Moving bt home hub

damo09

I'm sure theres one in the cupboard. As well as one behind the TV in the media plate.

pocketmonkey

If that's the case, have a look inside the one in the cupboard. If the cables got 4 pairs (blue, orange, green, brown   4x white) of wires in it it's worth exploring further...

damo09

Excuse my dumbness  but what would they do??

pocketmonkey

You could stick an ethernet/rj45 faceplate at each point if they are directly connected. This would give you the option of either moving the hub to behind the TV or plug the hub in at the ONT and install another switch/wireless access point at the TV.
Just trying to work out a solution that would cost less than the £200 you've already been quoted

damo09

I think it's a telephone socket.

pocketmonkey

Good start! The only issue now is finding where that cable goes to first. If you have a multimeter to hand you can test it by shorting out the green or brown pair at the socket near the TV.
Strip back 1cm and test the brown/white at the cupboard to check the resistance between the wires is in the 100s of Mohm range. Then at the TV socket strip back and twist the copper together of the brown/white pair. Back at the cupboard with the multimeter test to see if the brown/white shows a short circuit.
If you have multiple sockets around the house it might not be so easy, and might end up being more sensible to look at power line/homeplugs.

damo09

As far as I can see theres only one other socket that is at the back of the TV.

pocketmonkey

I would say test it with a multimeter, but if you're feeling brave you can order a couple of rj45 faceplates and a Krone tool for terminating them.
TBH I'm not sure which ones are the best so hopefully someone else can point you towards something that you can run gigabit speeds over.

mickevh

If contemplating repurposing a phone cable run for ethernet, it's important to establish that the cable run is point-to-point with no other lobes or daisy chaining.

POTS phones uses a "common bus" wiring topology whereby all the socket are spliced onto a common set of conductors so daisy chaining from socket to socket to socket and/or splicing together into star topologies is just fine for phones (if one thinks about it, that's why all the phone handsets ring when an incoming call occurs - they are all connected to the same wires.)

Conversely, ethernet requires that there's one, and only one, active "thing" on the ends of any given cable lobe - so daisy chaining and splicing isn't allowed.

If you only have a single phone socket, then chances are it's a single cable lobe, but if you have multiple phone sockets about the premises, it may be that you have a more complex topology to map out. (And you'll need to "break up" to use it for ethernet.)

Without looking at the cable sheathing, it's impossible to say if it's a high enough "cat" to carry ethernet, but often telco's use cat5 (or maybe better if you're lucky) these days which should be good enough for 10/100 ethernet and possibly gigabit if it's a short lobe length.

As PocketMonkey suggests, if you don't mind shelling out a tenner or so for a couple of 8P8C (AKA RJ45) sockets and a punch down tool, you could "just try it" and see if it works. It either will or it won't, if you get the pin out correct on the sockets.

Speaking of which, here's a link to my favourite site on how to wire the cable - it has lots of pictures showing the plugs, sockets, pinouts, etc... How to wire Ethernet Cables

damo09

Hi all thanks for all the the info and help  I've got my smart hub now. Been looking into the ethernet/phone line and i still haven't a clue. I dont suppose any of you guys are local to Nottingham?