What model did you get ?
Are you sick of seeing @Doggatronâs âshedâ and trying to outdo him?
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At work, we have a main office building with a âback officeâ across a small courtyard. When this was built, some years ago now, I had the building engineers arrange for their sparky to install 4 x CAT 6A cables from the main building, to the back office, so that we could support Gigabit ethernet at the time, and carry 10 Gigabit connection in future.
Unfortunately, while I can connect at 1 Gbit speed initially, when I run sustained transfer to a âwarm siteâ backup PC in the back office, the connection isnât stable enough, and drops to 100 Mbit speed. And with very small wall/ceiling cavities, and cable buried in the ground, there isnât enough space to run new cable or pull new cable through the current conduit.
We have recently been working with our own sparky to resolve this issue and improve speed. He suspects that the ethernet cable has been run too close to the power cable, so interference is reducing its capacity. Our only option now, if we want direct cable that can handle 10 Gbit connection, is to re-run cables between the 2 office buildings, and weâd now have to run them in conduit along the walls from the server room, and across above ground to the back office.
All this is to say, having not just a qualified cable installer, but a competent one, and making sure the cable is well separated from 240 volt cables, is a very good idea if you want good, long term performance from the end result.
As an aside, if youâre running a connection from building to building after construction, there are many wifi options that can get good to very good results for almost all ordinary use. Ubiquiti have a great range of site to site wifi options including directional transmitters, that can be a lot more easily installed than running new cable, and can cover distances of up to hundreds of metres or more at Gbit+ speeds. But if youâre still in the construction phase, and can easily run ethernet, then you should be able to get a superior result that is cheaper, and less technical, to set up and troubleshoot.
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Have you tried a good wifi extender?
Thats what I use. Shed is about 30 meters from our house. Not in direct line. Goes through bricks (sandstoneâŚbig â â â â â â â ) , down a slope, threw reflective tin and the extender is pretty much placed at the furtherest point it could be in the shed from the wifi thingo in the house. Perfect wifi in shed.
I wouldnât rule out an extender. In fact I highly suggest it.
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Now that is a cracking shed. I will end up with something a little more basic.
But I do think getting as much direct cable in there now. My current extender isnât great, but I can use that for shorter distances.
@Glu I spoke to the project manager and he just said âweâll get the sparky to do itâ (heâs already done a brilliant job elsewhere tbh)
So it might be their way of clipping the ticket, but at least it will get all done correctly.
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Iâve never heard ESV chasing an owner occupier for data/low voltage.
Do it in a workplace andâŚ. maaaaaybe.
As far as an owner occupier is concerned, you didnât know it could be considered prescribed (or is it proscribedâŚ) works.
I wouldnât be documenting it on social media.
How is the power getting there anyway? If theyâre trenching for that, I would just have them duplicate for data. Not that much more expensive.
There is a standard minimum for separation b/w data & mains. 200mm maybe? 300mm ?
But thatâs basic stuff for sparkies. And should be in the as-built diagrams as well. Unless theyâve used some dogshit cables, it should do what it says.
Also, if thereâs 4 x CATx, thereâs space for about 1,000,000 fibers.
In our case, this is the issue. There is no separation.
Also, in the server room, all the data cables are wired under a false floor before being terminated at a patch panel in one rack. However, they have left a large loop of extra length that sits nicely across all the under-floor power outlets, so they canât be separated from our main power cables either.
Itâs shoddy work, and the building design leaves has so little wall or ceiling cavity, any additional cables have to be run on the inside or outside of the building.
Then itâs been done categorically wrong, doesnât meet standards, and they should fix it.
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Iâm just getting into doing Nbn as a product to sell to my clients and I have kicked it off with some tp link products . I installed one as a one off a few years ago and it hasnât missed a beat . itâs got some really good higher end router features and is probably small biz capable , but thatâs fine for most of my clients . Iâve been working directly with tp link and they cannot be more helpful . they have introduced me to soen amazing plug and play wireless bridge products that can do up to a kilometre for around $200
they also said they have a 30klm version available .
I have also partnered with a wholesal data provider that gives me a fantastic partner portal that gives me real time Nbn capability on most things including churn of connections and reports and line tests thatâs very good. I wull be a smidge more expensive than dealing we th the likes of Aussie bb but my clients will get a very good very instant response from us without going into a hole waiting to talk to overseas operators who ask 29 minutes of mind numbing dumb questions before dealing with any problems
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Most Sparkies that have done work for us have no idea about data cabling. The Bloke who installed a new TV aerial and was not an electrician, knew more about cabling and interference than anyone else at least domestically.
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Probably true, but sparkies are normally very very very good at knowing, and applying, the rules.
Agreed, but that was over 10 years ago now. There were many things I tried to design into the server room at the time that were ignored or over-ruled, and the boss listened to his architect more than he did me. Weâve adjusted and improved things bit by bit over the years, as needed, and now weâve come to fix this issue.
That sounds pretty good considering Aussie BB have one of, if not the best, reputation in NBN resellers.
As for TP-Link, I started using their products in their very early days, and in general, theyâre pretty reliable, and one of the cheapest brands available. And theyâre often more reliable than more expensive alternate brands.
Having said that, we ran one of their VPN routers some years ago with ADSL, which would require a reset every few weeks or so to repair the VPN service. Having trolled through forums to fix the issue (which was never fixed, by the way), I discovered that the primary reason that this model of router was failing was due to a fixed IP in China regularly dialling in to the router, and sometimes causing it to hang. Iâve never fully trusted TP-Link since, and Iâd hesitate to recommend them to any business that has sensitive client information on their systems.
Personally, if youâre not going to be a Cisco provider, playing at the Enterprise end of the market, but want to sell business grade products to business customers, at a consumer price, Iâd take a serious look at Ubiquiti. Theyâve been playing in the âkms between base stationsâ end of the wifi market since the days when many people in this space were still making their own home-made yagi antennas.
Most but not all.
Can I use my existing Gen 2 telstra modem / router if i churn to say superloop?
probably not
i think telstra put their own firmware on things (this knowledge is 10+ years old, might not be correct)
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Should mention itâs FTTP so i have that modem from the NBN, then itâs just a wan cable to the router.
You can do it, youâll just miss out on some features like VoIP unless you hack it to unlock them (not hard)
Edit: itâs possible but it might not be plug and play easy
My advice would be just buy a better third party one anyway, ISP provided devices are generally crap
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Aussie broadband phone support has apparently helped their customers configure it according to whirlpool lol
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