Doing gigabit Ethernet over my British phone wires

UK “Gigabit” Internet Reality and Pricing

• Several commenters dispute the claim that “gigabit isn’t really offered” in the UK: gigabit and multi‑gigabit FTTP are widely available in many areas, especially via newer “altnets” (Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, CityFibre, etc.).
• Pricing varies sharply: examples range from ~£30–40/month for ~900 Mbps symmetric outside cities, to ~£75/month for 1 Gbps in some urban FTTP offers. Some legacy providers offer asymmetric products with poor uploads.
• Fibre rollout in London is described as historically patchy, especially in apartment blocks where freeholder consent is a bottleneck; new laws are being considered to force access.
• Openreach’s asymmetric FTTP is attributed to GPON capacity limits and possible protection of leased‑line revenue; upgrades to XGS‑PON/50G‑PON are mentioned.

G.hn Performance Over Phone Wires

• Commenters are impressed by near‑gigabit throughput over daisy‑chained UK phone wiring with many bridge taps, which normally kills VDSL performance.
• Explanations: G.hn uses OFDM with per‑tone bit‑loading, FEC, and can avoid “bad” frequency bins; operates up to ~200 MHz vs DSL’s much lower bands.
• Compared to Ethernet, G.hn actively measures the medium and adapts rate/frequencies; Ethernet just attempts 1G over whatever is there and either works poorly or downshifts.
• Multiple people report G.hn/Gigacopper devices as rock‑solid versus unstable powerline adapters.

Reusing Existing Cabling (Phone, Coax, Power)

• Many UK/EU homes have phone runs that are actually Cat5/Cat5e: swapping RJ11 for RJ45 and re‑terminating at the cupboard often yields true gigabit or even 10 GbE on short runs.
• Others describe pulling Cat5e/6 or fibre using old phone/coax as a pull‑wire; success depends heavily on construction (conduit vs stapled/embedded wiring).
• Coax is widely recommended with MoCA 2.5 for 1–2.5 Gbps where TV drops exist; some report flawless performance, others frequent drops likely due to filters/poor terminations.
• Powerline is generally viewed as last‑resort: OK for light use but noisy, variable latency, and often overheats under sustained load.

WiFi vs Wired

• Some households now rely almost entirely on WiFi 6/7 mesh, seeing multi‑gigabit LAN speeds and little perceived need for Ethernet.
• Others in brick/stone/concrete houses report severe attenuation, poor real‑time performance (Zoom/gaming), and value wired backhaul or room drops despite headline WiFi speeds.

UK Wiring Norms and New Builds

• Mixed experiences on phone‑socket density: some 2000s flats have many RJ11s per room; others have only one master socket.
• New builds often ship with zero or minimal Ethernet despite being cheap to install at construction; sales staff frequently don’t understand networking, and terminations are sometimes in inconvenient cupboards.

Brexit, VAT, and Imports

• Importing G.hn gear from the EU now commonly involves parcels being held until VAT and handling fees are paid, with fragmented tracking and thresholds (e.g., £135) causing confusion.
• Several commenters broaden this into a political argument over Brexit’s economic and administrative downsides.