Expanding a wireless network

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Llathos

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 16, 2005
Messages
151
So I'm one of the lucky few with a 25Mbps FiOS connection at home. I'm looking to expand the network through the house...

What makes the situation perhaps a bit unorthodox is that I'd like to actually avoid using the wireless to expand the network.

Is it insane to do this?

Wireless Device(FiOS)-------------Cat6wire----------------wireless device(a new router?)

Basically, I'd like strong wireless at the end points to provide good laptop, etc coverage through the house, but I want to stream bluray movies and the like across the network so I wanted to go GigE.

Thoughts? Advice on the hardware to buy on the other end? Is this whole setup stupid?


Thanks
 
Uhmmm... not sure what you mean by wireless on the end-points as you've got FiOS as one end of it already, and that sure ain't wireless (assumption here, so...). Never knew they were offering speeds that high using a wireless type device - doesn't that sorta defeat being Fiber? :D (Disclaimer: I'm on a 50Mbps cable connection, typically pulls close to 60 in regular use).

I'd say if you want speeds in excess of 11g for stuff, and you plan to hardline GigE anywhere, you're going to need to do 11n wireless, there's just no getting around that. While most if not all Blu-ray discs can actually be streamed with less than 54 Mbps easily, an actual 11g network just isn't going to be able to muster that type of bandwidth for multiple devices, that's where 11n comes in.

I'd say get a kickass 11n router, mount it someplace decent in your home (centralized, of course) and high up, perhaps even on a ceiling or in the space above center, in an attic, etc. It's not like you have to have access to it 24/7 constantly; set it up the one time and you're basically done, admin is done remotely as always.

11n - if you get one with dual antennas - has exceptional coverage of very wide areas, especially if it's got a diversity antenna arrangement, should be more than acceptable.

PS This would probably be better in the Networking subforum, perhaps ask a Mod to move it over there to get more focused responses.
 
Hm. I think I wasn't very clear in my explanation.

Basically, I want GigE in my house for machine to machine transfers and media serving.

The FiOS router may or may not do that with it's Ethernet controller (might be 10/100), but for the sake of the above I'm assuming it will.

I want to get a wireless router and put it on the other side of my house, connecting it to the FiOS router with a Cat6 cable. This provides high bandwidth between routers and devices physically connected to those routers. Wireless devices would use the wireless broadcast from either the FiOS router or the new wireless router I purchases....whichever they get better signal from.

Make more sense?
 
Not insane to that. Hell that's what I'm doing now with my current home setup: my DLink DIR 655 is connected to a cheapy $10 wireless-G router I found to provide a bit more coverage to the other side of the house. Works ok-ish.
 
Danny Bui said:
Not insane to that. Hell that's what I'm doing now with my current home setup: my DLink DIR 655 is connected to a cheapy $10 wireless-G router I found to provide a bit more coverage to the other side of the house. Works ok-ish.
Click to expand...

I have the same router you do sir, it works very good.

To the OP, why do you want to do this, it doesn't make any sense. It's more of an inconvenience to wire EVERYTHING than it is to just set up a wireless router and forget all about it.

Wireless N is capable up to a theoretical amount of 250 MB/sec

You likely won't see that obviously, but you aren't going to see a huge drop off from wired to wireless, maybe a few ms of ping here and there, if at all, but it's definitely not worth going through all the hassle of wiring everything up.

Of course that's your choice. If you're looking to stream, Wireless N has been capable of this since the beginning of time, even G is can do a capable job of it, N is a thousand times better than G.

All you need is a good router, and if you need to add another wireless access point all you do is run a wire from your first wireless router to your access point and you're on the same network. Not really hard at all.

Wireless is the wave of the future.
 
Hey I appreciate wireless as much as the next guy, but across my house the wireless signal drops pretty quickly.

By the time it gets to the other side (and it is the exact opposite corner) of the house, the signal has dropped and streaming HD content (5, 10, sometimes 20 Mbps video streams) will grind to a halt (or stutter to be more accurate).

So right now my PS3 connects to the wireless network with it's built-in wireless adapter which only supports b/g, but does support GigE with its built in Ethernet adapter.

That leaves me wanting a wired connection to the PS3.

Perhaps the solution is 2 N routers inside the current network to support high speed local wireless traffic?

FiOS Router----wire----nRouter - - - - wireless - - - - nRouter-----wire----PS3
 
Llathos said:
Hey I appreciate wireless as much as the next guy, but across my house the wireless signal drops pretty quickly.

By the time it gets to the other side (and it is the exact opposite corner) of the house, the signal has dropped and streaming HD content (5, 10, sometimes 20 Mbps video streams) will grind to a halt (or stutter to be more accurate).

So right now my PS3 connects to the wireless network with it's built-in wireless adapter which only supports b/g, but does support GigE with its built in Ethernet adapter.

That leaves me wanting a wired connection to the PS3.

Perhaps the solution is 2 N routers inside the current network to support high speed local wireless traffic?

FiOS Router----wire----nRouter - - - - wireless - - - - nRouter-----wire----PS3
Click to expand...

I understand, and I agree, if I were you, I too, would want my PS3 wired, cause the PS3 has an abysmal wireless adapter, Sony should be brought up on criminal charges for including a wireless adapter so shitty.

But, I digress. What wireless router are you currently using? Not all wireless routers are created equal, some handle heavy loads better than others, for instance, my parents Linksys 54GWRT or whatever that popular $50 model is called can't handle heavy linux distro sessions, but my Dlink 655 can handle the linux distros while I play games at the same time and stream video

You really do get what you pay for when it comes to wireless routers.

So, care to get a little more specific?

and yes, having more than one wireless access point would and can help your signal problems.
 
Fail said:
I have the same router you do sir, it works very good.

To the OP, why do you want to do this, it doesn't make any sense. It's more of an inconvenience to wire EVERYTHING than it is to just set up a wireless router and forget all about it.

Wireless N is capable up to a theoretical amount of 250 MB/sec

You likely won't see that obviously, but you aren't going to see a huge drop off from wired to wireless, maybe a few ms of ping here and there, if at all, but it's definitely not worth going through all the hassle of wiring everything up.

Of course that's your choice. If you're looking to stream, Wireless N has been capable of this since the beginning of time, even G is can do a capable job of it, N is a thousand times better than G.

All you need is a good router, and if you need to add another wireless access point all you do is run a wire from your first wireless router to your access point and you're on the same network. Not really hard at all.

Wireless is the wave of the future.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree with this. Wireless is definitely great, for some things and in some situations, but it will never surpass wired. The speed is one thing but more importantly wireless has to deal with all sorts of interference - wired is simply reliable where wireless isn't. Particularly if streaming HD is one of your requirements, even compressed HD rips can be dodgy on .11n, and forget about streaming uncompressed Blu-Ray.

To the OP, my suggestion is get a decent gigabit switch (if your FiOS router doesn't have one built in), and run as many network cable drops as you can to strategic locations (particularly places that you're going to be wanting to stream HD to, i.e. your PS3). Then if you still want to extend your wireless network, you can put access points (or wireless routers configured as access points) where you need them and just hook them back up to your existing network. By setting the additional access points to different channels but with the same SSID and encryption settings, you'll have a seamless extension of your network.
 
Thanks, that's kind of in line with my thinking.

Since my OP I've discovered that my FiOS router doesn't do GigE. Frustrating.

I picked up 250' of Cat6 and a Cisco Linksys WRT160N. My plan is to run the Cat6 from the FiOS router to the WRT160N on the other side of the house. It won't be GigE, but it'll be a big improvement. Later I will pick up a second router and do the internal network all GigE.

I'm actually having trouble right now because I was hoping to have the WRT160N be part of the same network as an AP. I seem to be failing to figure out how to make that happen as it appears I've established a second wireless network.

I'll keep digging.
 
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