Updated Mar 2026
More people are now regularly working from home – part time and full time. There are some advantages and some disadvantages, I will anticipate you have gone through all the Pros and Cons and have decided that you want to work from home and want to have an “office setup”.
Work / Life balance, this is a very important consideration. Ideally if you work from home, when you go “in the office”; you are at work and shouldn’t be distracted or interupted with “Home Issues”. In principle you are not at home, you are at work! However, you will be local and could accept some interuptions.
The working from home scenario removes the 9 to 5 limitations. e.g. you could do a few hours in the office early morning and the rest of your “shift” maybe in the evening, that would depend on the nature of your work. It can often allow you to spend more time with your family, you just need to get the balance right.
Office location. This needs to be considered. Ideally you would have a garden building / garage etc that could be easily converted into an office to provide a comfortable working environment. This would mean that you would go out of the house and then enter the work office. For some people this is a necessary step – mentally.
For many people this is not an option and they have to use say a spare bedroom or maybe the corner of the dining room! Not ideal but can work depending on your Family life e.g. no small children. If you have small children, working from home can be challenging !
Technology.
If you are working from home, it is very likely that you will need a reliable and robust Internet connection. Idealy this would be full fibre (FTTP) or at least Part Fibre (FTTC). If you have a good 5G mobile signal, a 5G router would also be a good option.
Internet connection – shared with Home or dedicated for Business.
The siting of the router (Internet Gateway) will be important. If your employer is paying for the Internet Connection they will expect the router to be placed where the Internet connection will be the best for the business. This oftens means that when you connect to the Internet, you connect to the Company Network and are subject to the Company Firewall and Internet connection policies and in most cases your Internet usage is monitored. You employer might allow you to use the conection for private use but it will be via the Company Network.
You could use your “private” Internet connection for business use and maybe use a VPN to connect to the company network, in this case your employer would probably not pay for your Internet connection (all things are negotiable).
The siting of the router (Internet Gateway) is important.
Generally speaking, the siting of the router may be the “decision maker” as to where you want your office. If the Internet Connection is via Full or Part Fibre where the cable comes from a Telegraph pole, the wire / cable will be fed on a “line of sight” basis. This often means that the router will have to be placed in a room at the front of the house and that might work for a lot of people but won’t be ideal if your proposed office is at the rear of your property. In my case I wanted the router in the room at the rear of the property. When I used the phone cable for for Broadband, I was able to have the “Master Socket” installed in the back room by having extension cables clipped to the outside of the house.
When I arranged to have FTTP, I was told the ONT could only be installed on a line of sight basis and it wasn’t possible to clip the cable to the outside wall to get it to the rear of the house so I ran an Ethernet cable (cat 6) under the floor so that I could connect the router to the ONT which is installed in a room at the front of the house. In my case I also have a Virgin Media connection to the front of the house and again I have a (coax) cable under the floor to the room at the back of the property.
My Office does double up as a dining room and that works fine. We don’t have young children and both my wife & I have our desktop PCs installed in there. We also both have a tablet and mobile phone which we connect to the router via WiFi from anywhere in the house or garden.
Ultimately the router / Internet connection may be the decider as to where you want your office but the router doesn’t need to be in the office. You can use “Homeplug” (Ethernet over Mains) or you could use WiFi or you can run Ethernet cables to where you want to have your office.
Use of ‘phone. If you need to use the phone when working from home, you might need to decide on Mobile or “Landline”. If you have a good mobile signal, you could just chose to use your mobile / cell phone for incoming and outgoing voice calls along with Text (SMS). If your mobile signal is poor, you will have to use the “land line”! However, the traditional “land line” is no more or will be soon no more, see the end of PSTN. For several years, the “land line” has been connected to the router, which means all calls (incoming and outgoing) are routed through the Internet instead of the copper telephone cable.
Traditional “land line” telephone (instruments) don’t need any adaptions, you just plug them into the “Telephone socket / port” on the router. This is not usually a problem if you use “cordless” phones with a base station – only the base station connects to the router. If you only have one phone, it will need to be connected to the router and (depending where to want to site it), you might need to do some extra wiring.
NOTE. FTTP is mainly a “data” conection and doesn’t usually come with a “phone line” option, you have to pay extra for this.
If the “telephony” aspect is important for working from home, you will need to do your homework. The router will always be the “Internet Gateway” for data and voice unless you use mobile / cell phones.
5G is a gane changer. If you have a good 5G (mobile data) connection, the siting of the 5G router might be more advantageous. In my case, the 5G mast / tower is located somewhere to the rear of my property and the best 5G signal was with “Three UK” (Hutchison Three UK / Vodafone). I decided on the “Outdoor Hub” (which has the SIM installed) along with the EERO router. The EERO router has 2 Ethernet ports, one is used by the outdoor hub and in my case the other one is used to connect to a 4 port switch to allow me to connect other diveces via Ethernet.
I could have opted for the 5G router (which has the SIM installed) and can be located anywhere in the premises that has the strongest signal and you can, if so desired, take it with you on holiday. Mainly the router is used to provide an Internet conection using 5G mobile data and your devices would connect to it using WiFi but it does have 4 Ethernet ports which would allow me to connect my devices using Ethernet cables for a more robust and reliable connection.
If you want to use the 5G connection for voice calls, you will need to select the package that includes this. We decided that we didn’t really need a “land line” because we both have mobile phones so the 5G conection is data only.
NOTE. I’m currently getting an average 5G connection of about 600Mbps for about £21 per month, with ThreeUK. It currently costs less than FTTP or FTTC connections on offer. I’m aware that the 5G connection is a “radio signal” and is subject to interference but so far I have no complaints. FTTP is probably going to be the most robust and reliable Internet connecion, when used with Ethernet cables but the WiFi 6 & 7 are more reliable than earlier versions.
Ultimately working from home can be more productive but lacks the office banter and politics. If its just an occasional thing where you need to use maybe a laptop and moble phone, just find somewhere comfortable 🙂 If you want a more permanent solution e.g. have an “office” situation, the above info should give you food for thought.
A good releable Internet connection is a must. For a lot of people 5G will be a good option. FTTP will probably always be the most robust and reliable.