bandwidth loss?

[boink]

Hi i was just wondering if anyone can tell me how much bandwidth loss on broadband i can expect, from an extension off the main bt phone socket, theres currently maybe 30 meters of a rather thin cable and its split and terminated into 3 seperate secondary sockets. how much loss can i expect? and will plugging my router into the main socket show an increase at all?

[ll_billym]

Bandwidth is the theoretical maximum amount of data you can send at any one time, usually expressed in Megabits per second. The data sent is split into small chunks called packets, the greater bandwidth you have, the more packets you can send in the same amount of time. This maximum is set by your ISP and will not change no matter how long the cable, in theory you can still send at your maximum allocated speed.

When you increase the cable distance between the router and the socket you introduce voltage drop and noise on the line, this means that packets will be sent at the same speed but may become corrupted before reaching the exchange, meaning that the same packet has to be resent. If this happens to every other packet, each packet has to be sent twice, therefore the rate you can send data is halved. You are still sending and receiving packets at the same rate but some of them are discarded.

The only real way to tell how your set up affects your connection, if at all, is to use a site like this one:

http://www.adslguide.org/tools/speedtest.asp

Try this with your router in both positions and you will be able to tell how much effect the cable length has. Probably not a lot as if your router is permanantly synced to the exchange then the connection is solid.

If there is a lot of loss, you could put your router at your master socket and run a LAN cable from there to your PC.

[boink]

ty, i am currently in the plannig stages of setting up a proper home network, because everythings everywhere, so im putting my router at the socket and running a utp to a switch then from there to all my rooms.

[kwicky]

I have just put a cable extension from my main BT socket of about 15 metres. I was disappointed with the wireless setup so I took my router upstairs and plugged it into the extension socket via a splitter. The extension socket is close to my computer so I made a short ethernet connection from the router to my computer. Now the broadband works fine at normal speed. This may seem an unsual method but it works. I ensured the BT extension cable was 4-wire. I have an additional phone upstairs in the splitter.

[BillyNoMates]

Have you considered extending the Master Socket closer to the area where you have your router/access point ?

Why not re-wire the Master socket to a more central point and rewire the extensions from that ?

If you use the proper solid core copper wire from the point of entry into the premises then you are reducing the losses as much as possible.