Broadband and WiFi

[BlackAlys]

We are starting to renovate and extend an old house that currently just has a phone line.

How do I go about getting internet access into this home abs at what stage should I do it? I've read articles in magazines about planning this early on in the build abs drilling through old, thick walls to get the maximum efficacy from a router.

All advice greatly appreciated!

You are asking 2 different questions

You can get broadband over the phone line, how far from the exchange matters as that affects the speed

If the area is enabled , you can get fast broadband which is still over the copper phone line into your home.

If the rate over the copper is slow ( under 10) you can ask that they give you something faster such as full fibre but that may require lots of engineering, so you would need to start the process .

Or you may already be in a full fibre area.

So phone a few service providers, get them to say what speed they think you can get now.

If you end up on full fibre they will I think just connect the fibre termination probably close where the phone comes in now

The second question is how to ensure you get good signals all round the house.
You can get WiFi boosters to help spread the signal . If it were me, I would run Ethernet cable around to key areas like where you might have a tv or computer. Then you are less limited by the WiFi .

If you get a high speed full fibre option you won't be able use all that speed if you just use WiFi , it can't go that fast , so putting some things into Ethernet cable lets you get better use , and can simplify getting good coverage

I can’t help on the best time to book, but:

Investigate your options such as cable or whether you only have the phone line
The initial infrastructure work subsidised by government put the broadband infrastructure into streets and up to a point outside each house. This would tend to be a pipe poking out of the ground with a plastic cap, and may be a small junction box on the outside wall .
If you have that then they just need to drill into the wall, connect an internal socket and activate the line
For telephone based it also depends on what infrastructure is in the street and whether it comes to the property

Check your postcode online on some providers or comparison sites.

Once any work is done you would get a hole drilled into the wall, a connection point and perhaps some trunking.
As you are renovating that would be best done before you’ve decorated and completed

A good option is to wire up the whole property - put physical Ethernet connections into the rooms at convenient locations each wired to a single location - that location would be best placed in a small cabinet / cupboard near to the point that you would have the main internet point coming in
Then you can benefit from fixed wiring where possible without worrying about low signals in parts of the house

Rather than checking round all the providers website you can check on the ofcom website here which will tell you straight away what is available to you checker.ofcom.org.uk If broadband isn't up to speed you could check the 4g. You can check this on the same website.

Fantastic. Thanks everyone!