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Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

yakyak — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 22:41:29 GMT

Openreach are installing fibre ONT to my home this week and the easiest place for the ONT is in a different room in my house to the existing router location.

My current setup has the router and "ethernet wired PC" in the same room connected by wired ethernet as this PC has no wifi functionality.

With the router moved close to the newly installed ONT, what is the easiest way to get wired ethernet to the PC in the other room without installing a long ethernet cable.

Can I use a powerline adapter or is there an adapter that can receive wifi and convert to wired ethernet?

All advice gratefully received!

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

licquorice — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 07:18:42 GMT

You can either use powerline adapters or a black BT Complete WiFi disc.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

naylor2006 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 08:34:43 GMT

You can put the new router where the existing one is, just run an ethernet cable from the ONT to the Router, just dont use a powerline to do that part 🙂

But its perfectly acceptable to put the Router anywhere in the house within the ethernet cables limitations, you just need to hook up the ONT LAN port to the WAN port on the router via ethernet.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

licquorice — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 10:11:06 GMT

I think you missed the part where the OP didn't want to run Ethernet cables. 😀

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

naylor2006 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 10:58:42 GMT

That I did....it is odd how sometimes when we read things we actually convince ourselves immediately what the question was and then miss the that it said 'without' or 'with'...

My bad. Its still within the hour, I can edit it, but I feel I should own up and do better!

However, I would recommend just running a cable if possible, even if its not what was asked, it will always be the reliable best option if you can hide it.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

WSH — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 10:33:11 GMT

I think the problem is the nature of the OP. “…easiest way to get wired ethernet to the PC in the other room without installing a long ethernet cable”. Hey, that’s like saying you want a cheese sandwich without cheese. You can use powerline and/or wireless but as soon as you do it’s not a wired connection.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

naylor2006 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 11:05:25 GMT

Yeah well I read it and though if you dont want to run a long ethernet to the PC then just move the router and run and long one there instead, then you can use the same short ethernet cable that went from the router to the PC before.

It does answer the question, how can I avoid running a long ethernet cable from the Router to the PC....however it comes with a secondary issue the same as the original question. Reminds me of the XY problem.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

yakyak — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 11:10:40 GMT

Hi everyone,

thanks for suggestions and just a bit more info to explain.

My office is the "other room" which is the other side of a courtyard to our lounge currently housing the router. Office window is about 30ft line of sight to lounge window. Current router is sitting on windowsill in lounge and my office PC and mobile connect with good signal on the router wifi.

Our outside wall (easiest one for openreach to fix to) is my office wall so I am planning on having the new fibre ONT fitted inside my office and move the router here. To run ethernet cable from office to lounge would mean going outside across the courtyard which I want to avoid, hence looking at options.

The office has its own ring circuit but is fused in the house alongside the other ring circuits, so thinking the powerline should work in theory. Let me know if this makes sense.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

naylor2006 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 11:23:09 GMT

Powerline is good in the sense that often it manages to find a way, a good video is here on how to manage expectations from it:

How Does Powerline Ethernet Work? (youtube.com)

Milage varies wildly with it though and it is better at some applications rather than others, IE you wouldnt use it if you wanted good latency, gaming would suffer but things that have an appropriate method of buffering such as ondemand video, web browsing and so on can be fine. But again it depends on internal wiring. I tested out Powerline in my home to get around running ethernet years ago and it was awful, it was slower than the WIFI Mesh (BT Wholehome) I was using at the time.

If running ethernet is completely a non starter I would use MESH, Master MESH device attached to the router in the office via ethernet and then a 'satellite' MESH device in the lounge in the optimum position to connect wirelessly the the Master device. Then turn off the WIFI on the BT Hub. A little more to setup sure but my recommendation over powerline. TP-Link DECO do some good and easy to setup stuff.

You can setup MESH more easily if you go with @licquorice original suggestion and get a BT Black Complete WIFI disc as this can be placed in the lounge and will automatically adopt your existing BT Hub's WIFI and link with it. It has an ethernet port on the back of it which you can attach wired only devices to, you can expand the single port by attached an unmanaged switch also.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

WSH — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 11:23:19 GMT

So, why not just the reverse of what you currently have then? ONT and router in the office. Wireless signal to the lounge.

(Incidentally, if you have the router in the window just make sure no one can see the passwords on the label on the back).

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

yakyak — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 22:29:17 GMT

Thankyou for all the suggestions and no problem with router password being viewed, windows are onto totally private courtyard, no pubic access.

Re: Full fibre ONT installation, router moving to different room

yakyak — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 22:33:01 GMT

Sorry, should have explained, older PC doesn't have wifi, that is the basis of my problem 😉 So when I say wired ethernet needed, only needed to connect the older PC. Can be a wifi to ethernet adapter. I do have a long ethernet cable, can run that temporarily and it may well become permanent!