? We won’t have a home phone as everything is done through our mobiles now.

Am I right in thinking that I can just plug an Ethernet cable into the back of the router and connect the switch to drop the hardwired cables or is it a bit move involved than that? Also, if I had a fibre optic supply, would cat6 cable hardwired in the walls still work or would it need to be a different cable?

If I have the hardwired points, will the router still send out WiFi as well for phones and tablets to use or is it one or the other?

Thanks

maf1970

From your description you already have a connection wired into the loft. The point in the bedroom sounds like an extension for convenience. The white box is probably a modem so it sounds like the previous owner was an early subscriber to BT Infinity. The master socket should have a section that should come off and the socket below should be red.

Are there any mains points in the loft ? If not then you will need at least 2 for what you want to do.
Hardwiring network cables depends on how your house is built. Older houses have the gap behind the wall that makes this quite easy. Newer houses tend to have a common pipe area and you will feed all the cables down this and then out to each floor under the floorboards.
Always run more cables than you actually need as it makes it easier to fix quickly by just changing to another connection and then allows time to fix if possible. For most things Cat 5e should be sufficient but what cable you use will depend on how much you are willing to spend. Get your components from a reputable source. Be wary of cheap imitation cable as it is useless.

As far as I know only Virgin Media offer something like this so you would need to be in an area they supply otherwise broadband still relies on the phone line. Even if you don't use the phone line always have a cheap standard BT phone handy as it can be useful for checking the line.

It is slightly more involved than that but you are 2/3rds there. The hardwired cables to the room would come back to a patch panel and then this would be connected to the switch. Normally you would get a switch that is big enough to take all patch panel connections as it saves messing about later. Now you may ask what about the other LAN ports on the Router ? Well these can be used for specific connections. A common example would be for a console to be hardwired for best possible connection. In this case the patch panel port wouldn't connect to the switch but directly to the router.
If you had a direct fibre optic feed then the network cabling would still work as the modem/router used will have a LAN connection.

The router will still send out wifi unless you disable it. However it is always worth making a map of your property and wifi coverage to find any black spots as this is one of the commonest complaints people have. These can be resolved using Access Points or Home Plugs that have wifi built in.

T50GSW

Lovely thank you, your answer covers everything I needed to know