Bad Wi-Fi is almost never a router problem. It is one access point sitting where the lead-in happened to land, trying to cover a whole brick house. Cable does not replace Wi-Fi, it feeds it.
Pricing agreed before we start. We usually reply the same day.
This is the part of data cabling almost nobody knows to ask about, and it is the single most useful question you can put to whoever quotes you.
An electrical licence covers electrical work. It does not cover cabling that connects to the telecommunications network. That is regulated separately by the ACMA under the Cabling Provider Rules, and it has to be carried out by a registered cabler. The two qualifications are different, and holding one does not grant the other. Plenty of licensed electricians are not registered cablers, and plenty of people who pull data cable for a living hold no electrical licence at all.
Registration comes in three scopes. Open registration covers structured cabling, fibre and commercial work, and is what a full network installation calls for. Restricted registration covers smaller domestic work, such as an extension or cabling behind a modem or alarm panel. Lift registration covers cabling in lifts. Getting registered requires documented supervised experience, currently 360 hours, on top of the training itself.
The work itself is governed by AS/CA S009, the customer cabling wiring rules, currently the 2020 edition. It sets out how cabling is installed, how it is separated from other services, how it is labelled and what has to be tested. It is a real standard with real obligations, not a guideline.
None of this is exotic. It is simply a rule most homeowners have never heard of, which is exactly why it is worth checking. Ask for a cabler registration number the same way you would ask for a licence number, and be wary of anyone who treats the question as unusual.
Cable categories are sold on their top speed, which is only half the specification. The other half is how far that speed survives, and that is where the honest advice lives.
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What it means: Cat6 carries 10 Gbps to 55 metres, and almost every run in a normal house is inside that. So for most homes Cat6 already delivers 10 gigabit and Cat6A is buying distance you do not have. Where Cat6A genuinely earns its money is long runs, larger and commercial buildings, and tightly bundled cable. We would rather put Cat6 in more rooms than Cat6A in fewer, because the number of outlets is what you notice day to day.
The reason Cat6 runs out at 55 metres is worth knowing, because it explains why the number moves. Cat6 is rated to 250 MHz, and 10 gigabit needs frequencies above that. Over a short run the signal is still strong enough to work with. Over a long one it is not, and the deciding factor is usually interference from the cables lying next to it rather than the cable itself. Cat6A is built to resist exactly that, which is why it holds 10 Gbps for the full 100 metres.
Cat5e is not obsolete either, whatever a cable retailer says. It carries a full gigabit to 100 metres, which is more than most Australian internet connections deliver. If a house already has sound Cat5e in the walls, the honest answer is often to keep it and spend the money on more outlets or better access points.
Four things decide whether a cable performs to its rating, and none of them is the brand printed on the jacket.
Ethernet is limited to a 100 metre channel, and that figure is a budget shared between three things. The fixed cable in the walls, the permanent link, can be up to 90 metres. The patch leads at each end are allowed roughly 5 metres each.
This is why a run that tested perfectly on install day can fail later. Nothing in the walls changed. Somebody swapped a short lead at the desk for a 10 metre one and spent budget that was never theirs.
Twisted pair works because the pairs are twisted at a precise rate. Crush it, kink it or stretch it and that geometry changes, which changes the electrical behaviour of the cable permanently.
The minimum bend radius is four times the cable diameter, and pulling tension should stay under about 25 pounds of force. A cable dragged hard around a tight corner in a roof space will test worse than the same cable run gently, and no amount of good gear at either end recovers it.
Power cabling induces noise into data cabling running parallel to it. The result is rarely a dead link. It is an unstable one, dropping and recovering, which is far harder to diagnose after the walls are closed.
So data and power are kept apart, and where they must meet they cross at right angles rather than running together. AS/NZS 3000 sets 50 mm as the baseline segregation between different classes of circuit, and the cabling rules add their own separation requirements on top.
At 10 gigabit the limiting factor is often not the cable being tested but its neighbours. Signals leak between cables lying together in a bundle, which is why the same Cat6 run behaves differently on its own than it does in the middle of a tight bunch of twenty.
It is also why bundling matters as much as cable choice, and why a tidy-looking bundle strapped hard with cable ties can perform worse than a loose one that looks less impressive.
This is the change that made cabling worth doing again. A camera under an eave, an access point in a hallway ceiling or an intercom at the gate no longer needs a power outlet next to it.
| Standard | At the switch | At the device | What it runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 802.3af, Type 1 | 15.4 W | 12.95 W | Fixed cameras, VoIP handsets, basic access points |
| 802.3at, Type 2 | 30 W | 25 W | Pan and tilt cameras, video handsets, alarm equipment |
| 802.3bt, Type 3 | 60 W | 51 W | Multi-radio access points, AV and conferencing gear |
| 802.3bt, Type 4 | 90 W | 71 W | Displays, PoE lighting, higher draw equipment |
The figure at the switch is always higher than the figure at the device, because some of it is lost in the cable on the way. That gap is the reason cheap thin cable causes trouble on longer PoE runs even when it passes a basic data test: it carries the data fine and loses too much of the power.
The practical benefit beyond tidiness is control. Everything lands back at one switch, so a camera that has locked up can be restarted from there instead of by finding a plug in a roof space, and the whole system can be put on a single point of backup power.
Most people replace the router first. These are the signs that the router was never the issue.
Fast beside the modem, hopeless upstairs
The connection is fine. The coverage is not. A single access point in a brick or rendered house loses signal through every wall and floor it has to cross, and a more expensive router in the same position crosses the same walls.
Two or three access points on their own cables, placed where people actually sit, fixes this in a way no single device can.
One port is slow and the others are fine
That points at a single run rather than at the network, and the usual causes are a poor termination, a cable damaged during installation, or a run that is simply too long.
A proper test tells you which, and gives a figure rather than an opinion. Guessing at this usually means replacing hardware that was never faulty.
It drops out and comes back
Intermittent faults are the signature of interference rather than a break, and the most common source is a data cable run alongside power for part of its length.
They are frustrating precisely because everything looks fine when you check it. The fault only shows when whatever is causing it happens to be switched on.
A camera keeps rebooting
Usually a power problem rather than a data one. The device is drawing more than the run can deliver by the time the power reaches the far end, so it starts, loads, draws current and drops out.
Worth checking the switch tier and the cable before concluding the camera is faulty, because the camera is normally fine.
Cabling connected to the telecommunications network is done under ACMA cabler registration and to AS/CA S009, the customer cabling wiring rules. That covers how it is installed, how it is separated from other services, how it is labelled and what has to be tested before it is handed over.
The 2020 edition also introduced a higher energy class, ES3, for the powered circuits used in some NBN configurations. Those have to be identified by sheath colour and markings, separated from other services by sub-ducting, a barrier or at least 150 mm, and labelled wherever conductive parts are exposed. It is the kind of requirement that only exists because somebody found out the hard way.
Where a job also touches electrical work, for instance a new outlet for a cabinet or a switch fed from the board, that side is certified as electrical work. We lodge a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work within 7 days of testing, which since 1 July 2026 goes through the BCNSW eCert portal.
Every run we install is tested rather than assumed, and you get the results. A cable that looks neat and terminates cleanly can still fail, and the only way anyone knows is to measure it.
Yes, and it is the thing most people never think to ask. An electrical licence covers electrical work. Cabling that connects to the telecommunications network is governed separately by the ACMA under the Cabling Provider Rules, and it has to be done by a registered cabler. The two qualifications are not interchangeable, so an electrician without cabler registration is not permitted to do the work, and an unregistered job can cause problems with insurance and with your provider later on.
In most houses, no. Cat6 carries 10 Gbps to 55 metres, and the longest run in a typical two-storey home is well inside that, so you already have 10 gigabit capability on Cat6. Cat6A earns its money on long runs, in larger or commercial buildings, and where cables are bundled tightly enough that interference between neighbouring cables becomes the limit. We would rather put Cat6 in more rooms than Cat6A in fewer, because the number of outlets is what you will actually notice.
It is where the signal reliably survives, and it is a budget rather than a single number. The fixed cable in the walls, called the permanent link, can be up to 90 metres. The patch leads at each end are allowed about 5 metres each. Together that is the 100 metre channel. It matters in practice because a long lead at the desk and a long lead in the cabinet quietly eat into the same budget as the cable in the ceiling, and a run that measured fine on install day can fail once someone swaps in a 10 metre patch lead.
Not casually, and never in the same conduit without proper separation. Power cabling induces noise into data cabling running parallel to it, which shows up as an unstable connection rather than as no connection, so it is genuinely hard to diagnose afterwards. There are also safety rules about segregating different classes of circuit. Where the two have to meet, they cross at right angles rather than running together.
Usually, but not in the way people expect. Cabling does not replace Wi-Fi, it feeds it. Most bad Wi-Fi is one access point built into a modem sitting wherever the lead-in happened to land, trying to cover a whole brick house. The fix is two or three access points in the right places, each on its own cable, so devices connect to something close instead of shouting at something far away. A better router in the same bad position rarely changes much.
Yes, and for cameras, access points, doorbells and intercoms that is now the normal way to do it. Power over Ethernet sends both down the same cable, so there is no need for a power point at the camera. The tiers run from about 15 watts for a fixed camera or basic access point up to about 90 watts at the switch for the heaviest devices. It also means everything can be shut down and restarted from one place rather than by finding a plug in a roof space.
Attending your job is a chargeable callout. We confirm what it costs when you book, and the price for the work itself is agreed before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
Based in Castlecrag, covering all of Sydney. A few of the suburbs we work in most:
Related work: cabled CCTV and phone line work use the same runs, and every conductor entering the building is a path for surge protection to cover. If the switchboard needs a circuit for a cabinet, that is a switchboard upgrade. For buildings rather than houses, see strata electrical. See the full list of locations we service.
Upfront pricing, with the price agreed before we start. Every run tested and the results handed over.
