Home Network in Old House

mheist

Guys, I have an old house (100 years +) with thick walls and the Wi-Fi strength is poor generally. I work a lot at home using thin client technologies so I need to be wired in. My Virgin co-ax cable enters the house in the front living room but I'd like to put a switch there and wire some more links to other areas of the house where I could extend from using wireless routers or cable. Problem is, I don't want to drill into walls so I'd like to run some fibre/cat 6 under the floor boards if possible. Are there any contractors out there doing this type of work?

DublinDilbert

mheist wrote: »

Guys, I have an old house (100 years +) with thick walls and the Wi-fi strength is poor generally. I work a lot at home using thin client technologies so I need to be wired in. My UCP co-ax cable enters the house in the front living room but I'd like to put a switch there and wire some more links to other areas of the house where I could extend from using wireless routers or cable. Problem is, I don't want to drill into walls so I'd like to run some fibre/cat 6 under the floor boards if possible. Are there any contractors out there doing this type of work?

Most electricians will carry out this type of work. It might not be easy to run all the cables back to your UPC modem behind the TV. You can take 1 CAT5 cable from your UPC modem and locate your switch some where with easier access.

Your other option is to try use home plugs, you will typically get better transfer rates than 100Mbits over them, so much faster than your incoming connection. You can bond multiple plugs together to form a network, these start at about €30 for a set and definitely worth the money, even while your waiting for your network to be installed.

BailMeOut

+1 on home plugs (ethernet over power). I personally like Devolo and you can get the devices with built in Wifi so extending to another room is a simple plug in. I also like the power pass through models so you do not lose a power socket.

Bruthal

Yes I use the powerline plug in setup for network out to a steel shed. Works perfectly.

maxamillius

Also use Home plugs, they are great, highly recommend!

mheist

Thanks for the replies guys. Much appreciated I used those powerline plugs a few years ago at a different premise and they had poor transfer speeds (and high latency) but the house was very old and possibly the wiring had degraded. I use Citrix XenDesktop to connect to my workplace so latency is the biggest factor with this type of tech not bandwidth. As my wireless signal is weak I can see 60ms + latency just to my router which is rubbish (thereafter I have no control on the ISP added latency but generally around 15 - 20 ms so no issues). Worse though with thin client technologies is packet loss and this is what I have on my wireless network. Plugging will resolve this.

That said, I do other things at home (essentially a home office) that require significant bandwidth. I copy a lot of data to my NAS and also have a home hypervisor/lab backed with NFS storage so I need GB speeds. I was thinking of connecting a 10GB capable switch to the ISP router (for internet access) and running everything else off that.

Ethernet on fibre might be a bit much for a home network? Too expensive? Better to stick with CAT 6 for 10GB copper?

Lostphrophet

usefull info have Virgin media hub 3 was going to get a second wireless router but this seems a simpler job.

Curious does anyone know how the signal jumps to different circuits.
Ie upstairs power plugs are on a seperate circuit trip switch then their is a seperate trip switch for downstairs plugs.
so if you plug it into down stairs plug circuit it will only send that signal to power lines on said circuit?

PS Checked for Devolo as suggested above PC World €160 euro they are on sale in Maplins for €119

devolo-dlan-650-triple-pass-through 119.00

http://www.currys.ie/product/devolo-dlan-500-wireless-powerline-adapter-kit-triple-pack/319785/400.7.7
https://www.maplin.ie/p/devolo-500-wifi-triple-powerline-kit-n51qg
https://www.maplin.ie/p/devolo-dlan-650-triple-pass-through-powerline-kit-a39ng

Bruthal

They work on separate circuits because they are still directly connected to each other through the MCBs.

The documentation may say they need to be on the same circuit. But not really. They do need to be on the same phase though.