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Doing Gigabit Ethernet Over My British Phone Wires – The HFT Guy

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨darkspider@lemmy.blahaj.zone⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://thehftguy.com/2026/01/22/doing-gigabit-ethernet-over-my-british-phone-wires/

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Comments

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  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Old copper is like Kodak film stock. The past was more future-proof than the present is.

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    • Brewchin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Unless it was laid in the 1950s, in which case it’s probably aluminium wire rather than copper.

      There’s an area like that between the local exchange and my house, which meant internet speeds were like living in a time capsule before FTTC came along. Always 25% of what the rest of the town had.

      But other than edge cases like mine, I agree. Copper lasts a long time with minimal things to go wrong. Modern solutions like FTTC require their own power, air conditioning, etc.

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      • Nighed@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I thought the aluminium was fine conductivity wise, the problem is that it oxidises and becomes brittle.

        Every time a BT man went into the box, it was russian roulette as to whose internet would get broken.

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  • sefra1@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    That’s interesting, but those boxes seem rather expensive, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just pull ethernet cable over the phone installation?

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    • Ozymandias88@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      The cables are often not run in ducts they’re just tacked to the studwork in the house before the plasterboard goes up. This means any new cable is basically a fresh install.

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    • CosmicGiraffe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Most UK house construction doesn’t really allow for retrofitting cables in the way that seems to be common in the the US

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      • call_me_xale@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Even US houses above a certain age have the same problem.

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    • dimjim@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I couldn’t tell reading the post, but they may be renting instead of owning? They likely can’t do bigger construction tasks like that, so they’re forced to use what they have.

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      • sefra1@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        It wouldn’t matter because 4 pair ethernet cable can still transport 2 pair phone signals just fine (if not better), so he could just replace the the sockets back to the old RJ11 ones and the landland wouldn’t ever know that anything was changed.

        Either way, reading at the other replies, it seems that houses in UK don’t actually use ducts to pass the cables so replacing the cable is nearly impossible. Didn’t know that.

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  • hummingbird@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Poweline should be prohibited. Because people don’t know shit about this (or don’t care). I was able to kill all DSL lines in my house by maxing out the line. My neighbors were clueless what the cause was. Just don’t use unshielded wires for this kind of stuff kids.

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    • sefra1@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Ham radio operators hate it.

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  • reddig33@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    People used to utilize the extra phone wiring in homes and businesses for LocalTalk networking.

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    • Bakkoda@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Iirc you should check for continuity depending on where you live. There could be a minimal amount of power still going through those lines. This could be very outdated info as well since i haven’t done residential contacting in a long time.

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