I recently bought a house, and in the process of setting up my cable the cableguy told me that I have the oldest/ cheapest/worst coaxial cable he’s ever seen. Because of a lack of shielding, I’m losing a lot of signal strength from the time it enters the basement, to the point where my tv sits in the living room.
To make matters worse, I also have cable internet, which requires that the main cable line gets split. To clarify a bit, the signal comes into the basement at a strength of 0.9. It then runs about 50ft to the living room where it has a signal of -.6 (not sure what he was using). That line has to be split for the tv and the modem, so I’m left with very little power to either devise.
So now I’m about to replace the coaxial cable running from the basement into the living room, but it occurred to me that I have three possible options:
Replace the coaxial cable and keep the splitter/modem in the same place (next to the tv).
Split the cable in the basement, put the modem in the basement and then run an Ethernet cable up to the router in the living room.
Split the cable in the basement, put the router down there, and use just wireless N, adding a wireless bridge if needed.
Any thoughts on what would be the best option? One of my concerns is that if I split the cable at the wall, I won’t have enough strength to get to the tv. I guess ultimately I’d like to know what would provide me with the highest bandwidth to both tv and computers while minimizing cost.
Forgive my ignorance, but is the cat6 cable the standard internet cable I’m currently using? I’ve never been sure what to call it. Is a T1 line different?
Just go to your local Best Buy or computer store and ask for it. “Cat 6” means “Category 6”, which is cable that is guaranteed to work with Gigabit Ethernet. Most Ethernet cables have their ratings printed along their length - just look and see what you are using. “T1” is a telephone designation - I don’t think there are specific cables used to run a T1 signal (usually just twisted pair). the cable that runs from your DSL box to your computer will be Ethernet (or possibly USB, a bad idea) and should be at least Cat 5.
Nowadays, what you call an Ethernet cable is typically either a Cat5, Cat5e, or Cat6 cable. All three types all look the same physically, but Cat6 is rated for higher maximum network speeds. In general, both Cat5e and Cat6 will support today’s 1Gbit/sec Ethernet networks. Since the cost difference between Cat5e and Cat6 is usually fairly minimal, you might as well use the higher-rated stuff if you can.
T1 is a type of communication technology, not a type of cable. For instance, if you can’t afford T1, you might choose ISDN, DSL, or cable Internet access instead. Admittedly, there are standard types of cables that are usually associated with these technologies; you run DSL over telephone lines. But you could, for example, use a fiber optic cable or a copper cable for a T1.
If you’re only talking about Internet access, there is no speed limitation due to a wireless network. You can get 55 Mbps on a good wireless network; I can’t get anything faster than 20 Mbps at any price from Internet service providers in the Seattle area and the service I have now is just 12 Mbps. So even at maximum Internet usage, I’m below 25% of the wireless network’s capacity.
On the other hand, standard ethernet is 100 Mbps and gigabit is 1000 Mbps, and computer-to-computer transfers benefit greatly from that extra speed. So you’ll need to ask yourself whether you’ll have multiple computers connected to the router. For many home users, there’s not much need.
This is a weird question. Everytime Ive bought cable internet they ran a fresh new coax line from the pole straight into the house, terminated it with a new jack, and plugged the modem into it. They didnt use any existing wiring and considering your wiring is so bad, you should be able to call their manager and tell them that you want a new line run to the wall. Sounds like you have a lazy installer who just ran a line from the pole into the existing cable drop instead of doing this job and running a new line and drilling into your wall. I think if youre demanding enough they’ll run new wire for you free of cost. Tell them youre thinking of getting Dish if they cant do it.
Run both a Cat5e/Cat6 and quad-sheild RG-6 coax cable. That way you can have the cable modem and router up where you can access it, with a network cable running out so you can put a switch in another location for additional computers. If you’re going to go through the trouble of running one cable, pull two.
Put a 2-way splitter in the basement, taking one off for the cable modem upstairs. Take the other to an amplifier to split for however many TVs you need. The reason to split for the cable modem before amplifying is that it’s one less failure point for getting a good cable modem signal, and not all amplifiers pass the signal well back to the cable company.
Seconded on Monoprice. I recently bought a 135" 16:9 projection screen from them, as well as a DVI-D to HDMI 50 foot cable. Great quality, amazing price.
how soon we forget!
just reminiscing.
Back in the good old days ethernet cable WAS coax. Big coax. When I first saw the OP I thought maybe we were taking a trip back in time. What is called “ethernet” cable is in fact twisted pair phone lines with an attitude-and lots of twists. It was first used because it was a cheap alternative to real ethernet cable-which was a coax cable.
As for ethernet cable, Cat 3 or 5 or 6 is primarily determined by the number of twists/foot. The more twists the stiffer the cable and the more wire needed. As for signal quality, the (average) installer/user needn’t worry about it. A cable installation depends on the wire and the connectors. Many installers happily spend the few extra dollars/euros/etc for Cat 6 cable then use the cheapest 10megabit/sec connectors they can find. The result is that the user never sees anything like gigabit speed and the installer had to deal with slightly stiffer wire during install. Wasteful, but it is a minor cost. Many say that the cost of running the cable means one should always run the highest capacity and that is true the first time. After that, running another cable (assuming the installer didn’t staple the cable or anything stupid like that) is simply attaching the new cable to the old and pulling.
As for the OP. there is little to choose from his options. He needs to replace his coax with good quality coax, then buy the highest quality highest frequency splitter he can get and hook up his equipment at whatever location is convenient.
