Question A Bridging Router or Long Cat (what?) Cable?

[Oasis Curator]

I have a home network using Mesh.
Internet comes into the house via Virgin Media to their router (v3) > TP-Link Deco M4 "master" > (wireless) > Satellite Deco M4 > ethernet cable > my PC.
The distance it goes over wireless is about 10m 15m. A metre or so from the first "master" Deco is an in-use Chimney breast. A couple of metres after that (about a third of the total way) is an extension, which has a roof that loves to stop any sort of signal. About half way through there's a small porch, and then finally into the room with my PC in it (but it's long and because of plug sockets, the Deco is right at the back).

Here's a rubbish (but the best I have right now) picture:


Yellow = Deco units
Red = Cable in to house
Blue = Possible site for new Deco unit / router

There's a couple of things to note:
I can't really move either downstairs Decos closer as there are no suitable plug sockets in the room, or the Virgin Media cable simply doesn't come into that part of the house (it would also mean drilling new holes in the house - see below).
I can't really wire / drill to/from outside as the way the property is laid out means outside access would just be too difficult.
Using existing wiring around the house is a no go as it's old / used it before and had speeds less than 4MB. I get around 10MB as it is now.
My connection into the house is 250MB.

Attack 1:
Get a bridging router and put it in the little porch to act as a booster between the two Decos (or get another Deco unit?).
Someone said latency would suck eggs as it would have two hops. I don't online game often, mainly browse the net and use Teams for work.
I have an old TalkTalk router from just last year so don't know if that can be utilised some way.

Attack 2:
Get some flat Cat (what cat would I need?) cable, move the existing Deco hub to the porch area, which should increase speeds. Flat as it would have to travel around 10m before getting to the Deco as there's a bathroom on that side of the room so have to run it round the other way, likely between the carpet and the skirting board. HOWEVER, note to self: could run a flat cable over and around the bathroom door without the Good Lady moaning as it wouldn't be noticable.

Attack 3:
Put a wireless card in the PC (I thought the motherboard came with it built in but it doesn't), move the Deco to the porch area and see how speed goes then.


As we're expecting twins, I have next to no money for this project so Attack 1 is the least likely option.
I also need to test as we have a garden that's 23m long. Before, no wifi down the back but since upgrading to Decos, then you can now get internet at the back of the garden but I think that's coming from the third Deco unit that's upstairs. If it is, that's great as I can move the downstairs Deco without loosing internet access in the hosting part of our garden.

 

[USAFRet]

Modified #2.
Ethernet cable, but NOT 'flat'.

The wire gauge in flat cables is not up to standard.

 

[Oasis Curator]

Modified #2.
Ethernet cable, but NOT 'flat'.

The wire gauge in flat cables is not up to standard.

Hmm.

The problem with a non-flat version is I have to run it under a thin carpet (it would run from the yellow dot down that wall to the light green hallway / porch area but would have to swap to the opposite side to get into the mauve utility room). Can use a normal round one but it'll be a noticable buldge with people walking on it unless somehow run it around the doorway. If I ran it from where the PC is, I still have to run it over a doorway - both mean figuring out a way to get it from one room to another too.

On the picture, the PC is located in Bedroom 1 in the opposite corner to the yellow dot.
The light blue room is a bathroom.

The simple way would be to pop a hole in the wall and run something outside but we're on a hill so the hole would have to be fairly high or it's in the earth of next doors shed and garden!

 

[USAFRet]

I'm just pointing out that "flat" cable is decidedly non-standard.

Looks good in ads, doesn't work good in practice. Especially longer distances.

 

[bill001g]

If you are ok with running it outside you can get cable designed for direct burial. It is not a huge amount more expensive. It only has to be buried enough to avoid damage to the cable it could be run on the house if you want.

Most so called mesh systems will not function in the mode you want. All the remote unit talk to the main router. There are some that will talk between the remote units but you will have to look carefully. I still strongly recommend you do not do this.
At the very best you will have 2 extra wifi signals in the path in addition to the one to the end unit. You will get massive brand width drop. Pretty much if it is a trade off between no connection at all or a poor connection via repeaters then I guess the repeaters would be a option.

Can you get into the attic or basement and run the ethernet there.

Do you have coax cable in both rooms, you might consider moca.

You could also look at powerline networks it will likely be less that 150mbps but it is pretty easy to install. Still in house like yours with it long and narrow you should make sure you but them from a place that has good return policy. Although rare there are some houses that powerline does not work in.

 

[punkncat]

Do you happen to have open and shared or accessible attic space between these locations?

If not that, I really second the option given to do a direct burial cable. I mean, pretty much all the options presented by @bill001g .

 

[palladin9479]

That picture won't pop up, so going based off guess work. Internet comes in one side of the house, you need to extend the network to the other side and wireless isn't cutting it because homes are made of more then wood and drywall. You really should look at running a cable through the wall or other joined space, failing that you can take a look at MOCA which will use existing coax cable wires as a bridge for ethernet.

 

[Oasis Curator]

You could also look at powerline networks it will likely be less that 150mbps but it is pretty easy to install. Still in house like yours with it long and narrow you should make sure you but them from a place that has good return policy. Although rare there are some houses that powerline does not work in.

I did have powerlines but as detailed above, the rate of transfer was terrible.
Probably as the house has fairly old electrics and ALL electrics for the back part of the house come from the main fuseboard, then outside through some trunking into the (on the plan) right hand side room, through their own consumer unit, then to lights, switches, plugs and such.

Coax cables run upstairs, not to the room I need to those are out.

I live in the UK, so it's brick walls here, not wood and plaster.

No attic space either as the extension is single storey. No basement.

Maybe I'll just leave it all as it is.
It's not bad, just not very good.

 

[Oasis Curator]

Most so called mesh systems will not function in the mode you want. All the remote unit talk to the main router. There are some that will talk between the remote units but you will have to look carefully. I still strongly recommend you do not do this.
At the very best you will have 2 extra wifi signals in the path in addition to the one to the end unit. You will get massive brand width drop. Pretty much if it is a trade off between no connection at all or a poor connection via repeaters then I guess the repeaters would be a option.

It seems Attack 1 would be out of the question as I may as well either move the Deco unit where I would put this new router or just wire it the whole way. Although I'm sure the Decos can talk to each other, not just all talking to the main one.

Now figuring I could ethernet some or even all of the way between the main deco and the satellite. The middle picture here:

https://static.tp-link.com/upload/faq/Picture1_20220620054337d.png

I can then plug my PC in to the satellite node and use ethernet all the way.

 

[bill001g]

The middle picture is just paying tplink money for something you don't really need to. In fact the third picture almost tells you that since their main unit can only run in router mode.

When you are running all ethernet cables to the units you are running a router and AP. This has been has been the design used for corporate installs of wifi since the very beginning of wifi well before silly mesh systems existed.
Mesh is only used when you need need wifi repeater connections. Cabled AP is going to be massively superior.

Pretty much you can use an router for your main router and then buy inexpensive routers to use as the wifi AP. They don't need anything fancy because they only use the wifi radios. You can get actual AP if you need to say power them via the ethernet.

So called mesh systems provide no advantage over a router/ap install. They like to pretend they can do roaming but the end device not the network is in full control of where it connects to.

 

[palladin9479]

I did have powerlines but as detailed above, the rate of transfer was terrible.
Probably as the house has fairly old electrics and ALL electrics for the back part of the house come from the main fuseboard, then outside through some trunking into the (on the plan) right hand side room, through their own consumer unit, then to lights, switches, plugs and such.

Coax cables run upstairs, not to the room I need to those are out.

I live in the UK, so it's brick walls here, not wood and plaster.

No attic space either as the extension is single storey. No basement.

Maybe I'll just leave it all as it is.
It's not bad, just not very good.

Ok do you own this place or rent? If you own it then you might just have to run cable inside panduit, sucks but it's the only option for good connection so far away. If your renting, then your kinda out of luck unfortunately.

 

[Oasis Curator]

Ok do you own this place or rent? If you own it then you might just have to run cable inside panduit, sucks but it's the only option for good connection so far away. If your renting, then your kinda out of luck unfortunately.

Owned.
However, have invested (despite advice not to) in a flat network cable.
Fitted it yesterday. It is under the skirting board in one room, heads under the carpet (about 60cm?) but then sticks to the skirting board on the other side of the other room and heads up and around the fireplace near the ceiling. Tested without putting it in place and I had much quicker speeds. Where it heads under the carpet is a low traffic route and as it's right by the doorway, most people will step over exactly where it is anyway.

 

[palladin9479]

What is the total distance run? 10 meters, 30 meters, 50 meters? Makes a difference in quality of the solution.

 

[gggplaya]

Owned.
However, have invested (despite advice not to) in a flat network cable.
Fitted it yesterday. It is under the skirting board in one room, heads under the carpet (about 60cm?) but then sticks to the skirting board on the other side of the other room and heads up and around the fireplace near the ceiling. Tested without putting it in place and I had much quicker speeds. Where it heads under the carpet is a low traffic route and as it's right by the doorway, most people will step over exactly where it is anyway.

I think nearly all flat cable will do 100mbps just fine. But they don't actually meet the proper specifications with twist rate and wire gauge and are often oversold at cat6/7/8 and such. They work perfectly fine, and many will achieve gigabit, but keep in mind that the cables are nowhere near the proper spec they're advertised at.

There are legit flat cables out there, which do meet spec, such as this: https://www.edimax.com/edimax/merch...al/smb_accessories_ethernet_cable/ea3_series/ But many of the cheaper cables on amazon do not. When you cut them in half, they look nothing like this cable and some aren't even twisted.

 

[Oasis Curator]

What is the total distance run? 10 meters, 30 meters, 50 meters? Makes a difference in quality of the solution.

I estimated around 25-30m with all the twists and turns but found a better route so it's actually about 20m.

I bought cat6, unshielded.

 

[palladin9479]

I estimated around 25-30m with all the twists and turns but found a better route so it's actually about 20m.

I bought cat6, unshielded.

It's not really cat6 because the cat6 specification requires this middle pastic piece that physically keeps the pairs from cross talk while also requiring the pairs be twisted at a specific rate per meter. This all results in the cable having to be round, a flat cable would be missing both the physical separator and the twists, it's really just a cat5e cable. Not a bad thing if the distance is kept short and away from any sources of interference. 20 meters is pushing it but should be ok if it's not near any power cables.

 

[Oasis Curator]

20 meters is pushing it but should be ok if it's not near any power cables.

For a good 2-3m, mine is directly next to a power cable.
So far, been working fine But then I am a risk taker!