Advice please on an electrical issue

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Mimi
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Advice please on an electrical issue

Post by Mimi »

Our electrician has told us that we 'must' have a telephone and computer socket in each room!
Is this true?
Or
Where can I get more information?
interiors66
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Post by interiors66 »

i beleive only if its classed as a new build, not required for an upgrade/renovation.
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blackduff
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Post by blackduff »

I find that this idea about telephones and computer sockets in each room is a big load of bandini.

In general the French homes are using fewer telephones and when a home is using ADSL, it will only need one telephone line.

I'm not sure what type of computer socket would be used. I have three computers in the home and all of them are using Wi-Fi. My livebox is hooked into the ADSL line and there's one line within the livebox is connected to the telephone plug on the wall.

This electrician is hoping to get a big amount of euros for plugging things all over the house. But, I don't think he's understanding of the new technology.

I would change to a better electrician.

Blackduff
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Allan
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Post by Allan »

Some good information here:-

http://www.totalfrance.com/france/forum ... hp?t=92627

It seems that the new regulations apply to new build and rewires and only apply to principle rooms.

But to be honest if you are having ahouse rewired then data/phone sockets in principal rooms isn't such a bad idea
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Santiago
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Post by Santiago »

Personally I would spend my money on hundreds of electrical sockets and the best Wifi I can afford. I thought I'd gone overboard on sockets but now I have several multi-plug extensions littering up the house - both UK and Euro versions.

I'm not a comms engineer but Allan or Russel might know this...

If you only have one telephone line coming into the house, will it improve your download rates if you have multiple hard-wire connections and if you do?
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Allan
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Post by Allan »

Santiago wrote:Personally I would spend my money on hundreds of electrical sockets and the best Wifi I can afford. I thought I'd gone overboard on sockets but now I have several multi-plug extensions littering up the house - both UK and Euro versions.

I'm not a comms engineer but Allan or Russel might know this...

If you only have one telephone line coming into the house, will it improve your download rates if you have multiple hard-wire connections and if you do?
Downloads always go at the speed of the slowest part of the link, normally this will be the broadband connection. Sometimes a poor Wifi signal can be slower but normally hard wiring in your house will make no difference. It is possible to twin broadband connections to increase speed but I don't know of any French service providers that support this.

Maybach limousines have 4 parallel wireless Internet connections but if you own a Maybach then you can probably afford it.

The problem with relying on wifi is that range is limited, if you have a big house then it can be difficult to cover all rooms so wired connections can be useful in extending wifi. Regulations rarely keep up with technology and running phones over wifi is a relatively new development.

When I had my house in England rewired I had network and phone points in every room, having said that, the French domestic wiring system lends itself well to mains based networks like Devolo which can let you extend networks and wifi quite easily.
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Post by thumbelina »

:cry:
Last edited by thumbelina on Mon 20 Jun 2011 11:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Allan »

thumbelina wrote:Can you give me some more info on Devolo please, Allan? This interests me very much.
It uses the electrical wiring in your house to make a network connection. You need 2 or more units that plug into mains sockets, one needs to be near your router, connected to it with a network cable. The other units can either be a network point or another wifi unit.

If you tell me what you are trying to achieve then I will advise on what you need
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Post by thumbelina »

:cry:
Last edited by thumbelina on Mon 20 Jun 2011 11:54, edited 1 time in total.
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john
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Post by john »

Some friends of ours had a baby listening device some years ago. It enabled little 'un to be in his cot in the bedroom,and mum and dad in the lounge listening out in case he cried. One end was plugged into the mains by the cot,and the other into a mains plug in the lounge.

It was not one of the new-fangled devices that operate on digital radio signals. He told me that the message was sent through the standard mains cable in the house's wiring.

I do remember it did not work terribly well. there was a lot of interference and buzzing on it. So is this device that is being discussed on the thread (Devolo ?) a similar idea ?
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Post by Allan »

Similar only that it uses mains wiring. It is a pretty well proven technology called d-LAN

Freesat recommend it to allow you to watch iPlayer on your tv via the freesat box
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russell
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Post by russell »

As far as I can tell the new regulations apply both to new build and to renovations. Although how much change to the house would be deemed to constitute renovation is anyone's guess!

The regulations call for a minimum of one TV socket in the sejour but an additional one or two sockets must be provided depending on the surface area of the property. There is no requirement for computer network points but there must be a telephone socket in the sejour, the cuisine, and in each chambre! This seems to be OTT as most people use cordless phones with multiple handsets these days, often connected to an ADSL router rather than the incoming telephone line. Furthermore, the more sockets are connected to the telephone line the poorer your ADSL signal will be even if there is nothing connected to the sockets!

I have no experience of the Devolo system but have tried similar systems in the past with variable results. They tend to work best with the UK style ring main. With the wiring here the signal has to pass through two earth leakage trips and these can cause problems if you are unlucky.

If you are not happy with WIFI the best solution is to hard wire an ethernet system which is fast and reliable.

Russell.
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john
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Post by john »

russell wrote: a telephone socket in the sejour, the cuisine, and in each chambre! This seems to be OTT as most people use cordless phones with multiple handsets these days, often connected to an ADSL router rather than the incoming telephone line. Furthermore, the more sockets are connected to the telephone line the poorer your ADSL signal will be even if there is nothing connected to the sockets!
I'd agree with that,Russell. Cannot really see the point of having a lot of phone connections/computer termini all over the house.Multi handset cordless phones are cheap and effective these days,and WIFI seems pretty trouble free in my experience at least, particularly if you haven't got a lot of other gadgets cluttering the system up.

On the other hand,you can never have too many electric sockets !
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russell
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Post by russell »

john wrote:On the other hand,you can never have too many electric sockets !
You can never have enough!

Russell.
interiors66
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Post by interiors66 »

[quote="russell"]As far as I can tell the new regulations apply both to new build and to renovations. Although how much change to the house would be deemed to constitute renovation is anyone's guess

if there is an existing supply, i believe that edf have no reason to scrutinise what happens beyond the meter, however if a new supply is installed they will require the new installation to adhere to the regulations,if it doesnt they will not connect you to the grid. so when it comes to renovation in theory you can do what you want,who can stop you?
Allan
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Post by Allan »

russell wrote:
I have no experience of the Devolo system but have tried similar systems in the past with variable results. They tend to work best with the UK style ring main. With the wiring here the signal has to pass through two earth leakage trips and these can cause problems if you are unlucky.

If you are not happy with WIFI the best solution is to hard wire an ethernet system which is fast and reliable.

Russell.
In my house in England, I had hard-wiring to every room but it is just not practical here, concrete floors covered with tiles don't easily lend themselves to hard wiring after original construction.

I was sceptical at first but I have found the Devolo system to be excellent, I have wifi routers on each floor and in the pool house and a number of network switches around the house, the software that comes with them lets you see how well they are working. In 3 years they have never caused me any problems.

The signal does degrade with distance and the greater the distance, the greater the degradation, but it starts off as a maximum of 200MBPS andaround the house I get around 80MBPS reducing to about 15MBPS in the pool house which is a fair distance from the house.

All of these speeds are way faster than my internet connection so they don't caiuse any problems.

I agree with Russell that hard wiring is the best solution but where it is not feasible then the Devolo system is a good alternative, it is very quick and easy and for a simple connection, suitable for people that don't know one end of a network from another.

Unlike Russell I have found the French wiring system seems to work better with them than the English one.
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Post by thumbelina »

:cry:
Last edited by thumbelina on Mon 20 Jun 2011 11:56, edited 1 time in total.
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russell
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Post by russell »

Another possibility you can consider if your WIFI range is not good enough is to swap your router for a long range version. These usually have two or three external antennas for better range and are not expensive now.

Russell.
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