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ADSL/VDSL/FTTC/FTTP/FTTH are the names of (some of the) technologies used to carry digital data services to premises (usually) piggy backed on top of the "voice" circuit. The ones listed are either carried to the premises on on copper cable (ADSL/VDSL/FTTC) or fibre optic cable (FTTP/FTTH.)
These are common technologies and in use the UK, and probably other territories, but the exact details of what you are getting many vary depending on the service provider's preferences, local legislation, etc.
For example, in the UK, the incoming (ADSL/VDSL/FTTC) circuit up to and including a designated demarcation point often known as the "Master Socket" belongs to the infrastructure provider (OpenReach usually) and as such it cannot be moved or otherwise tampered with. For new build, it can sometimes be a bit of a bun fight deciding where it goes and when it's installed and once done, you have to get the Telco involved if ever you want to move it.
The good news is you should be able to locate a router pretty much anywhere if the demarcation point is not convenient. For certain technologies (such as FTTP) the line termination equipment (often called an ONT - you can think of it as being an external "modem" on the end of the line) might have to be at the demarcation, but they often then present the data service onto ethernet over UTP. Thusly you can then feed that to your router's "WAN/Internet" port up to 100m away as long as you install a suitable UTP cable from the ONT to the router position.
To to paint an example to illustrate: Imagine the best place for your router is in the loft and your incoming phone is terminated in lets say the kitchen. You've installed a pair of UTP runs from all rooms up to the loft also. So far so good, install router and switch in loft, connect both up then connect up all the "live" ethernet lobes to the rooms as required.
So far so good, you've good a perfectly good LAN, albeit one that doesn't have an Internet connection. All that's needed to facilitate Intenet, is a cable from the routers WAN/Internet port from the loft down to the kitchen and connected it to the ONT or master socket depending on how it's delivered. Hence, you want to plan for installing a suitable loft-kitchen UTP cable lobe when planning your UTP installation. The loft-kitchen lobe doesn't need to be anything fancy, ordinary cat5e same as all the rest will be just fine.
But there's more - the router-switch link doesn't have to be co-located either: Such as link could also be in different room is it's more convenient. Again, spitballing, lets say incoming Internet service terminates in kitchen, router in loft, switch in cupboard under the stairs, all other "ethernet" UTP drops fan out from there.
Ethernet can run up to 100m over cat5e or better UTP, ADSL/VDSL can run over UTP too (albeit they must be kept electrically separate from your ethernet as they are electrically incompatible.)
What matters here is the topology rather than the physical cable length (up to the 100m which is thusly unlikely to be an issue in a domestic premises) so with the right cables in the right places, you can pretty much plan to physically deploy anything anywhere you like. But the time to consider what cabling goes where is at the install phase (as you are doing.)
So the topology needs to be:
ISP circuit ~~~line termination --- [WAN]router[LAN] --- switch --- everything else.
As long as the topology is satisfied, because each of the --- ethernet lobes can be up to 100m long meaning the kit can effectively be deployed anywhere it's most convenient.
Thusly in the example I've used for illustration you might find you have multiple kitchen-loft lobes (over and above the "spares" other have recommended) one which takes a service from the ONT in the kitchen "up" to the loft an the router's WAN port, one which delivers a line back "the other way" from one of the routers "LAN" port to a normal RJ45 socket in the kitchen for whatever you want to plug in there.
The time to consider all this is when planning out your cabling. You might care to draw up some diagrams to aid the planning. One a "topology" diagram (such as given above in ASCII art) and one a "physical" diagram showing what cables go where. You could colour code the links to make them easy to identify - say green for all "LAN" links from your router's LAN ports and ports off your switch, blue for the router-switch interlink (whether you co-locate them or not) and red for the link from Master Socket/ONT (depending what you are getting) to router WAN/Internet port. In big business plans, we give each lobe a unique name/number too.
If you thence gave than plan to your cable installer, they will love you forever (and if they are good, may even advise you if they see any issues.) Post them up here if you want some opinions - it doesn't need to be pretty.
You sometimes see ISP's and others saying the "router needs to be a close as possible to the master socket" for ADSL/VDSL/FTTC type installations. Don't worry about that - it's true if you use the nasty flat "modem" cable that comes with the kit that it's better to have the MS---router link shorter for performance reasons, but if you bin that cable and use UTP instead, you can run it much further with no performance loss. (Though you might have to hack the UTP cables a bit to get the correct sockets/plugs on the ends, but that's easy enough to do.)
Incidentally, whilst installing all this cabing, you might consider adding extra lobes for telephone, cameras, TV and the like - but that another whole discussion probably as long as this one. |
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2-12-2019 04:40:50
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