Question regarding broadband and data points

delta_bravo

Hi,

Just got virgin media installed in a new house. When we were getting the house rewired I asked the electrician for 3 cat6 points around the house so I could have the option of wired internet in the sitting room, an office room and a bedroom. At the time he mentioned there needs to be a point where the cat6 cabling goes back to, I said the office. So in the office room there seems to be 2 cat6 cable points.

However when Virgin came to install tv and broadband we obviously couldn't put the virgin hub in the office as they basically don't do internal cabling so it is in the sitting room which has 1 data point. I have a few questions on this:

1. The virgin engineer said if I get an ethernet cable and connect it from the virgin hub to the cat6 point in the sitting room it will basically make all the other points in the house live and I should be able to connect to them. Does that sound right?

2. The above solution works in one way but also it takes the sitting room point out of commission for connecting a games console or tv to the data point. Would getting something like an ethernet switch solve that?

3. For the other data points, if they are live I was thinking of connecting one to a router to boost wireless signal throughout the house. However doing some googling it appears that routers can work but is not recommended and I should get a wireless access point. Is that what I should get?

Sorry if some of these questions are basic.

dam099

delta_bravo wrote: »

Hi,

Just got virgin media installed in a new house. When we were getting the house rewired I asked the electrician for 3 cat6 points around the house so I could have the option of wired internet in the sitting room, an office room and a bedroom. At the time he mentioned there needs to be a point where the cat6 cabling goes back to, I said the office. So in the office room there seems to be 2 cat6 cable points.

However when Virgin came to install tv and broadband we obviously couldn't put the virgin hub in the office as they basically don't do internal cabling so it is in the sitting room which has 1 data point. I have a few questions on this:

1. The virgin engineer said if I get an ethernet cable and connect it from the virgin hub to the cat6 point in the sitting room it will basically make all the other points in the house live and I should be able to connect to them. Does that sound right?

2. The above solution works in one way but also it takes the sitting room point out of commission for connecting a games console or tv to the data point. Would getting something like an ethernet switch solve that?

3. For the other data points, if they are live I was thinking of connecting one to a router to boost wireless signal throughout the house. However doing some googling it appears that routers can work but is not recommended and I should get a wireless access point. Is that what I should get?

Sorry if some of these questions are basic.

Are the 2 points in the office wall points or just 2 cables coming out of the wall? I suspect the sitting room and bedroom are coming back to 1 each of those.

1. No, you will need a switch to have more than 1 point active. Likely what you need is

Virgin Router (any of LAN 1-4) --> Sitting Room Wall Point --> Office Point that goes back to it --> Switch

Switch --> Any wired devices in Office

Switch --> Office point that goes back to Bedroom --> Bedroom wall point

2. Wouldnt the Virgin router be near that point based on point 1? If so it will have 3 more LAN ports you can use. If you need more than 3 then a switch will work.

3. A router would work if you have a spare but you would be turning off routing features to avoid conflicts so if purchasing an access point would suffice. If you want seamless WiFi handoffs you might want to disable the Virgin WiFi too and buy 2-3 Access Points with mesh features.

delta_bravo

dam099 wrote: »

Are the 2 points in the office wall points or just 2 cables coming out of the wall? I suspect the sitting room and bedroom are coming back to 1 each of those.

1. No, you will need a switch to have more than 1 point active. Likely what you need is

Virgin Router (any of LAN 1-4) --> Sitting Room Wall Point --> Office Point that goes back to it --> Switch

Switch --> Any wired devices in Office

Switch --> Office point that goes back to Bedroom --> Bedroom wall point

2. Wouldnt the Virgin router be near that point based on point 1? If so it will have 3 more LAN ports you can use. If you need more than 3 then a switch will work.

3. A router would work if you have a spare but you would be turning off routing features to avoid conflicts so if purchasing an access point would suffice. If you want seamless WiFi handoffs you might want to disable the Virgin WiFi too and buy 2-3 Access Points with mesh features.

Thanks for all that. The office wall has two points in it if that makes a difference

delta_bravo

dam099 wrote: »

Are the 2 points in the office wall points or just 2 cables coming out of the wall? I suspect the sitting room and bedroom are coming back to 1 each of those.

1. No, you will need a switch to have more than 1 point active. Likely what you need is

Virgin Router (any of LAN 1-4) --> Sitting Room Wall Point --> Office Point that goes back to it --> Switch

Switch --> Any wired devices in Office

Switch --> Office point that goes back to Bedroom --> Bedroom wall point

2. Wouldnt the Virgin router be near that point based on point 1? If so it will have 3 more LAN ports you can use. If you need more than 3 then a switch will work.

3. A router would work if you have a spare but you would be turning off routing features to avoid conflicts so if purchasing an access point would suffice. If you want seamless WiFi handoffs you might want to disable the Virgin WiFi too and buy 2-3 Access Points with mesh features.

Just a follow up on this. As you presumed, each point in the office was going to one in the sitting room and another into the upstairs bedroom.

So what I did to get them all working :

Virgin media hub has an ethernet cable going from it to the data point in the sitting room.

Then in the office I had another cable going between one point and a switch. Other devices I connected to the switch all worked fine.

The next step was activating the bedroom data point which went back to the other office data point. At first I stuck a cable between the switch and the free data point in the office. However this did not work. I had to get a second switch in the office and place a cable between the two switches. This then activated the bedroom data point.

Thanks for your help