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Extending RJ45 Connection to Smart Hub 2

Alfa1 — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 08:55:11 GMT

Hi - I have recently had BT Full Fibre 900 fitted. Where the fibre comes into the house is in a pretty remote room and so the wifi in the rest of the house is pretty awful. So I am thinking of wiring up an ethernet Cat 6 extension from the Openreach Fibre port to the router replacing the red tipped cable supplied by BT. This would allow the router to sit in a more central part of the house and would require an extension of about 10m.

Is this possible to do and if so what cable should I use - Cat5 or 6? and any special requirements?

I do already have the BT discs but still have lots of areas in the house that are very low wifi - hence the question.

Thanks

Re: Extending RJ45 Connection to Smart Hub 2

imjolly — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 09:07:35 GMT

you don't need to use the red tipped ethernet cable supplied and ethernet cable 10m or more can be used and should be cat 5E or higher

Re: Extending RJ45 Connection to Smart Hub 2

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 09:08:15 GMT

@Alfa1

The "Openreach Fibre port" is called the "ONT". The ethernet cable connecting the ONT to the router, (Smart Hub 2), can in theory be up to 100 metres long.

IIRC, Cat5 is speced up to 100Mbits/sec, whilst both CAT5e and CAT6 are speced up to 1000Mbits/sec - with CAT6 having greater protection against crosstalk interference than CAT5e.

Bearing in mind that you have the 900Mbit/sec service, and that all if the traffic across your internet connection will flow through this one cable, I would go for a good quality CAT6 cable.

Also, you have mentioned an "extension" of the cable. Unless you really need to join 2 cables together, it is far better to get a single cable long enough to reach from the ONT to the router in one continuous length.

Re: Extending RJ45 Connection to Smart Hub 2

Alfa1 — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 12:24:06 GMT

thank you that's great info

Re: Extending RJ45 Connection to Smart Hub 2

Alfa1 — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 12:24:46 GMT

thank you