"NY" wrote in message
...
"Tim Lamb" wrote in message
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I think I met a slightly more sensible Openreach engineer, who said that
extending from the master socket to the router would be fine *providing*
it was done in Cat5/6 cable. So I extended the split outputs of the
master socket (phones and internet) via a double wall socket by the BT
socket, about 15M of cat 5e cable, and a patch panel, and thence to the
router, and there is no visible performance difference to having the
router right next to the master socket. It also puts the router in the
centre of the house at ceiling level, which helps with wi-fi coverage.

When we upgraded to VDSL, I originally moved the router to be close to the
master socket, which was very inconvenient as a) the wifi coverage
throughout the house was less strong, and b) I had to use Homeplug to get
an Ethernet feed to my PC upstairs.

So I experimented...

- best sync speed was with the router in the test socket of the master
socket

- sync speed reduced by a couple of Mbps when I connected the house wiring
and put the router in the front plate of the master socket

- with the router upstairs on the end of a long run of BT cable to the
upstairs socket and then another long run of cheap ribbon phone extension
cable (under doorways and along the edge of carpet) from there to the
router in the next room, I lost a further few Mbps

I think the difference between best and worse was 20 Mbps down to 14 Mbps,
which I decided was tolerable if it gave me the router next to the PC and
upstairs for better wifi.

Interestingly, I've just looked at my router now and it's syncing at 20
Mbps / 7 Mbps - better than it used to be - so I'm dead chuffed. Actually
the biggest benefit of VDSL for me is the dramatically increased upload
speed (0.5 up to 7 Mbps) when sending emails or ftping files; the
increased download speed isn't normally very noticeable (because even the
8 Mbps of ADSL was fast enough) for ordinary web access, though it does
come in very useful for downloading large files.

I'm expecting to get a VDSL2 service of around 95/35 because the
node and pillar are so close. With ours, you can see some spurs in
the house wiring resonate at some frequencys and get a dramatic
drop in the speeds, like halved. The spurs are the extensions around
the house and the general approach is to remove them and have the
modem/router with a direct connection to the external phone line.