Small Home Network : Is this feasible?

[TonyA]

Hi, some advice please! I live in a townhouse that has reinforced concrete floors between the various levels. Lounge is on level 3, bedrooms on level 2 and garage on level 1.
I have 2 billion adsl routers and want to extend coverage throughout the house. My plan is to connect the one router in the lounge to adsl line and then use wireless to cover that area, its open plan so should not be a problem. Then I want to run a Cat5e cable via existing conduit to level 2 and install other router there as a switch (ie not connected to adsl line, but hardwired to router on upper level). This will give me wireless on level 2. I also want to run another cable via conduit to the one of the bedrooms so I can hardwire a PC there to router on level 2. This is just to get speed of wire as opposed to wireless. This PC will also be able access the Internet via the connection between routers.

Is this feasble?

 

[LabAnimal]

yes. except, I'd keep everything wired, and keep the wireless for laptops and handsets only.

I run my Netgear 4 port in the house, cable going to each room. Media center in the bedroom & lounge, and two other pc's for myself and partner in another room. I had to split one cable for the media center in the lounge to another router for PC's i'm fixing, other than that I hardly use that router, just the 4 port Netgear!. My phone and laptop (if I use it) connects via wireless, with UPS connected to the router incase power goes out, so I can still surf on my laptop.

 

[rorz0r]

I have 2 billion adsl routers

HOLY CRAP!

 

[YeaNutz]

HOLY CRAP!

Lol, made me chuckle

 

[TonyA]

Labanimal, thanks for response. Only 1 PC needs to be wired in. The rest of equipment is laptops. Just need to get wireless over 2 floors. Thanks

 

[rorz0r]

More seriously, your plan should work 100%. Don't forsee any problems there.
I've got an adsl modem, access point/router and homeplug downstairs and a homeplug and access point/router upstairs. (basically like yours except without a wire in between, just the electrical wires)

 

[LabAnimal]

i'm not that clued up with wireless, just that its half the speed of wired lan... So I am wondering, the more devices you connect via wireless, the slower it will get?(internally, not over internet of course) So I would think that running the first billion router online, splitting that off to the second router setting up two wireless names - and each unit can connect to whichever is the closer or less congested - no?

 

[TonyA]

Lab, thanks but not a problem as wireless will only be for internet. The wired PC will be used for gaming etc via internet.
rorzOr Thanks for your reply. How do you find the Power over Electrics thing. easy to set up and use or not.

 

[Kroks]

It should work fine, just a cautionary word, because you have 2 wireless networks running, try and keep them separate.
I.E. name them accordingly, 1st floor, 2nd floor etc, cause even if you have solid concrete walls I have seen wireless signals reflect of walls and windows.

You might just get a situation where your laptop on the 1 floor connects to the wireless in another and it might be cause horrible and unstable connection.

 

[TonyA]

It should work fine, just a cautionary word, because you have 2 wireless networks running, try and keep them separate.
I.E. name them accordingly, 1st floor, 2nd floor etc, cause even if you have solid concrete walls I have seen wireless signals reflect of walls and windows.

You might just get a situation where your laptop on the 1 floor connects to the wireless in another and it might be cause horrible and unstable connection.

But surely they're the same network or SSID both feeding off the same internet connection?

 

[Kroks]

I setup a wireless network on one of my sites. This wasn't used for client access but used as backhaul between buildings.

Imagine this setup
B1---------B2
|
|
|
B3---------B4
As you can see B1 talks to B2 and B3 and B3 can talk to B1 and B4.
The network would run smoothly, but every 30 seconds or so the ping time when pinging B2 from B4 would go from 30 ms to 200 ms and some major packet loss.
What was happening is that B2 could directly speak to B4, but the signal was so bad as to cause this problem. I had to isolate each point for all other points, except form its closest neighbours. So that B1 can only see B2 and B3, B3 can see B4 and B1. But B2 can not see B3 or B4 directly and B4 can not see B1 or B2 directly.

So yes, it will be the same internet connection and you will have connection, but when you start to drop packets between your laptop and router it will get frustrating

 

[TonyA]

OK Kroks thanks got it now! If I name each point separately then in WIFI Config can tell it only to use those specific names, is that right. This should prevent any confusion by wireless!

 

[rorz0r]

Yes tony name them seperately. Also try put one on channel 1 and the other on channel 11 so there is no overlap interference between the 2.
The homeplug/EoP thing works pretty well. A lot faster and more stable than wireless. They're not supposed to be able to go between DB boards but I have done that before and it worked at first but then stopped working so moved it to a plugpoint on the same DB. One thing that sucks a bit is they have a "2 pin" plug so sometimes they come loose where they are now but could fix that with a better adapter. Would be sweet if they had a 3 pin plug and then a socket on the other side so it can be like "pass through".

As for wireless speed let's say you are using a "G" network at 54Mbps. There's quite a bit of overhead and some signal loss so let's say your max throughput is 80% of that at 43Mbps. Convert bits to bytes and your max is 5MB/s. Way more than enough for internet however that 5MB/s is shared between all devices connecting to the wireless so if you copy from one pc to another and they both on wireless your max transfer will be about 2.5MB/s (plug them both into a router and you'll get 10MB/s easy). Plug them into a gigabit router and you'll get 100MB/s if your computers can handle it.

 

[TonyA]

rorzOr, Thanks for that !. Wired is best way to go, but can also be messy, so Think will stick to my plan for present. What kind of speed do you get out of EOP and what barnd you using?

 

[rorz0r]

I only use it for internet so haven't tested the speed except once when I copied over it, think it was about 8MB/s which is about it's max. I'm using netgear.

 

[TonyA]

Was thinking of trying the Billion EOP 272 to connect the two floors, problem is I'm not sure if they on same DB. There is only 1 DB in house but 2 and 3 rd floors have different breakers (tripswitches). They also quite pricey, R 1200.00 for two plugs (which is all i need) really.

 

[MidnightWizard]

Draft n

Make sure to use devices that are Draft n capable

You do not really need a second router -- just a decent configurable AccessPoint.

With the correct devices you will be able to use PoE ( Power over Ethernet )

I would use normal Cat5e rather than the DoP ( Data over Power )


MW

 

[TonyA]

OK Thanks. Already have devices and they are not "n" capable, so stuck with abg!