Extending wifi to garden room (and a network problem I forgot I had)

Phantom151

Is this in your self-build? I only ask because if it is then someone has installed network points for you and they might go to a central location with a patch panel. If you have a central comms room/point then get your tame sparky/cable puller to run a cable from there to the garden room.

Failing that, you could get someone to install a network point somewhere by your internet router that will then come out in the garden room...

fezster

Powerline fulfils a purpose but is hit and miss and the advertised speeds are never achieved. Running an ethernet cable is always the preferred option, although not always practical.

For any residential dwelling, cat 5e is more than good enough. It's easier to work with than cat 6 and has a smaller diameter to route around the house. It will even do 10 gig, if required, although most people will not require more than 1 gig for a long while.

Doozer - your router is a switch with wifi in one unit. You can continue to use that wifi and extend it or you can go for a mesh like setup like I said in my previous post.

Grenage

You could use the existing spare cable and patch it through, but in reality a homeplug connector will probably be absolutely fine.  With new electrical cabling you should get excellent speeds.  All the modern homeplug stuff is also encrypted, so there are no security concerns.

But yes, a cable is best because it can't really go wrong.

We use a homeplug pair to run a wifi extender in the garage.  One goes next to the router and connects to it using a patch lead, the wifi extender goes in the garage.

Doozergirl

Phantom151 said:

Is this in your self-build? I only ask because if it is then someone has installed network points for you and they might go to a central location with a patch panel. If you have a central comms room/point then get your tame sparky/cable puller to run a cable from there to the garden room.

Failing that, you could get someone to install a network point somewhere by your internet router that will then come out in the garden room...

Yes.  I will go and take some photos of things because you're all being incredibly helpful.  

FreeBear

neilmcl said: If you're going to connect a switch to a router then you don't need a crossover cable.

Maybe... I certainly needed one when I tried.

Grenage

FreeBear said:

neilmcl said: If you're going to connect a switch to a router then you don't need a crossover cable.

Maybe... I certainly needed one when I tried.

ALmost everything is auto-mdix  these days, so it doesn't normally matter.

Eldi_Dos

When you are getting new garden room's installed would a telecomm company supply to it or want to run direct to main house.

Grumpy_chap

Doozergirl said:

I've heard that there are things that you can plug in and they turn your electrical

circuits into extensions of the wifi.  Is that correct?  Are some better than others?  

If you can run CAT5/6 cable, that is always going to be the most reliable outcome.  What I would have done with hindsight.

The powerline adaptors that plug in and make electric sockets can work. 
They defy logic as it puts signal down the power cable, yet when running separate cables the power and signal cable have to be kept apart. 
Some are better than others - we had a very cheap Lidl powerline system and it worked well for a number of years but then faulted - some internal component went wrong.
Because that had been so good, I went powerline again, but several more expensive options later I gave up.

I now have Google WIFI which is absolutely fantastic and creates a single WIFI network from which I can work anywhere in the house.  This is what I'd recommend for anyone who cannot do an ethernet cable solution.

Doozergirl

Totally unsexy wires. 

Four sets of loose Cat 5E headed for the four TV points and enough copper dropwire to shake a stick at.  

The internet coming into a cupboard in the lounge. Is the green wire where it comes in?

And the house board with no garden room on it, which I think is outside, so the powerline things wouldn't work anyway? 

Would it be impossible to pull new Cat 5 through whilst pulling copper out? The amount of slack is a little bit tight to pull it back from the TV. Maybe not impossible though. 

The wired route to the garden room from the lounge would be about 30 metres.   The distance, if I get the main router into the blue cupboard in the kitchen is only about 10 metres.  The garden is not big! 
 

If I still have the old router then I think the wire with that might be the first option, or do I try mesh first from there?  

I have spent a lot of reading back over this lot and doing a bit of back-up Googling, I think it's starting to sink in.  

Doozergirl

Eldi_Dos said:

When you are getting new garden room's installed would a telecomm company supply to it or want to run direct to main house.

If it was a separate, brand new line, I'm sure they'd install it anywhere, otherwise it's our job to get the wire/signal
across the whole property.