You're the reason why the author's assertion that there is a huge untapped market for this in the UK is probably wrong; most of the people technical enough to set this up are also going to be technical enough to pull new cables.

There might be some market for a simple point-to-point device sold by the likes of Argos, zero config and including all the right cables already, aimed at people who can't or won't upgrade their cabling but want to enable their kid to play Fortnite.

But... there is no clear patent protection available, so as soon as someone successfully creates and markets that device, the Tiktok Shop clones will appear.

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jasonkester 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

most of the people technical enough to set this up are also going to be technical enough to pull new cables.

"Technical" isn't the issue. 200 year old stone houses are the issue. If you can't punch through it with wifi (and thus have this issue), I expect you're not going to be able to poke a cable through either.

For an example, to get from my house router to my office, you'd need to punch through a 3 foot cobble & mortar wall, trench across 30 feet of poured concrete (and tidy it up somehow), punch through another 3 foot thick stone wall, then "pull cable" up to the office. There's an old phone line from A to B that went in 30 years ago when the place was first renovated, but you can tug on it all you like and it's not going anywhere.

If I'd seen this article a few years ago, my life would have been a lot easier.

	▲	car 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe cut a slit across your concrete driveway with a diamond concrete saw and drop fiber in, seal with some polymer afterwards?

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JonChesterfield 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pulling cables through walls is really easy for some construction styles and really difficult for others.

Can involve taking up floorboards and drilling horizontally through beams, plumber style. Or cutting slots in masonry with angle grinders. Sometimes there are existing wires you can tie to and pull through, sometimes the existing wires were stapled to the walls.

On the bright side everything about the ethernet wires and connections is trivial. Like demo to a friend in 20 minutes and let them walk off with the toolbox and they'll be fine wiring their house, if the construction style is amenable.

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retired 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Agreed. I tugged on each phone wire a to see if they were free. And I got lucky on all of them.

One of the problems I had was a kinked conduit where concrete was poured on top, or at least that is what I assumed. Was a bit difficult to get the “knot” (where the phone wire was connected to the CAT5E) through that spot.

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consp 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The twisted pair (should be two but one pair is broken...) installed in the 60s in my home are so stuck you will never, ever, get those out without ripping the wall apart. Originally the coaxials should have gone through the same pipes, as there should be enough space, but there is so much gunk in there it was impossible and they layed out a new tube though the floors and ceilings in the corner. For fun and because institutional knowledge is for suckers, they tried the same with fiber and simply gave up so now we are in limbo because computer says we have fiber but we don't.

	▲	kalleboo 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In the 70's house I bought, some of the coax and power was literally cast into the concrete.

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user5994461 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> most of the people technical enough to set this up are also going to be technical enough to pull new cables.

It's really not that simple when you realize that the average UK flat has 3+ sockets and the average house has 5+ sockets (speaking from my own experience). Some daisy chained and some direct.

Besides, a lot of people are renting and cannot touch their wire.

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Nextgrid 11 hours ago | parent [-]

> a lot of people are renting and cannot touch their wire.

Nobody's going to complain about a backwards-compatible upgrade (you can put phone sockets back when you leave - nobody has to know there's cat 5/6 behind it).

	▲	socksy 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah but if you fuck it up it's a much bigger deal

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maccard 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

One of the big problems with pulling cable in the UK is the abundance of solid internal walls. Running cabling in my house involves lifting floorboards or drilling through multiple 2ft thick stone walls. It’s worth doing while you’re there but so destructive if you’re not