Disclaimer: None of this is written by AI, I’m still a real person writing my blog like it’s 1999
I finally figured out how to build gigabit ethernet over my existing phone wires.
powerline adapter and misery
In recent years I’ve mostly stuck with powerline adapters. Some worked well, some didn’t (try a few and return the ones that don’t work in your home). I had a steady 30 Mbps for a while, which was low but good for the internet at that time. I care a lot about stable low latency for gaming, more than bandwidth.
Fast forward to my current situation, the powerline adapter would lose connection regularly which was a big problem. I love the latest and greatest G.H.N. Found some new ones with the 2400 standard. The last contender served my office at about 180 Mbps (with high variation from 120 to 280 Mbps), or about 80 Mbps on the top floor. It’s good enough for watching YouTube/TV but still not impressive.
A quirk of the UK: Internet providers don’t actually offer gigabit Internet. They have a range of deals such as 30Mbps – 75Mbps – 150Mbps – 300Mbps – 500Mbps – 900Mbps, each costing a few pounds more per month than the last. This makes the UK one of the cheapest and most expensive countries to get the internet.
Long story short, new place, new hardware, new deals, internet has been running at 500Mbps for quite some time now.
Every 50GB of Helldiverse 2 updates (because these idiots sent the same content in duplicate 5 times) is a painful reminder that the setup is not operating at capacity.
Problem: How to get 500Mbps in my room?
A charm for the phone socket
I’ve been looking for a way to reuse phone wires for some time, as British homes are full of phone sockets. There are 2 sockets in my office room.
I can’t stress enough how much we love our phone sockets. It is not unusual to have a one-bed flat with 2 phone sockets in the living room and 2 phone sockets in the bedroom and a master socket in the technical room. This is ridiculous.
A new home purchased today may have 10 phone sockets and 0 Ethernet sockets. There is still no regulation that requires new construction to get Ethernet wiring (as far as I know).
There must be a way to use existing phone infrastructure.
I know the technology exists. This is one of those rare cases where the technology exists and is mature, but no one can bother to build a product for it.
Can work with any pair of standard wires running powerline adapters (Homeplug AV200, AV500, G.hn 2400). It should work ten times better on dedicated phone wires rather than noisy power cables, if only manufacturers could be bothered to pull their fingers out and make the necessary product.
After countless years of research, I finally found a German manufacturer that makes what needs to be made https://www.gigacopper.net/wp/en/home-networking/
Order
It is made and shipped from Germany.
I was lazy so I ordered online at self-service (which is definitely the wrong way to do it). It is available on eBay DE and Amazon DE, it is possible to order from a UK account, be sure to enter a UK address for delivery (some items do not allow this).
The better way is almost certainly to talk to the seller to get a quotation with international shipping and an import invoice excluding VAT (to avoid paying VAT on VAT).
delivery hell
The package got the usual Royal Mail treatment:
- The package was sent by DHL Germany
- The package was transferred to Royal Mail when entering the UK
- After a few days, DHL website said that they tried to deliver but no one came to the house, this is nonsense
- The Royal website said that the package has reached the depot and is waiting for delivery, this is nonsense
- Actually, the package was stuck at the border as usual
- Google will find “website to pay import duty on parcel”
- https://www.royalmail.com/receiving-mail/pay-a-fee
- DHL tracking number entered into Royal Mail form for Royal Mail tracking number
- The website said the parcel had to pay import duty, this is correct
- Fee paid online, 20% VAT + few pounds handling fee
- Delivery of the package will be scheduled after a few days
- Royal Mail and DHL updated their status two or three times with incorrect information
- Royal Mail sent a letter stating that a package was waiting even though the duty had been paid
- The package finally arrived
Basically, you need to follow the tracking regularly until the package is tagged as lost or failed delivery, which is a signal to pay the import duty.
Buying things from Europe is a normal process after Brexit 2020. It is actually quite shocking that Royal Mail still has not updated their tracking system to be able to give a status of “Waiting for import duty to be paid online”. He had 6 years!
stuff
This is the GigaCopper G4201TM: 1 RJ11 phone line, 1 RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port, 1 power
shopping list:
- A pair of Gigacopper G4201TM
- The device has a German power socket (required)
- It came with a German to UK power adapter (unexpected and useful).
- It came with a standard RJ11 cable (expected and useless)
- BT631A to RJ11 cable found online (standard UK phone socket)
- Found Ethernet cables in my toolbox
- 3M removable hanging strip to stick on the wall, the device is very light
There is a GigaCopper G4202TM: with RJ45 to connect to the phone line instead of RJ11 (not sure if this is a new model or just a variant, as it has two gigabit Ethernet ports). Don’t be confused by it being an RJ45 port, it is not an RJ45 port.
There is a GigaCopper G4201C (1 port) and G4204C (4 port) for Ethernet over coaxial. In some countries there is TV/satellite provision in every room. This may be of interest to some readers.
tests
Plugged it in and it works!
Full speed achieved.
Reminder, this is a 500Mbps internet connection.
inhome variant
Shortly thereafter I discovered that I had purchased the wrong item. There is an InHome and a client/server version of the product. Make sure to buy the InHome variant.
- The InHome version can have up to 16 devices, communicating with any peer over the medium with sub-millisecond latency.
- The client-server variant is pre-configured as a pair, splitting the bandwidth 70% download/30% upload, with a few millisecond latency. I think this is a use case for ISP and long distance connections.
Thankfully, the only difference is the firmware. I spoke to the seller who was very helpful and responsive. They sent me the firmware and tools to patch it.
I’m fond of low latency. This screenshot is strangely satisfying.
gigabit
Web interface says 1713 Mbps on physical layer, debugging tool phone says 200 MHz – connected 1385 Mbps.
I wanted to verify if the device could do full gigabit. Unfortunately I realized I don’t have any equipment that can test this.
Phones are wireless, which makes them very slow to test anything. I checked out of curiosity, my phone was going from 100Mbps to 400Mbps right next to the router. When I picked up two laptops I realized they had no Ethernet ports. I pulled out an old laptop from storage that had an Ethernet port. Laptop couldn’t boot, CPU fan wouldn’t turn on and laptop refused to boot with dead fan.
There’s a hard lesson here: 1Gbps should be enough for any home. Using a phone line is just as good as Ethernet wiring in the house if it can provide a (shared) 1.7 Gbps link in multiple rooms.
Still, I really wanted to verify that the device could do full Gbps, I purchased a USB-C to Ethernet adapter.
It works!
Full speed achieved when testing from phone to computer with iperf3.
wires
Some readers may wonder about the wiring.
I didn’t check the wiring before buying anything because it’s pointless. British sockets are always chained in an incomprehensible maze.
The phone socket requires 2 wires and can be daisy chained. An Ethernet socket requires 8 wires. They often use the same Cat5 cable because it is the most widely available (cable with 8 wires, 6 additional wires can remain unconnected).
If you have only 2 sockets connected to the correct cable, it is possible to replace the phone socket with an RJ45 socket. This is not possible when the sockets are daisy chained. (You could fit a double or triple RJ45 socket with a switch to break the daisy chain, but this quickly becomes impractical in a British house with 5 to 10 sockets in an arbitrary layout.)
I opened a socket in the office room. There are two Cat5 cables daisy chained. 3 wires are connected.
Possibly this Daisy is tied to another socket in the room, or this Daisy is tied to a socket in another room nearby. Who knows.
I opened the BT master socket in the technical room. It should contain cables coming from other rooms. It should connect the internal phone wires to the external phone line.
There is a single Cat5 cable. 4 wires are connected. This is definitely not the master socket. WTF?!
The interesting thing is that this socket has 4 wires connected to it but the office socket has 3 wires connected to it. The idiot who did the wiring was inconsistent. GigaCopper devices can operate over 2 wires (200 MHz phones SISO) or 4 wires (100 MHz phones MIMO). If I get the job done I can try other methods.
The search for the master socket continues. All the cables from other floors will be coming down here somewhere. Next to it (right) is an empty plate.
Could this be an outside phone line? A bunch of wires scrunched together, colors don’t match. This is a big mistake.
The only sure thing is that they are different cables because they are different colors. They may be going to a junction box somewhere else. Possibly behind a wall that is impossible to reach!
Conclusion: There is no possibility of getting proper Ethernet wiring out of this mess.
The GigaCopper device that does Gigabit Ethernet over a phone line is a marvel!
There is a huge untapped market for gigabit Ethernet over phone sockets in the UK.
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