Looking for advice/ideas/survival techniques re: Networking

[maineman]

I'm trying to figure out how best, to network in my new digs.
I recently moved from Maine where I was very spoiled with fiber optic cable and I had run cat5 to 5 rooms. Easy...peasy.

I now have AT&T DSL (groan)...only thing I can get up here in the Blue Ridge Mtns, besides satellite internet which is worse.

The whole house is wired with cat6, but I'm stuck with a DSL modem/router.
I'm not a big fan of wireless, except for browsing.

I'm going to try an experiment and backfeed the AT&T router into the cat6 already installed throughout the house (obviously, using a new outlet).
No one I've talked to seems to know if this will work and thankfully, I've talked to some ppl. who know a lot more than me.
This leads me to believe it will not work/or not work well...maybe screw up the phones at minimum?
I plan on Plan A failing.

Right now my desktop is connected via ethernet-over-power which is a damn sight better than wireless
and falls somewhere between wifi and my old TW fiber optic.
I'll probably end up with plan B which is to replace the lousy 2Wire (AT&T) modem
(upstairs and in my wife's office...hardware and service also paid for by her co.),
bridge the new DSL modem and go with a second router near my desktop and TV on the first floor.
This will be via either ethernet-over-power or newly fished cat6.

The newly fished cat6 will be a major PITA going from the 2nd to 1st floor.
The ethernet-over-power should be a snap, but I have 2 large electrical panels and cannot cross over panels with the power-over-ethernet devices.
Still, this should be pretty straightforward since the basement is wide-open territory.

Once the first floor router is established, no big deal to run additional, dedicated cat6 (fished down and up from the basement) if need be and to tidy up cables.

Plan C is totally dependent on the wife (and prevailing winds...)
and would be ideal in this instance.
I take control over the DSL router with my pc on the first floor.
Her win7 lappie does just fine with wireless, but her older XP Pro desktop has issues.
I'm hoping this is secondary to the crappy 2WIRE router.
She uses a docking station, the laptop, desktop and Ai1 printer for work and and work is paying the freight.
Needless to say, I cannot afford to screw this up

If anyone has any advice or pointers, I'd sure appreciate them.

[martythebrit]

Not quite sure what's going on here, but...

Normally the CAT 6 jacks on the wall would feed back to a central point and connect to a gigabit switch, the switch would then connect to your router and the router to the telco jack.

I'm I missing something here?

[GregiBoy]

Hi Tom....

I'll try to help but I am a little unsure by your descriptions so I'll just rant on with ideas. This appears very similar to many installations that I have done here in Oz.

I assume that the current modem/router is attached to a phone line somewhere and you can control & edit settings via the use of a web browser and also has one or more ethernet ports for distbution besides wireless.

Yoi already know my thoughts on wireless so I won't tire you with another rant there!!

Firstly, I would bite the bullet and pull the hard wires to the basement and the first floor and then just put in cheapie hubs Gigabyte hubs where necessary for distribution on each floor.

I would also consider setting all the IP addressing as fixed IP rather than obtaining IP leases from a DHCP server which is usually enabled on the router.

Any chance of a sketch mud map to work with?? Sometimes it is very hard to do this from word descriptions.

Regards
Greg

[GregiBoy]

See!!! Marty was as confused as I !!!

It is not only just THIS old fart.

[maineman]

I'm I missing something here?

Only what I already missed Marty.

I assume that the current modem/router is attached to a phone line somewhere and you can control & edit settings via the use of a web browser and also has one or more ethernet ports for distbution besides wireless.

Yes, you assume correctly.

Thanks for your feedback guys, I really appreciate it and my apologies as initially, I should have taken a closer look.
In my defense, I've only been down here a few months and I'm way behind on the honey-do-list.

Turns out, none of the cat 6 (and cat5) is good for ethernet coonections.
All the utilities are underground including the AT&T feed.
Despite it being cat5, it s only a 2 wire feed into the basement from the phone box outside.

Ultimately, the cat5&6 just meets in a large workbox and is simply a lot of fancy, cut & spliced 2 wire phone cord.

Looks like it's gonna be fishing new cable.
The good news is that I should be able to use the existing cat6 as a "fish" from the 2nd to 1st floor.

Again, thanks very much for taking the time to respond.

[signals]

Pard
Do you have DSL filter(s) either at the place where the line enters the house (feeding the DSL modem) or on all the other phone line-connected devices? It is pretty bad even with the filters, hardly works without them. I have ATT DSL also.

Does your DSL modem have a router built-in? They are terrible, see if they can get you a modem without a router (mine is a "Westel") and then connect the modem to a new router via ethernet. I have had good luck with a wireless-N I bought from Meritline, a solid 180-200 mb/s anywhere in the house and yard (no need to pull CAT6 everywhere). The wireless network will stream anything except uncompressed BDs (but it will do BD-9s). The Meritline router (TP-Link) has a USB host port that supports HDDs and a media server in the firmware, so I have a 1TB drive on it full of movies.

[maineman]

Hey pard, appreciate the info. This is all new as I've always had Time Warner cable

As the underground feed comes into the "Telephone Network Interface" box (outside), I'm uncertain whether there is a filter present or not
It may just be that I'm not able to ID it inside the box?

All the phone connections have inline filters at the wall jacks.

The AT&T modem/router (2WIRE brand) power supply is on its last legs (according to AT&T tech) and from what little I know, it's a piece of crap anyway.
This has the 2-line filter (DSL and phone) at the wall jack.

I picked up a Netgear modem/router at Walmart to replace the 2WIRE and just to get my wife's work station up and running again.
(AT&T recommended either 2WIRE or Netgear).

The 2WIRE settled down so I have not actually done anything yet so I can just truck the Netgear back to Walmart for a refund.

I had no idea about the modem/router combo = crap.

What model Westel do you have?
Did you have any hassles setting it up with AT&T...easy to do?

I see the TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND at wallyworld for $54.88 so I actually make money with the refund.

Thanks again

[martythebrit]

If you're going the wireless route you may want to run a single cat 5 cable to the second floor and install an access point.

Wireless very much depends on the house construction, so you may not need to do this depending on your results.

[maineman]

Thanks Marty.

No doubt, this will be a some sort of combination of hard-wired and wifi.
Wife is gone for about 3 weeks out of the next 6, so I'll have time to play and if the network goes down for more than an hour...no big deal.

Wifi is adequate to her needs for work and if I can just get her desktop playing nicely with wifi, I should be all set (her laptop is her workhorse and just fine with wifi).

This will let me bring the modem down to the 1st floor and life should be easy as only her office and quilt room are upstairs.
Hopefully, wifi and a TV will be all we need up there.

[signals]

I have two of the 1043NDs, they are great with the stock firmware and also support DDWRT if you want to change it. Note that I have segregated the media streaming and internet traffic onto two networks. The results have been good. I have one set up on channel 4 the other on channel 10.

The Westel is just a DSL modem and was supplied to me by ATT, don't know where or even if you could buy one.

Good luck with it. Drop a note if I (or my in-family IT guy) can answer any questions.

Hey pard, appreciate the info. This is all new as I've always had Time Warner cable

As the underground feed comes into the "Telephone Network Interface" box (outside), I'm uncertain whether there is a filter present or not
It may just be that I'm not able to ID it inside the box?

All the phone connections have inline filters at the wall jacks.

The AT&T modem/router (2WIRE brand) power supply is on its last legs (according to AT&T tech) and from what little I know, it's a piece of crap anyway.
This has the 2-line filter (DSL and phone) at the wall jack.

I picked up a Netgear modem/router at Walmart to replace the 2WIRE and just to get my wife's work station up and running again.
(AT&T recommended either 2WIRE or Netgear).

The 2WIRE settled down so I have not actually done anything yet so I can just truck the Netgear back to Walmart for a refund.

I had no idea about the modem/router combo = crap.

What model Westel do you have?
Did you have any hassles setting it up with AT&T...easy to do?

I see the TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND at wallyworld for $54.88 so I actually make money with the refund.

Thanks again