Ethernet between two houses

We at least do have a phoneline but, as I said, until recently it was copper all the way back to the exchange, hence of little use to man or beast. I seem to be in the middle of the two ranges which my ISP claims - I generally get 15-20 Mbps, which is more than enough for my needs.

Kind Regards, John
What are you trying to say here?
We're on copper at about 30-40MBps, gone are the days of dial up:D
BT only offer us 50-60MBps on 'full' fibre, which is actually not fibre all the way.
 
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IT Consultant here, though not a network engineer.

General practice is to never ever link two buildings with separate power supplies using Cat5/6/etc. It's not good outside at the best of times anyway, and it's not great over distance.

In short - best practice is to use a fibre connection which completely absolves are practical and theoretical issues of linking two buildings like this. No issues with lightning, grounding, distance, noise etc. It's not expensive as you may initially think - you can use something called a "Media Converter" to simply and passively convert between normal BaseT (Twisted Pair Cable) to Fibre.

That's my official consultant answer. Unofficially, meh, it'll probably be fine with some outdoor cable. At least in the relative short term.

Wireless Point to Point can be okay, but in my (limited here) experience you tend to get what you pay for. I've only scan read, but for all day every day links you want Prosumer kit at the very least. Maybe something in the Unifi catalog:

https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/store/wifi-links/wifi-point-to-point-links/

Even then you're limited compared to modern Internet speeds. Bearing in mind you can knock 10% off the quoted speeds on the best days and latency tends to suffer.
 
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What are you trying to say here?
Not really anything other than, or more than, what I wrote :) As I said, my ISP claims to offer customers one of two services, one 8-15 Mbps (download) and the other 'about 32 Mbps' - which I believe relates to different dishes on their mast. However, as I said, the 15-20 Mbps I usually get seems to be between those two ranges!
We're on copper at about 30-40MBps, gone are the days of dial up:D BT only offer us 50-60MBps on 'full' fibre, which is actually not fibre all the way.
We're pretty distant from the local mini-'exchange' (they called it 'marginal'!), and in the all-copper days 0.5 - 1 Mbps was about the best they could provide to our village (I think that they called it "up to 2 Mbps"). Since they put in a fibre cable to a cabinet in the middle of our village (with the pre-existing copper from there to consumers), I gather that people have been getting around 60 Mbps.

As I also said, Gigaclear have recently cabled our village - which I presume IS 'full fibre', all the way to the consumer - and they are offering 300 Mbps or ('for a price') 900 Mbps.

Kind Regards, John
 
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Run a fibre link between the two properties if your friend is set on sharing their internet connection. A pair of transceivers and some fibre should not break the bank.
 
General practice is to never ever link two buildings with separate power supplies using Cat5/6/etc. It's not good outside at the best of times anyway, and it's not great over distance.

The separate power supplies is irrelevant. Ethernet is galvanically isolated at both ends.
The concern is primarily distance and suitability for outdoors.
 
The separate power supplies is irrelevant. Ethernet is galvanically isolated at both ends.

It's probably the case - it was just always taught to me as a big nono. But then I'm old, so maybe it's an overhang from days prior.

You've still lightning to contend with, too so fibre just seems a no brainer.
 
Ethernet is galvanically isolated at both ends.

The weak point is the inter winding capacitance of the transformer.

quoting from https://www.ti.com/lit/an/slvae50/slvae50.pdf

Ethernet networks are subject to many harsh conditions as a function of being in industrial applications. One particularly harsh condition is a transient surge highlighted in IEC 61000-4-5. This surge pulse is applied on the transmit and receive lines of the ethernet physical layer and can potentially damage the ethernet controller, or phy. One statement that inevitably comes up during this discussion is that the transformer in the system should isolate the sensitive phy from the pulse on the connector. However, as shown in this application report, transient pulses can couple through the transformer and potentially damage the ethernet phy. This means that adding protection between the transformer and the phy is necessary in harsh industrial environments that will be subject to transient surges.

phy = physical layer, the hardware that receives and transmits the signals on the cable

A link between two different buildings with different mains supplies will be in an environment that can be considered as harsh
 
We also are on a wifi/dish connection to a small mast on the other side of the valley, about 2 miles away in direct line of sight. The local provider said a good guide is whether you can see any windturbines - they always have excellent internet for remote control - and good access for maintenance, so they just stick their baby mast next to one.
It's cheaper than BT, and gets a guaranteed 30 Mbps. BT copper wire gave 0.5 maximum, but it was very unreliable.
The main advantage of a local provider is if there is a problem Dai in his van is always around somewhere nearby. It's a bit faster than trying to talk to someone at a call centre in India. It reminds me somewhat of the old local phone exchanges - first-name terms with the operator girls, and local gossip too :)
 
Harsh would be where high energy transients are likely.

or a persistant potential difference of approx 180 Volts 50Hz AC where the two ends of the link are powered by different phases and the power supplies do not have a Ground ( earthed ) reference for the internal electronics.

Industrial ethernet is built to a different ( higher ) standard of resilience than domestic ethernet. Domestic ethernet networks are un-likely to involve more than one supply phase,
 
We also are on a wifi/dish connection to a small mast on the other side of the valley, about 2 miles away in direct line of sight. ... It's cheaper than BT, and gets a guaranteed 30 Mbps. BT copper wire gave 0.5 maximum, but it was very unreliable.
The main advantage of a local provider is if there is a problem Dai in his van is always around somewhere nearby. It's a bit faster than trying to talk to someone at a call centre in India. It reminds me somewhat of the old local phone exchanges - first-name terms with the operator girls, and local gossip too :)
Indeed - and all very similar here - around 2 miles line-of-sight to their dish, and amazingly efficient local support (given that it's a company of just 4 or 5 people) - it seems that when things go wrong, it's usually during Friday or Sunday evenings, and they usually get it sorted within a small number of hours! They actually dealt with a problem very rapidly on Christmas Day a couple of years ago.

As I said, the 0.5 Mbps with BT is about what we could get here at the time this other service appeared (a good few years ago now). It's currents a similar price to BT, and plenty fast enough and well-supported enough for my needs.

The most difficult thing is trying to explain to people what sort of internet connection/ISP I have, since if I just say 'Wireless', they invariably get the wrong idea ("I thought that everyone has wireless these days"!). I usually have to resort to talking about "a dish on top of a local hill"!

Kind Regards, John
 
.... amazingly efficient local support (given that it's a company of just 4 or 5 people) - it seems that when things go wrong, it's usually during Friday or Sunday evenings, and they usually get it sorted within a small number of hours! They actually dealt with a problem very rapidly on Christmas Day a couple of years ago.
By sheer co-incidence ....

... about 3pm yesterday afternoon the electronics in the mini-dish on my chimney (very high up, the chimney being on top of a 3-storey house) seemingly suddenly died, so I was without internet access. By about 6pm, a man with some long ladders had been here and replaced the dish, and I was "back in business". With some of the national providers, I suspect that I might well have still been trying to talk sense to a call centre (in whatever continent) at that time!

Kind Regards, John
 
Fibre optic link is the only safe solution. Also immune to electrical interference. And relatively future proof too.

You and your pal may also want to think about using each other's houses as off site back-up as you'd have far more bandwidth between your houses than you'll ever use. Also think about fitting a small UPS to your router so if your power is cut, you don't loose internet immediately.

Plenty info on the net about how to do these things.
 
Also think about fitting a small UPS to your router so if your power is cut, you don't loose internet immediately.

Routers usually run off 12v DC via a wall wort. A small 12v battery would be easier trickle charged via the same wall wort.
 

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