Any recommends on a wireless setup for the new house?
- Thread starter digitalwanderer
- Start date
And far superior plumbing. It's a trade-off. Pipes on the outside of the house? Great idea!
If your location is already wired with COAX cable (the kind used to deliver cable tv) to each and every room, you can try setting up MoCA networking. Or at least use it to connect two distant zones of the house without having to worry about wireless coverage zones. There's several different products to choose from, so you'll need to do some research as to which one performs best and is the most cost effective, current providers include Actiontec equipment, or namebrands like Netgear and DLink. The Actiontec can be found used on eBay for around $40 per and there's plenty of guides out there.
MoCA stands for Multimedia over Coax Alliance and came up with an Ethernet-Over-Coax system. The products provide a wired ethernet port and connect and modulates the ethernet signals over the RG6 coax cable. They're typically installed in each area you want to connect, so at a minimum it will be installed in pairs, with the ability to install more client end points. The specs and feedback I see look promising with upto 270 mbit/sec throughput.
MoCA stands for Multimedia over Coax Alliance and came up with an Ethernet-Over-Coax system. The products provide a wired ethernet port and connect and modulates the ethernet signals over the RG6 coax cable. They're typically installed in each area you want to connect, so at a minimum it will be installed in pairs, with the ability to install more client end points. The specs and feedback I see look promising with upto 270 mbit/sec throughput.
Wouldn't the cheapest/best solution then for me be to just pick up a kick-arse N access point for my current Linksys WRT54G router since I like it so much?
Next up: ethernet over copper water tubes.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
I've never heard of any good networking solutions using the house wiring. I know it's around, but back when it came out it didn't impress me.
Actually, in my student home i've been using such a system for over 2 years now and it works great as far as I can see. Though these units are fairly expensive, around 40 euro's I believe, and 2 already broke in 2 years time.
So a wireless setup is far more cheaper if you got a couple of pc's. Though I would always go wired if possible.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Well, as Gore said, the internet is just a bunch of tubes. So ethernet over copper tubes should be the fastest solution possible.
Regards,
SB
Well, as Gore said, the internet is just a bunch of tubes. So ethernet over copper tubes should be the fastest solution possible.
Regards,
SB
That wasn't Gore, that was Stevens. Gore is alleged to have said he invented the internet. What he actually said was that work he did helped create the internet because he was part of the initial drive to create ARPNET which did, indeed, lead to the internet.
To be fair, the way he worded it, you could easily infer he meant that he invented the Internet.
My router just died and after a little bit of research I picked up that exact Buffalo. It's nice coming with a modified version of DD-WRT or just upload the unmodified DD-WRT as well. Especially good if you like to play with settings. Comes with USB port for NAS as well.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
If English is your second language or you are 70% of US citizens that can't actually speak the language then you're right.
The best router is still the D-Link DIR-655. It's not only one of the few that have sustained transfer rates of well over 500 Mb/s (and so can actually use that 300 Mb/s 802.11n bandwidth and high WAN speed, most other routers do something like 100-200 Mb/s, which has to be shared for both directions), allows you to configure just about everything and has a really extensive help build in, but it's also one of the cheapest Gigabit ones available.
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Could you explain the sustained transfer rates bit to me a bit more? (I suck with networking, sorry...that's why I always ask for help with it.)
I'll definitely check out the D-Link DIR-665, thanks.
I'll definitely check out the D-Link DIR-665, thanks.
That homeplug technology is now up to 1Gbit, must be worth a look if you have decent wiring.
http://www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-gig-index.htm
http://www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-gig-index.htm
A cheap 100Mb/s router uses a switch that runs at that same speed. That sounds fine, until you think about how a switch functions: it reads a block of data at 100Mb/s from one port, and then writes it at that same speed to a different port. Net throughput: 50Mb/s. (And some very cheap ones can't even do that.)
A better switch has a bigger buffer, and can read at the same time as it can write. That gives it a throughput of up to 100Mb/s, for a single connection. If two people use it at the same time, or you're talking to two different devices, that bandwidth is shared.
802.11n runs at a speed of up to 300Mb/s in the best case, but the encryption uses up half of it, and that is one-way, so it's actually 75-150Mb/s max, for all connections shared. But you need a switch that has a throughput of at least 300Mb/s to reach that.
So, you want at least a real Gigabit switch in the router, and at least 3 antenna's on it.
But, if a router or switch says it's "Gigabit", that only means that it can read and write packets at that speed, it says nothing about the bandwidth at which it does so.
Just about all consumer routers use a microcontroller to do all the work, and so the actual throughput of a Gigabit router depends solely on the speed at which that microcontroller can read and write the data. And I've yet to see a router that states on the box what microcontroller is inside, and what that sustained throughput is.
Further, the WAN (ISP) connection is much more complex than the LAN ones, and many routers are still designed with a maximum WAN speed of 10Mb/s in mind.
So, if you want a good router, you have to find out what the sustained switching throughput is, as well as the WAN throughput. (Or, in other words, if it has a fast and expensive microcontroller.)
And in that, the D-Link DIR-655 outperforms most routers that are twice as expensive. It's (next to some of it's more expensive siblings) one of the fastest routers available in the consumer market.
It's like the original WRT54G, which was also quite overpowered when it was introduced.
A better switch has a bigger buffer, and can read at the same time as it can write. That gives it a throughput of up to 100Mb/s, for a single connection. If two people use it at the same time, or you're talking to two different devices, that bandwidth is shared.
802.11n runs at a speed of up to 300Mb/s in the best case, but the encryption uses up half of it, and that is one-way, so it's actually 75-150Mb/s max, for all connections shared. But you need a switch that has a throughput of at least 300Mb/s to reach that.
So, you want at least a real Gigabit switch in the router, and at least 3 antenna's on it.
But, if a router or switch says it's "Gigabit", that only means that it can read and write packets at that speed, it says nothing about the bandwidth at which it does so.
Just about all consumer routers use a microcontroller to do all the work, and so the actual throughput of a Gigabit router depends solely on the speed at which that microcontroller can read and write the data. And I've yet to see a router that states on the box what microcontroller is inside, and what that sustained throughput is.
Further, the WAN (ISP) connection is much more complex than the LAN ones, and many routers are still designed with a maximum WAN speed of 10Mb/s in mind.
So, if you want a good router, you have to find out what the sustained switching throughput is, as well as the WAN throughput. (Or, in other words, if it has a fast and expensive microcontroller.)
And in that, the D-Link DIR-655 outperforms most routers that are twice as expensive. It's (next to some of it's more expensive siblings) one of the fastest routers available in the consumer market.
It's like the original WRT54G, which was also quite overpowered when it was introduced.
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It might work (although much slower than advertised in the best case), but the problem is in the wiring, and if your units are on the same group.
Mains power is distributed in 3 phases, if part of your house is connected with one of those, and another part with a different one, it won't work at all if you plug in a unit in both. (But this seems to be rare in the US.)
After that, you've got the different groups (fuses): it might work if you plug two units into sockets that are both part of a different group, but if it does, it will be slow and error-prone.
But the main problems are switching power supplies and dimmers: they create huge amounts of mains pollution.
For example, I have a printer and a router, both close to wall sockets that are part of the same group. If I plug both units in, they work well, although a lot slower than advertised (the speed graph keeps jumping up and down). But if I use an extension cord, and/or plug in the AC adapters of both the router and modem as well, or a single lamp with dimmer in a wall socket near by, it won't work at all.
After getting kicked in the head by some friends, I'm considering powerline networking. Apparently it beats wireless and doesn't suck anymore.
After getting kicked in the head by some friends, I'm considering powerline networking. Apparently it beats wireless and doesn't suck anymore.
Doesn't suck in their house, or doesn't suck in your house?
