Home Network, Internet and TV Wiring in Odemira and the Costa Vicentina

Why the Internet Arrives Fine at the Router and Badly Everywhere Else

It is the most frequent call we get about telecoms, and the answer is almost never the provider. Fibre delivers the speed you pay for at the router; what fails is the distribution inside the house. In an Alentejo house with stone or 30 cm solid brick walls, a Wi-Fi signal does not cross three rooms, however new the router is.

And the answer is almost never another repeater, either. A repeater halves the available bandwidth and adds latency; two repeaters in series make the network worse than it was. What solves it permanently is cable to the points where it is needed, and wired access points from there.

That is structured cabling, and it is the same thing the ITED standard requires to be provided for in new build. In an existing house the work consists of finding the least invasive route — existing trunking, the aerial conduit, the stairwell.

The 100-Metre Limit, Which Really Matters Here

Copper network cable — Cat 5e, Cat 6, Cat 6a — has a standardised limit of 100 metres per link, and that limit includes the patch leads at each end, not just the cable in the wall. In a flat it is never an issue. In farms, montes and houses with outbuildings, which is the housing stock here, it is the main issue.

When the distance passes 100 metres — office to the caretaker's house, main house to the guest annex, house to the barn — the answer is fibre optic, with a media converter at each end. It also becomes immune to storms, because it does not conduct electricity, and in this area that is not a minor detail.

This was, in fact, the first enquiry our sister site in Porto ever received: a link between a flat and its garage where the client was hesitating between fibre and Cat 6a precisely because of the distance. The right question is always the same — how many actual metres, measured along the cable route and not in a straight line.

Holiday Lets: Wi-Fi Is What Shows Up in the Reviews

Between Milfontes, Almograve and Zambujeira a very large share of the housing stock is holiday lets, and there is a pattern that repeats in the reviews: cleanliness and location get praised, and the internet is what pulls the rating down. A guest working remotely who cannot hold a video call leaves a review that sits there for years.

What usually fixes it is not buying more bandwidth. It is separating the guest network from the household network, putting one wired access point per floor instead of repeaters, and leaving the router somewhere central rather than inside a cupboard by the front door.

We survey with real measurements in each room, so that the proposal is about what was measured rather than what was assumed.

Television and Signal Where Coverage Is Poor

There are points in the hills and along the coast here where the terrestrial signal arrives weak or drops out in bad weather. The alternative is satellite, and what matters there is installing it so the signal reaches every room through a single distribution, rather than one receiver per television and cables on show.

In new build or major renovation this goes into the ITED project alongside the data network and the door entry system: the technical cabinet, the conduits and the reserved space are all provided for and it all ends up inside the wall in one go. Doing it afterwards always costs more.

In existing houses we treat the aerial, the signal and the distribution as ordinary work, with no project or inspection — the formal framework applies only to new build and to renovations subject to licensing.

Do I need an ITED technical file to sell or rent the house?

For an existing house that has not had licensed building work, no. The ITED file is required for new build and for major renovations subject to licensing. If you are licensing work, it is far better to provide for the infrastructure from the start than to resolve it at inspection.

Cat 6 or fibre inside the house?

Inside an ordinary house, Cat 6 copper is more than enough for anything a domestic connection needs. Fibre starts to make sense when the distance exceeds 100 metres or when the route runs outdoors and exposed to storms — both common situations on farms and montes here.

I have repeaters and it is still bad. What changes with cable?

A repeater repeats the signal it receives, weakness included, and halves the bandwidth. A wired access point delivers full speed where it stands. Two or three well-placed access points solve what five repeaters do not.

Do you also do door entry and video entry?

We do. In new build it is part of the same ITED project; in existing houses it is ordinary installation work. In most cases the existing cabling can be reused, which changes the quote considerably.

Can you improve the network in a holiday let without opening walls?

Often yes, using existing conduit, the aerial route or the stairwell. We survey with real measurements per room first, so the proposal is about what was measured rather than what was assumed.