New home patch panel connection advice needed

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › New home patch panel connection advice needed - router position etc

getresults

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#229036 4-Feb-2018 20:10

We have recently moved into a brand new home (rented) which has ethernet ports in the two living areas.

In the main living / dining room we have the Vodafone Ultrahub router with a cat6 cable running from the WAN port to the wall socket back to the patch panel in the garage and connected directly to the fibre ONT.

This works great for that living room and the UltraHub Wifi covers the house nicely.

The network socket in the other lounge does nothing because it's not connected to anything in the patch panel.

Questions:

I want to put my new ODROID Open Media Vault / Plex server inside the patch panel cabinet and have it there as a media server and data backup.

I had naively assumed that there was some sort of hub/switch in the patch panel that I could plug other gear into. I've now realised I'm wrong and there doesn't seem to be any easy way to connect devices in the patch panel or the ethernet socket in the other lounge without moving the Ultrahub into the patch panel cabinet. That way I could run the ONT into the Ultrahub WAN port and use the LAN Ports to connect to the ethernet sockets in both lounges.

That's all great except our main UltraHub would be in a metal box in the garage murdering the wifi coverage.

Questions:

1) Would someone confirm I'm correct in my thinking that if I want to connect both lounge network sockets to the LAN I need to put the Ultrahub in the patch panel cabinet (ONT to UltraHub WAN socket, LAN sockets to both lounges, ODROID in another LAN socket)?

2) Or... I could use another gigabit router in the patch cabinet (I have a Netcomm NF5 here somewhere)... so... ONT to NF5 WAN, NF5 LAN ports to both lounges and the Ultrahub connected via LAN port instead of WAN port in the main lounge?

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks in advance,

Phill

Jase2985

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#1951591 4-Feb-2018 20:21

1) yes

2) yes that way would work, just confirm that the NF5 will be able to handle you fibres speed.

you would need to turn the Ultrahub into a dumb access point

froob

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#1951613 4-Feb-2018 21:45

In the living / dining area with the UltraHub, is there more than one network port on the wall? If so, you can back feed a LAN port from the UltraHub for your media server in the cabinet.

Even if you only have one socket, there is a splitter you can get which will let you run a single ethernet cable as if it was two. It will only support 100Mbps ethernet though (i.e not gigabit). That may or may not matter for your setup.

Guide: Installing Network Cabling in New Zealand Homes

michaelmurfy

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#1951616 4-Feb-2018 21:54

Or just put a standard ole Network Switch in the cabinet alongside the oDroid? Another way of doing it is to use something like a Grandstream GWN7000 in the cabinet and put access points (Grandstream GWN7600) in the house (will give better WiFi).

There are many ways of doing it but depends on your budget at the end of the day.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

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getresults

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#1951677 5-Feb-2018 06:36

michaelmurfy:

Or just put a standard ole Network Switch in the cabinet alongside the oDroid? Another way of doing it is to use something like a Grandstream GWN7000 in the cabinet and put access points (Grandstream GWN7600) in the house (will give better WiFi).

There are many ways of doing it but depends on your budget at the end of the day.

@froob - thanks for the reply. There's no return socket (that was the first thing I checked) and I want to keep gigabit speed throughout

@Jase2985 - thank you - the NF5 is gigabit so seems like a good solution for now.

@michaelmurfy - we're on a budget right now so I'll use my existing Netcomm NF5 in the cabinet and save the GWN700/GWN7600 for a few months for a later date when we want to improve the networking further.

Thanks everyone!

webwat

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#1952695 6-Feb-2018 23:40

Maybe and no, yes a simple hub is possible but landlords don't usually supply them.

An Ethernet switch in the garage (not a router) is possible, but this can't go between the ONT and the router -- so if there's only a single Ethernet outlet in the lounge then probably the router needs to be in the garage to connect both the ONT and all the outlets. Pretty sad if they only put a single outlet in the living room but there might be a phone outlet next to it that could be rewired for Ethernet.

If the router needs to be moved then you probably want an "access point" in the lounge, not a wifi extender or router. If you do have a router already, it might have an configuration option to run in "access point" mode.

Time to find a new industry!