I needed solid reliable internet service in a location our WiFi doesn’t reach well, and extenders weren’t doing the job. So I acquired enough ethernet cable to accomplish a wired connection. It works well.
It’s a long distance from the router and I definitely didn’t want to get less than enough cable and have to go get a longer one. Overshot a bit: I’ve got 300 ft of CAT-6 ethernet cable where about 210 would have done the job.
“Well, I’ll just haul this off to a local place where they’ll snip it and put new connectors on the cut ends”, I said to myself, after tracking the cable through the actual path where I’ll nail it down. (Leaving some spare for wiggle room, for sure, but not 100 ft worth of it).
Problem is, the places I contacted reacted with bewilderment that anyone would think they offered such a service.
Me, I have neither the tools nor a comfort level / experience / skillset.
Where does one obtain such services? (I’m just east of Queens on Long Island)
You could probably go into a Micro Center, Radio Shack or a hobby shop and have them do it. An electrician could do it, but you’d have to pay for the visit.
You can get the tool for it at Lowe’s, and YouTuve can walk you through it. I’ve needed this done before as well, but am also hesitant at my skill to do so.
I truly doubt you’ll find a walk in “your cables terminated while you wait” desk service. It seems too niche and low-volume to offer as a retail service. Even outlets like wholesale cabling providers with a limited will-call retail desk don’t provide services to customers with their own materials, since the purpose of the business is to sell materials. If for no other reason than to avoid the support responsibility for someone else’s cheap materials.
You can buy pre-terminated cabling of length sufficient for this application.
You could probably get someone on TaskRabbit to do it. You could search under smart home install, electrician, or computer help. And if you don’t want someone in your home, you might be able to meet them somewhere public.
If there are already ends on your cable, your best bet might be just coiling up the extra 90 feet, someplace out of the way. If that doesn’t work for you, try a network installer/network contractor. It would be an expensive one-off, but they’d have the tools.
You might be able to go to a place that does home wiring for video or audio. They may also do network wiring. However, changing the length of a ethernet cable isn’t a typical service that they offer to the public and they probably wouldn’t want to do it. Come in with cash and maybe they’ll do it for you. You might want to get a ethernet crimping tool and try it yourself. It’s not too hard. You can get a kit with the tool and end caps for under $30 on Amazon. Practice a few times with a spare ethernet cord to see how it goes.
Perhaps you have a friend who has the right tool at home? Or some kind of hacker space in the neighborhood who will do it for free? You do not need an electrician.
I doubt there is anyone with a storefront that does it. If there is it will be some sort of “computer repair” type place. Most likely places that would come to you would be an electrician, satellite installer, or the installers for your ISP - I know for example that fiber internet installers do that sort of thing all day long.
Cat-6 is pretty sensitive, I wouldn’t clip and put a new jack on and I used to run cables as part of my jobs. Hell, I ran cat-5 all over my last home and did all the ends myself. But cat-6 and better, I just buy the right size cord and if I have too much, coil it.
So Cat-6 can support up to 10Gbps, thus an inexpertly crimped end can really degrade it. Cat-5 was rarely used for more than a few hundred Mbps and inexpert crimping was rarely an issue.
@Typo_Knig’s suggestion to coil up the excess is a better one.
The rule of DIY wiring is that the extra 90’ of cable you end up with will either be too short or too long to do anything with, and you will keep it in your basement for the rest of your life, only coming out when you think it will possibly be useful for something. Better just to roll it up and shove the excess behind a bookshelf or something.
What @Typo_Knig and @What_Exit and @Kent_Clark said. While a roll of 90’ of excess cable is not insignificant, you know it works. Clipping it and putting on a new connector is NOT guaranteed to work.
They’re kind of pricy, but it’s what I use in my home ofice (upstairs and at the other end of the house from the router).
You plug one device into the router with a short Ethernet cable, and then into the wall; you put the other device where you need the service, and connect your computer(s) to it via another Ethernet cable.
I’ve used this setup for 2+ years, including a time where I was doing VOIP pretty much all day every day, and it has served me well enough.
Terminating (and guaranteeing) a single cable is not really a money-maker. People with good quality equipment (including equipment needed to test the termination afterwards) and experience are pretty common, but they are working on larger jobs. I would simply leave the excess, as suggested elsewhere.
OTOH, buying a tool and a bag of connectors is not terribly expensive. Watch a couple videos and practice on short lengths of cable you trim off. It’s not really that hard. I re-terminate bad cables pretty frequently. Saves a lot of money in the long term.
Careful, that coil of cable is structural to the stack of dried out paint cans and cushions for the old patio furniture we got rid of a couple years ago.
Making a connection with a keystone really isn’t hard.
Crimping an Ethernet plug is fiddly but not hard and really easy to test if you got it right.
The necessary tools cost around 20$
Or you could pay your handyman
Start looking for a reliable handyman, it sounds like you need someone.
Or
Buy a box of plugs, cut 10 1ft pieces, practice until you make a working cable. This is roughly on the same difficulty level as gift wrapping.
If you think you will do enough of this sort of thing that you want to buy the plugs and stripping and crimping tool, do not skimp on the cable tester.
Fiber-optic cable splicers, now, are much pricier…