Making the most of my Internet connection.

mattord

Hi. I'm hoping someone on this forum can help me out with a couple of questions I have regarding the hardware side of my internet connection.

Before I get to the questions I'll briefly explain the current setup I have.

The BT master socket is located in a porch (extended out from the front of the house).  I'm aware there are different types of master socket.   This is the type of master socket i have installed

                                                                                                                                               

The router I am using is a Netgear Nighthawk D7000.  The router is connected with the supplied cable and microfilter, directly into the BT master socket.

The questions i have are
Does the type of master socket have any significant impact of the quality or speed of the broadband connection?  If so, which socket is the best one to get.I'd like to move the router from the porch into the living room.  This distance is probably around 5 meters. Is there any cable I can use to achieve this without loosing signal strength.Any advice would be much appreciated.

Matt

mickevh

The socket pictured looks like a fairly modern one, so one suspects changing it would not make any great difference - indeed any "difference" could potentially be worse, ie it's a bit of a gamble and no guarantee of improvement.

In any case, everything up to and including the master socket "belongs" to OpenReach and subscribers are not at liberty to tamper with it. You are supposed to get OpenReach to do it and of course they will charge. Indeed, if contemplating paying OpenReach to "do something," you may as well have them move the master socket to a more convenient location.

5m shouldn't be big deal - think about how far it's already traveled to get as far as the MS - a few meters more shouldn't have that dramatic an effect. However, to facilitate such an extension one should use good quality UTP cable (same as is used for ethernet) not cheap flat "ribbon" cable such as is often sold as "telephone extension" cable (same as is often supplied with the router, albeit at shorter lengths.) The "twists" in UTP (the "T" in UTP) reject a great deal of interference, flat/ribbon cable lacks the twist and thus is more susceptible to interference. I've sent ADSL over 100m from a master socket over UTP with no discernible loss of data rates.

There are guides on the Internet of how to attach RJ11 and/or "BT" type connectors onto UTP if you want to make up your own cables or cannot find any pre-made ones. For the cost of a 5m cable at only a few pounds, you might care to "just try it" and see what difference it makes.

mattord

I've bought the materials to make up my own cable.  Thanks for the advice.

mickevh

We'd be interested to hear the results.

mattord

For anyone who may be interested. Instead of a 5m cable (which would of allowed me to place the router next to the TV). I decided  to buy 20 meters of CAT5 cable and place the router at the opposite end of the living room (a more central location in the house).

I tried to carry out the speed tests under the same conditions, time of day, number of devices connected etc..

All of the following results are averaged over 4 tests, using 2 different sites.

With the router located in the porch (using the original cable) I was getting speeds of
Living room - 36 Mbps Bedroom 3 - 8 MbpsBedroom 4 - 11 MbpsWith the router located in the living room (using the new cable), I was getting speeds of
Living room 38 MbpsBedroom 3 - 18 MbpsBedroom 4 - 22 MbpsThe Improvement in the 2 bedrooms at the extremes of the house is quite significant.  For less than £15 and a little bit of time, I'd say it was well worth the effort.