Any Smart(er) Home Network People in Here?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Maybe this belongs in GQ or Debates so feel free to move as required.

Looking for home networking help.

I have a 4000 square foot home with three levels including the basement. I am currently using an ISP provided Zyxdel 600HW DSL Modem with 802.11g wireless that due to the location coming in from the DSLAM is on the far side of the house and on the top floor in the home office. I obviously want to improve home coverage so here is what I have done so far along with a few questions. I purchased a Cisco E2000 Dual Band 802.11n router and disabled the Zyxel /g wireless. This setup currently works really well in range and I get the full 10mbps provided by the ISP (I live in the country and am lucky to get 10).

However we just built out a theater in the basement that is - literally - the farthest point from the router in the home and down two floors. Currently speed test reports I am getting about 2mbps at best. Given that it is two floors down in the basement and through concrete that is probably a best case scenario and I need to improve coverage. So I decided to run a single CAT 5 cable through the two floors to the theater room and patch panel it to the media server room. I have verified that the cable is good and I am now ready to hardline a new connection but here is my question; what hardware would you recommend to put there?

I assume an access point over a repeater since I have the Ethernet drop but I need to make sure that an AP can also be used as a switch for all the devices I want to connect (hard wired) with CAT 5 off the AP (Xbox 360, PS3, Smart Projector, Google TV Box and a Media Server PC).

I also keep reading about Powerline/EoP devices like the Cisco RE1000 or the Aironet that might also be used say on the second floor to ensure the best coverage. Will this cause conflicts with a hardwired AP?

Also, is there ANY benefit in replacing the DSL modem? I am assuming since I disabled the /g wireless from the modem that it is out of the performance/coverage equation in my /n network but not 100% percent sure.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

2

Why not just hard wire a switch and connect your access point to the switch.

3

I agree, though it can be done without adding any hardware. What I would do is move the Cisco E2000 down to the basement, patch it into the ZyXEL (did you mean P-660HW?) through one of the switch ports (not the WAN port on the E2000) and turn off DHCP on the E2000, which will essentially turn it into an access point+switch (not a router anymore). I would also turn on the Wireless-G on your Zyxel, but put it on a different channel (and possibly use a different SSID).

Now, you’ll have an access point at each of the furthest points of the house, and in between you can choose the SSID with the best reception. The reason you connect as a switch and not as a router (using the WAN port on the E2000) is so that devices wirelessly connecting via the ZyXEL will be able to see devices connected on the E2000, which they wouldn’t if they were behind the router.

4

If the DSL bridge is working and you’re getting the full advertised speed, don’t mess with it.

What I did in a similar, but perhaps not as large house, was to plug a switch into the Ethernet line at the family room. Everything that can have a wired connection does - the Wii, Bluray player, etc. I then plugged in an Apple Airport, and configured it to bridge the existing wireless. You give it the SSID and WPA2 key of the existing access point upstairs, and it seamlessly extends the wireless so there’s no messing with switching networks when you move around the house. and no messing around with the existing installation that’s working well aside from low signal strength downstairs.

5

Apparently you can keep the SSIDs the same on all your networks, and just use different channels, and the roaming between them should be seamless.