Garden office broadband connections advice wanted

[King A]

Hi all,

Was not sure where to post this. Let me know if you think I should post this somewhere in particular on this forum to get more answers.

I am working from home (but I don’t have my own business) for over half a year now and in order to get out of the house/keep work separately I am having a garden office installed soon (next week in fact).

I am in the process of getting power supplied to this for light, heating etc. in the garden office but I need a good internet connection too (for phone calls over the internet, skype, giving presentations etc)

Contacted my broadband provider but they were not that helpful as they were trying to get me to sign up as a business customer instead of just a domestic customer, mentioning they won’t provide another router as per their policy for domestic customers.

The garden office will have a separate power supply that is going to branched of the mains which is somewhere in the middle of the house. The broadband cable is coming into the house at the front (where the router is at well) and in the garden the soon to be new office is going to around 15 meters from the back of the house.

Now I have been reading about broadband over the power supply but I am not sure how this would work given where all the connections in the house are at present.

Also, does the power supply interfere with the broadband signal and is it possible to carry it over potentially around 20-30 meter of cable and still provide a >100 Mbps connection that I require ?

Advice/suggestions welcome!

 

[lighting]

If you can get an Ethernet cable run from the existing router to the office that would be best. Since it sounds like you've already got an electrician working this should be an easy addition. Then you just need an Ethernet switch in the office to hook up Ethernet devices. Or more likely buy a router and use it as an Access Point to give you good wifi in the office as well as splitting to wired Ethernet devices.

Using power line adapters could probably work, too. I've never used them but they advertise speeds well above your 100 Mbps. However an ethernet cable will be more reliable, and maybe less expensive if there are already wires being run. And either way you're going to want the switch or router in the office.

For a router I'd go for something that's dual band (2.4 and 5 GHz) and that has gigabit Ethernet ports.

 

[CaptainSTX]

When your electrician trenches in the electrical line from the house to the garden office have him also bury an Ethernet cable also. As long as the run isn't more than 100 meters this will be by far the best solution.

After the cable is installed connect one end to your router and the other to a new AP/router in your garden office. Be sure to use ground blocks where the Ethernet cable enters/exits both buildings.

 

[sfx2000]

I would recommend not trenching - go overhead if you can to the outbuilding...

If you have to trench - electric, cable, and cat5/6 - do two runs for ethernet, the second run can be repurposed for POTS telecom if needed. Keep some vertical or horizontal separation on electric/mains with regards to Coax/Ethernet - inductive noise there can be a problem.

With Coax - Go with RG6 if you can... works fine with CATV, and most Satellite providers will want that in any event.

Base the runs on the demarc - in US, most telco/cable/electric drops are colocated and share a common ground.

Depending on distance for the outbuilding - bonding/ground can be a problem - consult with an electrician there, they'll know best approaches with local electricity codes...