Networking the house

[big_tiger]

Buy 2 boxes of cat 5e. If you are doing 2 pulls per location, it will make it easier to pull both home runs at the same time.

Dis.

[motoman]

Newbie question: What's wrong with a wireless router? What's the advantage of going wired when everything is going wireless?

Because you can lose anywhere from 5% to 60% of your overall speed due to signal degradation, it's always faster using a hard line.

[propellerhead]

Because you can lose anywhere from 5% to 60% of your overall speed due to signal degradation, it's always faster using a hard line.

Doesn't wifi run 100 Mbps? That's plenty fast when my DSL is only 5 Mbps. Streaming video from a PC to a TV doesn't need 100 Mbps, does it?

[motoman]

Doesn't wifi run 100 Mbps? That's plenty fast when my DSL is only 5 Mbps. Streaming video from a PC to a TV doesn't need 100 Mbps, does it?

It's all going to depend on WiFi setup being used but even with that being said, you can have enough signal degradation that can limit the amount of data passing through. I see this all the time at my properties where we use a point to point systems. We'll have a points at 50 yards apart with nothing in the way and see 1Mb speeds on a 30Mb connection.

[ceyko]

Newbie question: What's wrong with a wireless router? What's the advantage of going wired when everything is going wireless?

To me it is all about reliability and performance.

Performance: Network cabling at this point is going to be many times faster than any wireless. Depending on what you're doing, this maybe critical. I've never had luck continuously transferring huge files over wireless either. Also, dependent on the amount of users per AP performance continuously degrades as well. Users can also = devices - A lot of consumer APs simply were not designed to run 10+ devices that is not all that uncommon in a modern home (TVs, consoles, phones, laptops, PCs and so on). If all these devices are active at once on the cheap APs, there is going to be at least SOME decrease in service.

Also consider that a lot of houses have 30+ Mbps download speeds. So, maxed internet, large files transfers, streaming video/audio and other misc network usage on JUST a single AP is going to decrease the user experience on all aspects.

Reliability: If you fart wrong there are glitches and other factors that degrade wireless signals. I consider it mostly unreliable for mission critical tasks. (Mission critical for a home network could simply be transferring porn from point a to point b. )

Consumer APs are notorious for "going down" too and needing to be power cycles or whatever. Wired never has any of these issues.

There is the security side as well, but I don't think that's a factor for this discussion.

I run wired and wireless (3 APs) and wireless has it's place in corporate/SOHO and residential. Also, if you're a light internet user in a <1500 sq ft place - it MAY be okay then too with a small internet pipe.

However, there is just no replacement for a physical ethernet connection at this point in time. I recommend using it whenever possible since it decreases headaches overall for an intermediate to complex home network.

[big_tiger]

Newbie question: What's wrong with a wireless router? What's the advantage of going wired when everything is going wireless?

More reliable connection, and generally faster.
Im not 100% sure in my thinking, but it makes sense. It has to take longer to convert and transmit from wired to wireless than wired to wired.

[propellerhead]

To me it is all about reliability and performance.....

I get the reliability and performance concerns and totally understand it in a small office environment. In my case though, my gf and I have more wireless only devices (iPhones, iPads, Kindles, etc.) than devices that can do Ethernet. We have two desktops that will eventually get replaced with laptops when they die. I'm not actively pursuing it but I can see our household being purely wireless networking.

I will look into stringing some Cat 5 when we build our next house though. I'd like to put multiple wireless APs so we can get a strong wifi signal anywhere in the house whether its upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, out on the patio, in the garden, by the pool, and so on.

Thanks!

[fordracing19]

We use a lot of wifi but I have blu ray players and xboxes hardwired. I ran one drop to every room and in several rooms multiple locations.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

[ceyko]

I get the reliability and performance concerns and totally understand it in a small office environment. In my case though, my gf and I have more wireless only devices (iPhones, iPads, Kindles, etc.) than devices that can do Ethernet. We have two desktops that will eventually get replaced with laptops when they die. I'm not actively pursuing it but I can see our household being purely wireless networking.

I will look into stringing some Cat 5 when we build our next house though. I'd like to put multiple wireless APs so we can get a strong wifi signal anywhere in the house whether its upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, out on the patio, in the garden, by the pool, and so on.

Thanks!

That alone is enough to run cabling too. I run 3 APs too, soon to be 4. You don't want to use repeaters...etc...etc. Fileservers and such should be hardwired too.

Just be sure to not have overlapping channels...etc...etc More APs does not mean better performance if not planned out a little.

[8mpg]

Buy 2 boxes of cat 5e. If you are doing 2 pulls per location, it will make it easier to pull both home runs at the same time.

House aint that big....and I know how to add a pull string to pull the 2nd wire

[FATHERFORD]

where I have tv's I ran 5 drops. TV, cable box, AVR, and 2 game consoles. Even the bedrooms have TV, cable box, blu-ray player.

I also ran 4 different colors. Two blues, yellow, orange, green. All cable boxes use Yellow, blue is for game/blu-ray, then orange and green whatever.

Everything wires up to two rack mounted 24port gigabit switches on a large rack mounted UPS that is shared with my modem and Netgear AC router. So much less headaches then dealing with wireless.

[propellerhead]

That alone is enough to run cabling too. I run 3 APs too, soon to be 4. You don't want to use repeaters...etc...etc. Fileservers and such should be hardwired too.

Just be sure to not have overlapping channels...etc...etc More APs does not mean better performance if not planned out a little.

PM me your email. I need a little guidance on AP vs. repeater.

[motoman]

PM me your email. I need a little guidance on AP vs. repeater.

An AP just spreads the current signal wherever you want it to go. A repeater actually boosts that signal while spreading it where you want it to go. You can only take a signal so far till you lose signal strength, therefore a repeater is necessary.



Read this article, it'll help you better understand it.

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-network-repeater.htm

[ceyko]

The downside to repeaters is the loss of bandwidth...

Guidelines for Repeaters (Via cisco.com)
Follow these guidelines when configuring repeater access points:
• Use repeaters to serve client devices that do not require high throughput. Repeaters extend the
coverage area of your wireless LAN, but they drastically reduce throughput


Think of the old half duplex, shared collision domain networks. Except the access is shared over the same wireless channel - not a physical network segment.

[ceyko]

Just for the record, I'm not a wireless expert. I can dive a little further into channels and frequencies - but much past that I'll start getting into things I'm not 100% sure on.

I started down a wireless path awhile ago, until I figured out someone has to hang the 50, 100, 1000 or whatever amount of APs a customer buys.