I am setting up the computer network in my new house, and found a snag. My internet modem and router are at one end of the house, and my desktop computer is at the other end. It’s too far to just put a network cable down. So I thought to go wireless, but the distance is such that the wireless signal is too weak near my computer. Yesterday night I found this nifty gadget on Amazon:
On paper, it allows one to use a house’s electrical cabling for networking. I’d plug one of these things in a socket near the router, another near my computer, connect each adapter to the router and computer using LAN cables, and that would be it.
Did anyone on the SDMB use them? Are there problems and issues I should be aware of?
It seems to me that my alternatives are limited. I could buy a wireless network extender, such as this one:
But I read that using extenders halves bandwidth, which is already not great. I could also buy a very long USB extension, but I think you cannot get an extension as long a I’d need - at least 15 metres to get to an area with decent signal.
Or I could call an electrician, pay through my nose and get all the walls broken up to have the cable pass through.
Use Powerline ethernet - super easy and it does work. I run my broadband connection from the phone connection in the hall to my gateway server at the back of the house over powerline (older stuff as it is only 20mb max broadband). Best decision I ever made.
The only trick is to ensure that you use direct connections - no multi-sockets. These will reduce throughput.
I’m on a 220VAC system here (they work from ca. 100 to 250 VAC), and although in my house (of dubious Chinese quality) they don’t get anywhere near the advertised speed, they trounce my wireless network. They’re certainly good enough for streaming HD video from my Mac Mini host to my Linux XBMC client, whereas the WIFI was a lost cause.
In my real house I have hardwired Cat6 gigabit Ethernet run everywhere. My expectation was that I’d get about half that speed with this solution. It’s nowhere close. But: I’m satisfied.
The kit I linked to has a hub instead of a single access point at one end. To it (in the living room downstairs, with the Linux XBMC box) I have an Airport Express also connected. It extends my wireless network nicely, and it’s certainly fast enough for iPads and iPhones and general laptop use.
So, if file copy speed isn’t critical, and you only need fast enough for streaming HD video, yeah, I can endorse this product. I do copy gigabyte files, though, and I miss my Cat6, but don’t have any regrets vs. WIFI.
If you don’t mind greatly reduced bandwidth, the AC wall wart bridge might just solve your problem. They are limited in bandwidth, and it appears that you can only have one bridge (or they degrade in performance with more than one)
If you are at all handy, I would bite the bullet and run a length of CAT 6 cable from one end of the house to the other. You can buy 100’ rolls of it at Home Depot or online.
Unless you live in truly palatial settings, you shouldn’t worry about exceeding the max length. CAT6 allows a max length of 300’ (plus the connections to the devices at each end).
And if you do this, don’t go cheap. Put in CAT6, so you are gigabit ready, even if you don’t need it. If you use gigabit switches and gigabit Ethernet connections on your machines (standard these days), you should be able to copy files between machines (and NAS devices) at a very high speed. Even if you don’t have this today, you might upgrade in five years, so you don’t want old CAT5 cable in your wall holding you back.
I speak from experience. I was doing my best to make do with wireless routers and finally went through the hassle of running a length of CAT6 between my upstairs closet where the router was to my basement and then to the TV room.
Now, everything just flies. File downloads now go at a true speed of 3-4MB/Sec, more closely matching my max download speed. It seems that there are many factors involved in wifi that work together to drop your max throughput greatly, so wiring the Apple TV, the NAS, and my work and home computers directly has made a vast improvement in the stability and quality.
Wifi still exists in my home for the kids’ laptops, my Squeezebox, and my wife’s iPad.
My house has quite old wiring. The house is around 60 years old; the wiring might not be as old as that, but I reckon it was not rewired in a while, at least 10 years - the previous owner admitted he didn’t do any work whatsoever apart from fixing what got broken.
So I’m concerned that I end up with unreliable, slow connections. Ideally I should investigate whether it is more efficient for me to go for Powerline ethernet or buy the wireless extender thingy. Is there any way I can test the situation?
Oh, and can I just buy more Poweline plugs and stick’em in if I need more connections?
And, by the way, Balthisar…
That’s exactly what I’d like to set up. I have an old Mac Mini, the one with the Power PC CPU, and was thinking of setting up something like that. Can you point me at some resource for beginners? I know my sysadminning and my Linuxing, but streaming video and multimedia stuff never was my cup of tea.
You might want to check different routers as well; some work better than others over long distances. We have a 5000 square foot house, my office & the router is in the top west corner, Mr. Athena’s office is in the bottom east corner, with lots of walls/fireplaces/etc between us, and we found that the higher end Linksys routers work just fine.
That’s also still my recommendation and preference, but my house is a rental and made out of concrete and rebar. No running Cat6 for me.
I do it really simply. My bedroom Mac Mini is an HDMI model running Lion (see note below), and the Linux box is one of those little “nettop” Zotag MAG’s that fits right behind the living room TV. The Mac hosts all of the files, and runs Plexapp. Downstairs I run Ubuntu 10.10 (I think) with XBMC. The Mac shares its files to XBMC via ftp. Take a look at xbmc.org as a resource for a beginning site.
Note that Plexapp needs an Intel processor, but I think XBMC for Mac still supports PPC. Lion doesn’t support PPC, but for future reference, Lion also seriously breaks SAMBA/CIFS, and I can’t find a netatalk client for Ubuntu (just a server), hence the use of ftp for video streaming.
This may sound obvious, but is there any way to move the internet source cable to the other side of the house ? If it is cable modem or DSL, are there other cable drops or phone jacks that are more centered in the house ? IE can you move the whole internet setup and not just the router around ?
Unfortunately not, partly because of the shape and layout of the house, partly because, I reckon, my Internet provider tries to cut down costs and times for installation, so the installer wouldn’t even consider different locations. And these guys offer arguably the best connectivity in this city
And overall the current place is possibly the best one; I just need to sort out access in a couple of rooms.
using the power wiring in your house is probably workable, but you will get a lower quality signal and less bandwidth. So So you will be wasting some of the internet bandwidth that you are paying your supplier for.
Wireless will work, but it will cost more.
Wired connections are usually the best, if you have a reasonable way to run the wires through your house. That seems to be the case here. If the signal strength is too low to reach to the far end of the house, there are ethernet amplifiers for just that situation.
Powerline ethernet is currently at 200+mbs (some manufacturers sell 1000mbs gear) - certainly much faster than most broadband. My 85mbs gear is faster than my 20meg ADSL connection (tested using multiple broadband speed tests at all points in the system). Even if you don’t get the full throughput due to noisy house wiring, it is far faster than any other option (including wireless). It is the cheapest, and easiest way to distribute a network round a house, and you can add as many access points as you like. The only risk of upset is if a neighbour is a Ham Radio operator - there can be some interference, but it is unlikely.
Another vote for “Home Plug” powerline ethernet. Go for the “AV” version at a minimum - it supports 200 mb, and it sounds like there may be faster ones just coming to market. I’ve got one with a built-in 4-port switch, and it works perfectly well to stream HD video from Netflix or locally from iTunes to an Apple TV device and Blu-Ray player as well as letting another PC onto the web.
I’m using a Linksys / Cisco unit here, and it’s truly plug-and-play. Performance will be best if both devices are on the same “leg” of your home’s power wiring. (This may be a moot point in the UK - I’m not familiar with how residential electricity operates in Europe.)
Oh - just remembered: Plug these devices directly into the outlet. Surge protectors and plugstrips will compromise the connection.
Is there a way I can test whether my wiring is in good enough condition? Everything I see around this house shows all signs of being done on the cheap - we knew that buying it, so we had expected all kinds of surprises, but this is something I hadn’t really thought of.
You see, the powerline adapters themselves, while relatively cheap for what they provide, are just on the threshold of being too expensive. I might have to get a quote from an electrician and see how much getting Ethernet wiring would cost me. If the quote is comparable to a couple (or three, or four) adapters, I might go for the wiring instead.
A Netgear HomePlug setup (including a 4-port switch as gotpasswords described) has worked flawlessly for over a year in our townhome… the wiring is less than 10 years old, however.
This is my thought as well. Our house is situated such that the wireless signal from our main router is very weak in some of the farthest rooms – running a single cable through the attic let us set up a second wireless router that we cascade with the first to give full coverage everywhere. Since you’re not trying to run the cable to an actual computer, it doesn’t have to be pretty – just have the cable come out in the top of a closet or something.
We are currently doing the powerline ethernet thing. The simplest set up was to provide connection for a TV and a Roku box. Works fine. No problem with on demand movies
The more complex set up we had involved the modem at one end of the house, and my parents’ computer at the other. Because the other end is an addition, with it’s own breaker box, the signal went -
Router - power line, original breaker box (40 year old electrical lines), new breaker box (30 year old electrical lines), computer. To our surprise, that set up still works well enough to watch on demand movies.