6 ms·

The house I live in was built with ethernet, but of the fourteen outlets the builders saw fit to include, not one is located where we can make use of it. The tw

The house I live in was built with ethernet, but of the fourteen outlets the builders saw fit to include, not one is located where we can make use of it. The two devices in our house which use a wired connection are both plugged directly into the switch in our utility closet. (We do have one internet-connected device which permanently lives about an inch away from one of the ethernet sockets, but it is, ironically, a wifi-only device with no RJ45 port.)

baby_souffle 1y ago
> The house I live in was built with ethernet, but of the fourteen outlets the builders saw fit to include, not one is located where we can make use of it. I had a similar situation a few years back. It was a rental so I didn't have access to the attic let alone permission to do my own drops. It'll depend a _lot_ on your exact setup, but we had reasonably good results with some ethernet-over-power adapters.
- jojomodding 1y ago
  We have them at home as well and they really suck. They lose connection every 20ish minutes at best, and take about 5 to reconnect. Makes Zoom meetings impossible, among other things.
  - virtue3 1y ago
    I’ve used Ethernet over coax in my current apartment. It’s worked well! You do need to be a bit careful as coax signal can be shared with neighbors and others sometimes.
    - variaga 1y ago
      You can isolate your ethernet over coax from your neighbor with a MoCA POE "point of entry" filter which blocks the frequencies used by MoCA. You can buy them online for around $10 and they install without tools, Besides neighbors, you may also need a POE filter if you have certain types of cable modem.
      - tguvot 1y ago
        cable companies require poe filters. if they find that there is some "noise" leaking from your house, they may put a big filter of their own outside, that can degrade speed of modem
  - dwood_dev 1y ago
    For PoE you want two networks for the best performance. One for each phase of your mains. In general they do suck, but they can be pretty decent if you stick them all on one phase, even better if all on the same breaker.
    - BenjiWiebe 1y ago
      Powerline Ethernet != PoE (power over Ethernet)
      - dwood_dev 1y ago
        Yes, no idea what I was thinking when I typed that. I've used both extensively, in fact this message was sent over a PoE enabled WiFi AP.
        zrobotics 1y ago
        For maximum comedy, I'm imagining running powerline ethernet to supply a network drop to a PoE switch, which then powers the AP.
        dwood_dev 1y ago
        I have literally done this many years ago. Not a Cisco 2960 or anything fancy, just a dumb 802.3af PoE switch.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - mikepurvis 1y ago
    I used those during covid to get a reliable connection for video calls and it was a huge step up over wifi. The bandwidth was like 1/10th of actual gige, so I got a wire pulled to my office when I went to fibre but there’s no question in my mind that decent powerline adaptors are the winner for connection stability.
- Denatonium 1y ago
  Ethernet of powerline adapters a very YMMV situation. Occasionally, it works great for people, but more often than not, the performance is poor and/or unreliable, especially in countries with split-phase 120/240 volt power (where good performance relies on choosing outlets with hots on the same side of the center-tapped neutral. The people who most commonly share success stories with powerline Ethernet are residents of the UK, where houses only have 2 wires coming in from the pole and there's often a ring main system where an entire floor of a house will be on one circuit. A better solution is repurposing unused 75Ω coaxial cable with MoCA 2.5 adapters, which will actually give you 1+ Gbps symmetrical. The latency is a very consistent 3-4ms, which is negligible. I use Screenbeam (formerly Actiontek) ECB6250 adapters, though they now make a new model, ECB7250, which is identical to the ECB6250 except with 2.5GBASE-T ports instead of 1000BASE-T.
  - kbouck 1y ago
    That was my experience too. The experience with powerline ethernet adapters was unbearable on a daily basis. We had an unused coax (which we disconnected from the outside world) and used MoCA adapters (actiontek) and it's been consistently great/stable. No issues ever... for years.
  - topspin 1y ago
    > A better solution is repurposing unused 75Ω coaxial cable with MoCA 2.5 adapters I'll second this. MoCA works. You can get MoCA adapters off Ebay or whatnot for cheap: look for Frontier branded FCA252. ~90 MBps with a 1000BASE-T switch in the loop. I see ~3 ms of added latency. I've made point-to-point links exclusively, as opposed to using splitters and putting >2 MoCA adapters on shared medium, but that is supported as well.
ashdksnndck 1y ago
Some friends live in a rental that they’ve decorated well. It wasn’t until multiple visits that I realized they had run Ethernet throughout the house. You can get skinny Ethernet cables that bend easily. If you get some that match your paint, and route them in straight lines, those can be unobtrusive. Use tricks like running the cables along baseboards and other trim pieces. If you really want to minimize the visual impact you can use cable runners and paint over them. The cables are not attention-grabbing compared to furniture or art on the wall. If you’re willing to drill holes (if you terminate the cable yourself, the hole can be narrow), you can pass the cables through walls. If you don’t want to drill, you can go under a door. If you’ve got fourteen outlets, it seems like there ought to be some solution to get cables everywhere you need.
- jval43 1y ago
  I did this years ago using the very thin (3mm, round) Unifi Patch Cables in white. Very clean and reliable, and getting 1 Gbit/s without issue. Another benefit is that I can cram 4 of them inside a single cable runner at the one spot I have to (no space for a switch). Where it's just one cable you run them bare and they look very clean. The old ones I have are still CAT5e, the newer ones they sell are CAT6 at the same thinness. All unshielded (UTP). 10/10 would buy again.
  - ElijahLynn 1y ago
    Thanks Here is a link for others who want to know how thin: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/accessories-cables-dacs/collections/accessories-pro-patch-cables/products/unifi-ethernet-patch-cable-with-bendable-booted-rj45 https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/accessories-cables-dacs/...
  - OJFord 1y ago
    Patch cables are meant for connections between equipment, e.g. in a networking cabinet. Cable for the runs between terminal points (like the cabinet's patch panel and a workstation, or your home TV, etc.) is less flexible - more shielded and I think solid core instead of multi-stranded (like twin & Earth vs. flex) - I'm not sure if it's available flat or skinny though.
ahartmetz 1y ago
You can lay your own cables, either to the next wall socket or directly to a switch. Flat ethernet cables can be very helpful for hiding and for crossing doorways. Generous "unnecessary" wire length helps with keeping them out of sight.
- matwood 1y ago
  Just want to second your suggestion about flat cables. They are great for situations as this. I’m in an old stone house and currently have flat cables snaked around until I can piggy back on the workers putting in conduit for other things.
godelski 1y ago
Rental or do you own? If you own, you should replace and/or move them. Might sound scary if you've never done this before but it is much easier than you'd think. If you want to make your future life easier I suggest running a PVC pipe (at minimum in the drop down portion). Replacing or adding new cabling will be much easier if you do this so it's totally worth the few extra bucks and few extra minutes of work. They'll also be less likely to be accidentally damaged (stepping on them, rodents, water damage, etc). I seriously cannot understand why this is not more common practice (leave the pull string in). You might save a few bucks but you sacrifice a lot more than you're saving... (chasing pennies with pounds) If rental, you could put in an extender. If you're less concerned about aesthetics you can pop the wall place off and directly tie into the existing cable OR run a new one in parallel. If you're willing to donate the replacement wire and don't have access to the attic but do to both ends of the existing cable then you can use one to pull the other through. You could coil the excess wire behind the plate when you reinstall it. But that definitely runs the risk of losing the cable since it might be navigating through a hard corner. If you go that route I'd suggest just asking your landlord. They'd probably be chill about it and might even pay for it.
- silversmith 1y ago
  There are times I do envy people living in stick houses with hollow walls.
  - toast0 1y ago
    Stick houses with hollow walls are cheaper to build (assuming cheap wood) and cheaper to work on. Probably cheaper to maintain too, but not as durable, so it might work out... Otoh, durable isn't great when housing trends have moved on.
    - lostlogin 1y ago
      > not as durable Your clearly don’t live in an earthquake prone area. I do. But given how cheapskate New Zealand is, I’m 100% sure that we would build in stone and brick if it was cheaper.
1718627440 1y ago
You know about Ethernet over power lines right?

baby_souffle 1y ago

> The house I live in was built with ethernet, but of the fourteen outlets the builders saw fit to include, not one is located where we can make use of it. I had a similar situation a few years back. It was a rental so I didn't have access to the attic let alone permission to do my own drops. It'll depend a _lot_ on your exact setup, but we had reasonably good results with some ethernet-over-power adapters.

jojomodding 1y ago
We have them at home as well and they really suck. They lose connection every 20ish minutes at best, and take about 5 to reconnect. Makes Zoom meetings impossible, among other things.
- virtue3 1y ago
  I’ve used Ethernet over coax in my current apartment. It’s worked well! You do need to be a bit careful as coax signal can be shared with neighbors and others sometimes.
  - variaga 1y ago
    You can isolate your ethernet over coax from your neighbor with a MoCA POE "point of entry" filter which blocks the frequencies used by MoCA. You can buy them online for around $10 and they install without tools, Besides neighbors, you may also need a POE filter if you have certain types of cable modem.
    - tguvot 1y ago
      cable companies require poe filters. if they find that there is some "noise" leaking from your house, they may put a big filter of their own outside, that can degrade speed of modem
- dwood_dev 1y ago
  For PoE you want two networks for the best performance. One for each phase of your mains. In general they do suck, but they can be pretty decent if you stick them all on one phase, even better if all on the same breaker.
  - BenjiWiebe 1y ago
    Powerline Ethernet != PoE (power over Ethernet)
    - dwood_dev 1y ago
      Yes, no idea what I was thinking when I typed that. I've used both extensively, in fact this message was sent over a PoE enabled WiFi AP.
      - zrobotics 1y ago
        For maximum comedy, I'm imagining running powerline ethernet to supply a network drop to a PoE switch, which then powers the AP.
        dwood_dev 1y ago
        I have literally done this many years ago. Not a Cisco 2960 or anything fancy, just a dumb 802.3af PoE switch.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- mikepurvis 1y ago
  I used those during covid to get a reliable connection for video calls and it was a huge step up over wifi. The bandwidth was like 1/10th of actual gige, so I got a wire pulled to my office when I went to fibre but there’s no question in my mind that decent powerline adaptors are the winner for connection stability.
Denatonium 1y ago
Ethernet of powerline adapters a very YMMV situation. Occasionally, it works great for people, but more often than not, the performance is poor and/or unreliable, especially in countries with split-phase 120/240 volt power (where good performance relies on choosing outlets with hots on the same side of the center-tapped neutral. The people who most commonly share success stories with powerline Ethernet are residents of the UK, where houses only have 2 wires coming in from the pole and there's often a ring main system where an entire floor of a house will be on one circuit. A better solution is repurposing unused 75Ω coaxial cable with MoCA 2.5 adapters, which will actually give you 1+ Gbps symmetrical. The latency is a very consistent 3-4ms, which is negligible. I use Screenbeam (formerly Actiontek) ECB6250 adapters, though they now make a new model, ECB7250, which is identical to the ECB6250 except with 2.5GBASE-T ports instead of 1000BASE-T.
- kbouck 1y ago
  That was my experience too. The experience with powerline ethernet adapters was unbearable on a daily basis. We had an unused coax (which we disconnected from the outside world) and used MoCA adapters (actiontek) and it's been consistently great/stable. No issues ever... for years.
- topspin 1y ago
  > A better solution is repurposing unused 75Ω coaxial cable with MoCA 2.5 adapters I'll second this. MoCA works. You can get MoCA adapters off Ebay or whatnot for cheap: look for Frontier branded FCA252. ~90 MBps with a 1000BASE-T switch in the loop. I see ~3 ms of added latency. I've made point-to-point links exclusively, as opposed to using splitters and putting >2 MoCA adapters on shared medium, but that is supported as well.

ashdksnndck 1y ago

Some friends live in a rental that they’ve decorated well. It wasn’t until multiple visits that I realized they had run Ethernet throughout the house. You can get skinny Ethernet cables that bend easily. If you get some that match your paint, and route them in straight lines, those can be unobtrusive. Use tricks like running the cables along baseboards and other trim pieces. If you really want to minimize the visual impact you can use cable runners and paint over them. The cables are not attention-grabbing compared to furniture or art on the wall. If you’re willing to drill holes (if you terminate the cable yourself, the hole can be narrow), you can pass the cables through walls. If you don’t want to drill, you can go under a door. If you’ve got fourteen outlets, it seems like there ought to be some solution to get cables everywhere you need.

jval43 1y ago
I did this years ago using the very thin (3mm, round) Unifi Patch Cables in white. Very clean and reliable, and getting 1 Gbit/s without issue. Another benefit is that I can cram 4 of them inside a single cable runner at the one spot I have to (no space for a switch). Where it's just one cable you run them bare and they look very clean. The old ones I have are still CAT5e, the newer ones they sell are CAT6 at the same thinness. All unshielded (UTP). 10/10 would buy again.
- ElijahLynn 1y ago
  Thanks Here is a link for others who want to know how thin: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/accessories-cables-dacs/collections/accessories-pro-patch-cables/products/unifi-ethernet-patch-cable-with-bendable-booted-rj45 https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/accessories-cables-dacs/...
- OJFord 1y ago
  Patch cables are meant for connections between equipment, e.g. in a networking cabinet. Cable for the runs between terminal points (like the cabinet's patch panel and a workstation, or your home TV, etc.) is less flexible - more shielded and I think solid core instead of multi-stranded (like twin & Earth vs. flex) - I'm not sure if it's available flat or skinny though.

ahartmetz 1y ago

You can lay your own cables, either to the next wall socket or directly to a switch. Flat ethernet cables can be very helpful for hiding and for crossing doorways. Generous "unnecessary" wire length helps with keeping them out of sight.

matwood 1y ago
Just want to second your suggestion about flat cables. They are great for situations as this. I’m in an old stone house and currently have flat cables snaked around until I can piggy back on the workers putting in conduit for other things.

godelski 1y ago

Rental or do you own? If you own, you should replace and/or move them. Might sound scary if you've never done this before but it is much easier than you'd think. If you want to make your future life easier I suggest running a PVC pipe (at minimum in the drop down portion). Replacing or adding new cabling will be much easier if you do this so it's totally worth the few extra bucks and few extra minutes of work. They'll also be less likely to be accidentally damaged (stepping on them, rodents, water damage, etc). I seriously cannot understand why this is not more common practice (leave the pull string in). You might save a few bucks but you sacrifice a lot more than you're saving... (chasing pennies with pounds) If rental, you could put in an extender. If you're less concerned about aesthetics you can pop the wall place off and directly tie into the existing cable OR run a new one in parallel. If you're willing to donate the replacement wire and don't have access to the attic but do to both ends of the existing cable then you can use one to pull the other through. You could coil the excess wire behind the plate when you reinstall it. But that definitely runs the risk of losing the cable since it might be navigating through a hard corner. If you go that route I'd suggest just asking your landlord. They'd probably be chill about it and might even pay for it.

silversmith 1y ago
There are times I do envy people living in stick houses with hollow walls.
- toast0 1y ago
  Stick houses with hollow walls are cheaper to build (assuming cheap wood) and cheaper to work on. Probably cheaper to maintain too, but not as durable, so it might work out... Otoh, durable isn't great when housing trends have moved on.
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    > not as durable Your clearly don’t live in an earthquake prone area. I do. But given how cheapskate New Zealand is, I’m 100% sure that we would build in stone and brick if it was cheaper.

1718627440 1y ago

You know about Ethernet over power lines right?