Home network/AP with wireless-N, bridged mode and gigabit Ethernet

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jack1986

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I need to overhaul my networking setup at home. There are two locations in the house that need to be connected: my bedroom and my office. Unfortunately, they're on opposite sides. Network equipment-wise, I currently have a D-Link DWR555 HSDPA router, whose signal doesn't reach across the house -- which probably has to do with the giant lift shaft in the middle. I am currently physically carting the router around to get stuff connected. Not ideal. As for the stuff that needs to connect to the network, I have a laptop, two HP Proliant Microservers that I've recently configured as an HTPC and a NAS (go me), a printer that can connect via Ethernet or wireless-N and some miscellaneous tablets/cellphones/eReaders/whatever.

The HTPC has to sit next to the TV (in the bedroom) and connect to it through HDMI. The highest-throughput activity will be streaming from the NAS to the HTPC, which requires a wired connection (the Microservers don't come with wireless NICs anyway), so I figure I'll put the NAS in the bedroom too. The laptop is obviously mobile, but it mostly lives on its docking station in the office, which has a wired connection. It will occasionally perform backups and copy data to/from the NAS. My existing router has wireless-N, but does not have gigabit ports.

Here's the solution I'm thinking of: get one wireless AP/router that supports wireless-N and gigabit Ethernet, and one gigabit switch (no wireless). Connect the switch to the D-Link router in the office. Run a wired connection to the laptop's docking station from the switch, and let the printer connect to the D-Link. That's the office done.

Then run a cable from the switch to the AP in bridged mode, in the bedroom on the other side of the house (hopefully not with a glue gun like Telkom, but I might have to). Then connect the two Microservers to the bedroom AP. That way, the two Microservers and the laptop (when it's docked) can all talk to each other over gigabit Ethernet, and there should be enough wireless coverage in the house that the rest of the stuff can hook up to that.

I'll need a gigabit switch (not too difficult), but also a device that supports wireless-N, bridged mode, and gigabit Ethernet. It looks to me like there aren't too many of those. Locally, I can find two pricey Linksyses (the E4200 and the E3200), two pricey NetGears (the N750 and the N600), and one less pricey D-Link (the DAP-1522).

My questions:

  • Does this sound like it will work in principle?
  • Does anyone have any experience with any of the above-mentioned routers, or have any other ideas? I have historically been rather against NetGear and D-Link, but sort of a Linksys fan. I'm not sure if that's still accurate, though -- I've been pretty happy with the D-Link router so far.

I know that was long -- thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to any advice.
 
Your setup looks good, the only thing I can add is that you probably don't need a gigabit ethernet on your wireless AP.

Because you already plan on getting a gigabit switch all your wired devices can communicate at high speed.

In my experience 802.11n rarely gives you much more than 100mbps, so rather get a cheaper AP with a 100mbps port, and spend the money you save on a better gig switch :)

Unless getting the absolute maximum out of your wireless link is important, and your devices support dual chain mode (2 antennas), I don't see the point of a gigabit wireless AP.
 
jack1986 said:
I need to overhaul my networking setup at home. There are two locations in the house that need to be connected: my bedroom and my office. Unfortunately, they're on opposite sides. Network equipment-wise, I currently have a D-Link DWR555 HSDPA router, whose signal doesn't reach across the house -- which probably has to do with the giant lift shaft in the middle. I am currently physically carting the router around to get stuff connected. Not ideal. As for the stuff that needs to connect to the network, I have a laptop, two HP Proliant Microservers that I've recently configured as an HTPC and a NAS (go me), a printer that can connect via Ethernet or wireless-N and some miscellaneous tablets/cellphones/eReaders/whatever.

The HTPC has to sit next to the TV (in the bedroom) and connect to it through HDMI. The highest-throughput activity will be streaming from the NAS to the HTPC, which requires a wired connection (the Microservers don't come with wireless NICs anyway), so I figure I'll put the NAS in the bedroom too. The laptop is obviously mobile, but it mostly lives on its docking station in the office, which has a wired connection. It will occasionally perform backups and copy data to/from the NAS. My existing router has wireless-N, but does not have gigabit ports.

Here's the solution I'm thinking of: get one wireless AP/router that supports wireless-N and gigabit Ethernet, and one gigabit switch (no wireless). Connect the switch to the D-Link router in the office. Run a wired connection to the laptop's docking station from the switch, and let the printer connect to the D-Link. That's the office done.

Then run a cable from the switch to the AP in bridged mode, in the bedroom on the other side of the house (hopefully not with a glue gun like Telkom, but I might have to). Then connect the two Microservers to the bedroom AP. That way, the two Microservers and the laptop (when it's docked) can all talk to each other over gigabit Ethernet, and there should be enough wireless coverage in the house that the rest of the stuff can hook up to that.

I'll need a gigabit switch (not too difficult), but also a device that supports wireless-N, bridged mode, and gigabit Ethernet. It looks to me like there aren't too many of those. Locally, I can find two pricey Linksyses (the E4200 and the E3200), two pricey NetGears (the N750 and the N600), and one less pricey D-Link (the DAP-1522).

My questions:

  • Does this sound like it will work in principle?
  • Does anyone have any experience with any of the above-mentioned routers, or have any other ideas? I have historically been rather against NetGear and D-Link, but sort of a Linksys fan. I'm not sure if that's still accurate, though -- I've been pretty happy with the D-Link router so far.

I know that was long -- thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to any advice.
Click to expand...

Hi

If you have a decent Gigabit switch then all you do is buy another wireless AP. Leave your router in the office providing Wireless and the other AP somewhere else in the house for maximum coverage (difficult to say where without knowing the layout). Cable all non-movable devices into the switch.

All wireless devices will connect to the AP's and be routed by the switch out to the router and to the internet.

I don't have as many devices in my house but I definitely prefer the gigabit setup especially for video streaming. Once you have cabled the main devices you will never look back.

You can PM me if you want to have a more detailed discussion.

Cheers
 
You could try one of these:
http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=238&model=TL-WR1043ND

TL-WR1043ND

It's a router though not an AP but it's got 4 x GBe ports and 802.11n wireless with a three antennae configuration.

It's also an inexpensive thing, you should be able to find it available for R600~R700 but the factory firmware is rather basic and lacking frills though.

And I read elsewhere that it makes a popular platform for Open Source firmware such as DD-WRT and OpenWRt which I have to try.

Although I do have caveat / caution on my advice, I have a TL-WR1043ND and I do experience odd the odd glitch where the thing refuses to to accept a new connection or even respond to a browser.
However existing connections still work and accept traffic just fine...
However my glitch could be a "hand-over" issue as I have several AP's in my house.
With just one it may work better.

In practical terms though, I'd moderate your expectations of what 802.11n is capable of.
The 300Mbit /sec is the maximum available bandwidth which is shared by all devices using that same channel and is rarely achieved in real life situations.
Obstacles and distances are huge factor and cause steep drop off in available bandwidth as occlusion and time skewing happens due to signal refraction and reflection.

However that said, I typically have a steady 20MBit to 30MBit per device connected to one of my APs.
Up to a maximum of say 100MBit~150MBitbut only if it's quiet, with just two devices (AP and client) and it's a line-of-sight-ish connection within 30 Metres or so.
Which when you think about it, is the kind of connection best performed with a cable....

And on that note, the TLWR1043ND's GBe ports work as advertised. Copying onto and off my NAS, I achieve 500MBit/s sustained with peaks of 800Mbit/s.

Good Luck.
 
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ya I also get about 150Mb/sec using wireless N and the TP-Link mentioned above, I would rather go extreme though and get openWRT put on by them as I think TP-Link software could do with a makeover.
Looks pretty good though, Hard wire where possible use AP for relatively closely connected devices.
 
Thanks for all the responses. I forgot to subscribe and lost track of this thread, but I appreciate them.

A couple of people have said I shouldn't bother with a gigabit AP. The reason I'd thought of getting one, actually, was so that I wouldn't need to run multiple Ethernet cables from my office to my bedroom. It's a fair distance, and this damn house has no ceiling or anywhere for me to really hide these things, so they're going to end up on the skirting. My solution would have entailed one cable between the office and the bedroom, connected to the switch on one end and the AP on the other. The two servers would then connect to the gigabit ports on the AP, instead of directly to the switch. I realise this limits the combined throughput between the servers on the one side and the office on the other to gigabit (instead of gigabit each), but I would never require gigabit speeds simultaneously from both servers to the office. Does this make sense, or am I shooting myself in the foot?

As for wireless, I'm actually not all that concerned about my wireless transfer speed. All of my devices happen to support 802.11n, so I'd obviously like to use it, but all of the heavy lifting is going to be done over gigabit -- the only devices without a wired connection available to them are a printer and some mobile devices that never need to transfer much data.
 
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