Data networking. Extend or relocate router?

[Nickfromwales]

I've got my virgin wifi / router / hub thing in my 1st reception ( dining ) room downstairs. Now I need to get cat5's throughout the house and not enough outlets on the virgin do-dah. 

1) Will the wifi be better with do-dah moved to mid house first floor, at floor level?

2) Can I take 1 cat5 out of do-dah and go to a larger ( more ports ) mains powered router at aforementioned location? 

3) Should every cat5 device have its own run from point to point? Do I run one cable to the Xbox and another separate run to the smart tv above it, or can I split the cable behind the Xbox? 

Multiple rooms to do with same scenario.  

 

Mucho gratsi-arse. ?

[Guest Alphonsox]

1) Whether wifi will be better at a higher level will depend on your house construction. Block walls tend to stop wifi signals, plasterboard doesn't - at least not so much. My place in England has solid walls downstairs and plasterboard partition walls upstairs, Moving the router to the loft made a big difference.

2) You can take a cat5 run from the router and feed it into a switch to connect more cat5 runs

I use  these https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-GS108UK-Gigabit-Ethernet-Unmanaged/dp/B0000E5SES.

3) Cat5 is always point to point-  you can't split cables but you can cascade multiple switches. I use a switch to connect TV, Freesat Box, Xbox, HiFi together in the sitting room. This then feeds into another switch in the study which in turn connects to the router,

 

Don't forget you can always run internet over your mains cables if adding cat5 everywhere will cause too much disruption.

 

[Onoff]

I've a TP-Line Wi-Fi over mains to one room. It does of course take up one port in the router.

 

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/tp-link-tl-pa4010kit-av500-powerline-kit-n20nr

 

I also use a wireless extender. Just looks like a mains adapter and plugs in anywhere.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by Onoff

[PeterW]

I've got a cheapo TP Link Router acting as an Access Point on one side of the house and it's connected to the Virgin box by a Cat5 I put in when I did the major work a few years ago. With that upstairs on one side and the VM router on the other downstairs I pretty much have 100% wifi coverage across the house. 

[Declan52]

I have the 16 port  version of the above switch. One cat 5 cable from my router to it in the attic and then have 2 cables going to each room from the switch. All the smart TVs, Xboxs, kodi boxes all use the cat 5 connection and it makes a hell of a difference. The only thing that uses WiFi is any phones or the kids tablets.

[Onoff]

I did mess around a while back having a BT Home Hub 3 one side of the house plugged into the phone line and then a Cat-5 from that to another Home Hub 3 I got when someone upgraded. Gave me 4 wired points and extended the wireless too. Not as simple as plugging together i.e a bit of typing and messing around with settings but it worked.

 

You will often find easy to follow instructions on using one make of router with another like this.

 

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-wireless/Extending-WiFi-range/m-p/3044131

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, Declan52 said:

I have the 16 port  version of the above switch. One cat 5 cable from my router to it in the attic and then have 2 cables going to each room from the switch. All the smart TVs, Xboxs, kodi boxes all use the cat 5 connection and it makes a hell of a difference. The only thing that uses WiFi is any phones or the kids tablets.

That's what I wanted to hear tbh. 

Phones and tablets on wifi ( soon to be located on 1st floor according to feedback here ) and just wire the virgin jobby to a switch via one cat 5 cable. 

Ill prob take the main tv straight off the 2nd port of the virgin one, but does that really matter? Do you get any degradation over the second leg and switch vs going into the virgin one?

Thanks all ?

[PeterW]

You won't see any degradation unless you start live streaming 4K video direct from the internet and your limitation will be the broadband speed ..!

 

I will be putting in a PoE switch (just because I have one lying around ...!) which will power a couple of wifi repeaters and my desk phone which is an IP phone but it's not needed in a normal house. 

[Guest Alphonsox]

11 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Do you get any degradation over the second leg and switch vs going into the virgin one?

 

Technically yes  - your funneling all the traffic for the second switch through a single port on the first switch

Practically no - they are gigabit switches and nothing you are using will get near to saturation,

[Nickfromwales]

Thanks. I can't recall if common switches have more than one 'in'. Would running two cat 5's between virgin do-dah and new switch have any merit? 

30 minutes ago, Alphonsox said:

nothing you are using will get near to saturation,

I guess your saying the first cable to the second switch is one 5-lane motorway of which I will only ever use 3 lanes? If so, the direction is as follows.....

1) Temporarily ( run an 'extension lead' ) to new 1st floor virgin router location and test for signal coverage. 

2) If above is good, extend virgin feed and relocate the virgin router to the Harry Potter cupboard under the foot of the stairs to new attic bedroom. 

3) Run electric to said location for a double socket and run all cat 5's to here. 

4) Install a third party switch ( as linked in prior posts ) and connect to virgin router via a single factory made cat5 patch lead of decent manufacture. 

5) Make all cat5's off per location and enjoy. 

 

Cool?

[Declan52]

 

My switch just has the one input.

Have never noticed any issues with it so far and I am always watching TV on catch-up or kodi and my boys Xbox is never off. 

Maybe in a few years time when our broadband speeds increase and 4k or whatever is next comes along then it might need reworking but it will be fine for the next 5 years. Hopefully when that time comes I will have at least 2 of my leeches/kids moved out so should be fine for whatever i need to do.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Declan52

[MikeSharp01]

Friends, Romans - country men (by which refer to all countries where like minded individuals reside) don't forget that we are up now to CAT 8 (almost - but likely to be different connector and not backward compatible) and CAT7, bright green colour favoured, is common. Don't be fooled though because the transmission standard for CAT6 (10GBase-T) means CAT7 will be no faster. It has the advantage, while being a bit more costly, in that the shielding is better - you can run it more intertwined with other cables and get away with it, fewer lost packets, and it has a larger copper cross section this allowing the PoE to work a bit harder. If installing now the lowest standard should probably be CAT6 (or 6a) which has 1Gbs data performance (CAT 5 is 10Mbs (5a 100Mbs)) so 10 times a quick as CAT 5. Also in your discussion above remember that switches (true switches) allow you to set them up with different QoS (Quality of Service) offerings to the various stations on the network. In this way you can give the PS4 gamers a better connection, less latency / contention / speed to WAN at least around the house, than the iPad browser. As things stand cabled connections will be faster than WiFi and QoS over wifi is a bit more of a dark art. If you have a larger home then consider pulling through some fibre connections, packet loss immune but limited to 10GBase-T speeds if using converters - if your router / switch has fibre ports these will be faster, between switches and fan out in CAT6/7 from there.

 

Finally in what might be helpful to others of our vintage, me not you, its worth recounting, as you pull though your CAT7 cable to your sons bedroom for his PS4 / XBOX and stretch every sinew to give him a great connection, that our son moved out of home to get a faster broadband connection - result (but don't tell his mum I said so)!

[Guest Alphonsox]

12 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Thanks. I can't recall if common switches have more than one 'in'. Would running two cat 5's between virgin do-dah and new switch have any merit? 

I guess your saying the first cable to the second switch is one 5-lane motorway of which I will only ever use 3 lanes? If so, the direction is as follows.....

1) Temporarily ( run an 'extension lead' ) to new 1st floor virgin router location and test for signal coverage. 

2) If above is good, extend virgin feed and relocate the virgin router to the Harry Potter cupboard under the foot of the stairs to new attic bedroom. 

3) Run electric to said location for a double socket and run all cat 5's to here. 

4) Install a third party switch ( as linked in prior posts ) and connect to virgin router via a single factory made cat5 patch lead of decent manufacture. 

5) Make all cat5's off per location and enjoy. 

 

Cool?

 

That's pretty much it - dual cables between the router and switch are unlikely to help, the boxes are usually not intelligent enough to make use of the extra connection. (And your interconnect connection is the really slow piece of this jigsaw anyway)

You will need a patch panel to terminate all your cat5 runs where they end up in the attic room. Something like this...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Patch-Panel-Port-Black-Cat/dp/B001GXR1YI

and a punch down tool to connect the cable to the sockets

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-40417-Punch-Down-Tool/dp/B000Q5KLN0/ref=pd_bxgy_147_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FJ5FXMGFZT73RS5DCNHE

 

You then run short patch leads from the patch panel to the switch. Do not be tempted to stick RJ45 plugs on the end of the Cat5 runs and plug them directly into the switch (notoriously unreliable).

 

As Mike says in the post above do consider/price using Cat6 cables and connectors. The difficult bit in all this is usually running the cable so it makes sense to build in a bit of future proofing while you're doing it, You will have nothing around that make use of this capability at the moment but who knows what around the corner,

 

 

[Bitpipe]

+1 for cable. We we very reliant on the powerline plugs (until this week) to get data from the BT hub in the container to the house - I was surprised at how quickly the speed drops across those  - went from 16Mb to 8 and using another pair, down to 2. 

 

Even within our newly wired house they often struggle to sync. Getting our data rack comissioned next week so will be able to plug in all the high bandwidth fixed items. 

[Temp]

22 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

I've got my virgin wifi / router / hub thing in my 1st reception ( dining ) room downstairs. Now I need to get cat5's throughout the house and not enough outlets on the virgin do-dah. 

 

I would leave your modem/router near to the BT master socket to maximise your broadband performance. If there aren't enough ports to run lots of cat5 you can add more ports using a cheap switch. They are just plug and play like a USB hub, no programming of set up needed. Eight port switches are around £30. You can also chain these together to minimise the number of wires if necessary. For example the following is possible..

 

modem---switch (downstairs)----one Cat 5 cable to----switch (upstairs)---several cat 5 cables to----several PC and or wifi access port(s).

 

If you don't want to run any wires around you could use Powerline adaptors to get from the modem to a wifi access point in the middle of the house. 

 

Edit: Oops somehow I missed earlier posts suggesting switches.

Edited December 18, 2016 by Temp

[Nickfromwales]

Virgin  so no need for close proximity to the 'master' as it's a coax to the outside box and an F plug directly into virgins 'hub' do-dah. 

Im running cat5 ( as it was 'acquired' for next to nowt ). Agree that cat6 would have been better but my bank is stretched. 

????

[PeterW]

15 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

 

Virgin  so no need for close proximity to the 'master' as it's a coax to the outside box and an F plug directly into virgins 'hub' do-dah. 

 

 

Errr just be careful with that statement ..!!

 

The Fibre connections from

Virgin aren't that clever, and the coax plugs they use for the final metre I've seen very badly finished. Yes a coax has more conductors but they are prone to the centre core being snapped if not properly terminated. 

 

I would go as short as possible to the hub and if you want to get the most of the connection to the switch then use a CAT6 patch cable to the switch with 5E to the rest. 

[Stones]

All my wiring is in - cat 6 to every room, but reading through this, it's occurred to me that I have two devices which would benefit from its own connection (bluray player and a games console).  Would somebody be good enough to clarify how I would go about connecting the two devices to a single cat 6 point?

[vfrdave]

This post got full on very quick @MikeSharp01 you stepped it up a level with all that talk of QoS and port aggregation/port channels whatever you want to call them. Wish I had the cash for Cisco switches to do that on a fibre backplane, need to build the house first.

 

@Stones stick a 4 port hub on that single cat 6 for them to share or just patch the one that is needed at the time. Other alternative is to get a tp link access point and put it on one of those devices but then your using Wi-Fi.

 

A good option for strong reliable Wi-Fi is to use the likes of a ubiquiti AP and ditch the Wi-Fi off an isp's supplied router.

[MikeSharp01]

2 hours ago, vfrdave said:

Wish I had the cash for Cisco switches to do that on a fibre backplane, need to build the house first.

Yes me too, but for a modest home, with a gamer (or 2) a CAT6 network with switches won't be a problem. As @Alphonsox says its the broadband that will be the bottleneck for most of us.

[TerryE]

We compromised on Cat5a to all rooms  (just one point) starred back to the electrical panel in the utility next to the master fuse box.  I am putting a 12-port switch in there, with one cable going to the BT ADSL router in the kitchen.  I will keep the main traffic to the wired circuits and the Wifi will be mainly used for the tablets and mobiles.

[Nickfromwales]

On 17 December 2016 at 15:33, Alphonsox said:

1) Whether wifi will be better at a higher level will depend on your house construction. Block walls tend to stop wifi signals, plasterboard doesn't - at least not so much. My place in England has solid walls downstairs and plasterboard partition walls upstairs, Moving the router to the loft made a big difference.

2) You can take a cat5 run from the router and feed it into a switch to connect more cat5 runs

I use  these https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-GS108UK-Gigabit-Ethernet-Unmanaged/dp/B0000E5SES.

3) Cat5 is always point to point-  you can't split cables but you can cascade multiple switches. I use a switch to connect TV, Freesat Box, Xbox, HiFi together in the sitting room. This then feeds into another switch in the study which in turn connects to the router,

 

Don't forget you can always run internet over your mains cables if adding cat5 everywhere will cause too much disruption.

 

Any reason not to buy this cheaper one ? I'll pay more if it's justified ?  

Sorry for being a tight arse. ?☠

[PeterW]

2 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Any reason not to buy this cheaper one ? I'll pay more if it's justified ?  

Sorry for being a tight arse. ?☠

 

Crack on and buy it ..!

[Nickfromwales]

You calling me a tight-arse or advising me of a good purchase ? 

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, TerryE said:

We compromised on Cat5a to all rooms  (just one point) starred back to the electrical panel in the utility next to the master fuse box.  I am putting a 12-port switch in there, with one cable going to the BT ADSL router in the kitchen.  I will keep the main traffic to the wired circuits and the Wifi will be mainly used for the tablets and mobiles.

Simple and functional. ?

12 hours ago, Alphonsox said:

Do not be tempted to stick RJ45 plugs on the end of the Cat5 runs and plug them directly into the switch (notoriously unreliable).

 Bugger, that was my plan. Currently have 2 points run this way ( 1 for each sons rooms ) and getting 90mb down and 9 up.