Originally Posted by
Bloodnok
Ah, fair enough. For those unaware, there's a rather odd bit of legislation in play here.
In a dwelling (but IIRC interestingly not a business premises) any cable installed permanently in the building must be done by a licensed electrician. That applies whether it's at mains voltage or not.
So someone who is a qualified Ethernet installer can do large scale installs for businesses, but is not allowed to put down a single piece of ethernet in their own home.
Chances are this was entirely unintentional (probably done before anything other than mains was a common fitment in a house), but given it's turned into a moneyspinner for both electricians and government (who sell said licenses for lots of money per year) they aren't going to fix it.
The way round this is to run cables on the surface. Obviously this can be a problem, depending on how complicated the potential route is. IIRC tucking the wire under the edge of a carpet still counts as surface, but putting it behind a skirting board or coving doesn't, so there are very limited opportunities to hide it out of sight.
Dammit - at times I really miss England. Part P regulations may be a pain in the butt, but they are infinitely less of a pain in the butt than the Australian version...