Hi everyone,

I have just moved house and am setting up a home network, and would gratefully accept and help or advice anyone can offer.

My old home was very small, and the network pretty simple. I had fibre installed a few years back; the Optical Network Terminal was installed in the lounge. Vodafone provided a Huawei HG659, which plugged into this. 

I didn't much like the Huawei modem. I only kept it because Vodafone kinda prevented you from using a phone with any other kind of modem.

So my actual access point was a Netgear D6400. Into this I plugged my PS3, SKY, NAS and my desktop computer. My wireless devices also accessed this.

My new home is much larger. There is a home hub cabinet in the garage, where Chorus have installed the Optical Network terminal. Also in the hub, there are 6 ethernet cables wired to 6 jack points thoroughout the house (1 in the lounge, 1 in each of the 4 bedrooms and 1 in the kitchen).

Chorus connected the lounge access point to the ONT, and then my modems to this jack point. Of course, this only gives me wired connectivity in one room.

I would ideally like to use all 6 points, but for day-to-day use the main access points I would like are the lounge (PS3 and SKY) and one of the rooms as an office (computer, NAS and maybe some other computers).

I have kinda hacked together a solution that is not pretty but only sort-of works, so any advice would be great.

I have connected the Huawei 659 to the ONT, then connected this to a Netgear GS108 switcher, which has all 6 ethernet jacks connected.

In the lounge, I have the Netgear D6400 connected, with the SKY and PS3 connected, plus this is the wireless access point.

In the office, I have another spare router, a Netgear D6300 connected to the jack, and into this I plugged the computer and the NAS.

The main problems with this are: 

1. The home hub is really untidy. I could probably tidy it up a bit, but with the ONT, switcher and Huawei modem, it's pretty tight inside the cabinet.

2. The office seems to be working as a private network. It can connect to the internet, but nothing on that network can see the devices attached to the lounge router - so my wireless computers can't see the NAS.

I have been fiddling with the settings on the 2nd Netgear router, which could be what's causing the problem. I can no longer access its maintenance page. It does switch at least, as my computer can see the NAS. Might have to do a reset and see what can be done.

I could try switching the two routers around, or making the 2nd Netgear the wireless access point. This would isolate the PS3 from the NAS, although I could never get uPNP working properly (and from what I read online, I'm not alone). The SKY box would also be isolated, which is OK for now, but SKY are getting into IPTV so in future I'd probably want it open to the network.

Is there any combination that would mean I only have the switcher in the home hub? I would ideally like to take the modem out of the cabinet. I have tried putting it further up the chain, but it seems I have to put it right after the ONT.

I could potentially ditch the Huawei altogether. My new home does not have any phone jacks, so I'm not using a phone right now. In future, I might get a VOIP phone, but I think I still need the Vodafone router. When I called them to arrange the move, they offered me a new Huawei but I declined.

Ideally, I'd like just the switcher and the ONT in the home hub; to be able to use all the jack points (but if I have to limit this to 3 or 4, that's OK); and to have all the devices be able to see each other.