Home network and switch question.

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mags88

33 posts

Geek

#257378 29-Sep-2019 20:39

Hey all.

Just moved into my new house which is hard wired with data cabling. All leading to the garage into a patch panel, and currently the router into the ONT from the study.

My plan is to purchase 2 x gigabit switches. The first one will sit in the lounge to expand the single data point allow TV, PS4 & Vodafone TV to all hardwire into the network.

The second switch will be placed in the garage cabinet. The router will have two connections going into the patch, one into the ONT and one into the switch.

Does the sound correct to allow the house to talk with the router and to expand the single data point beside the TV?

Cheers.

cyril7

7822 posts

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#2326840 29-Sep-2019 20:49

Hi yes you have the right idea, although have you also thought about wireless coverage, purhaps one or two suitably placed waps.

Cyril

mags88

33 posts

Geek

#2326846 29-Sep-2019 20:59

cyril7: Hi yes you have the right idea, although have you also thought about wireless coverage, purhaps one or two suitably placed waps.

Cyril

Adding switch into the cabinet and adding a WAP instead of hard wiring the TV, PS4 and Vodafone TV?

cyril7

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#2326856 29-Sep-2019 21:15

Hi no must hard wire streaming and gaming devices, but you will always need wireless for portable devices, both are important, waps should plug into the switch attached to the router.

Cyril

everettpsycho

145 posts

Master Geek

#2326859 29-Sep-2019 21:26

It's hard to advise without knowing your cabling situation. If I've read that right do you have 2 cables to your study and 1 to all other rooms?

My set up is like this and the two options I've been wrestling with was leaving the router in the media panel and then a switch in my study and living room or moving the router to the study and then just looping the second study cable through with a patch lead to feed the living room (in your case switch 2 goes here). Either works fine, in my case adding the second switch or leaving the router in the media panel means I'd get the network port in the bedroom working but it's one I never use so figure it was a waste.

Either way my WiFi was rubbish as the study and media panel are too far from the living room, I ended up putting in a 2 node mesh network in in bridge mode and shutting off the routers WiFi. The ont is patched in to the study then the router is on my derk. One Lan port goes in to the master mesh node then that goes to the living room switch via the patch panel (feeds all my av gear and second mesh node). Finally got a network in happy with considering the limitations of the wiring they put in to this house.

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
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#2326862 29-Sep-2019 21:37

With the setup you have, a mesh setup that supports Ethernet Backhaul would be perfect.

I'd at the very least just plug one of those into your switch in the lounge, as naturally your going to probably use devices alot there, then have a look at coverage from there

your ideas are right on point and exactly what you should do in this situation :)

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

everettpsycho

145 posts

Master Geek

#2326940 30-Sep-2019 08:21

I didn't really have much choice. The cabling in the house, as nice as it is to have it at all, is useless with a single cable to most rooms. It doesn't afford you a return path back to the media panel to put the router anywhere useful. Had they put 2 in to the living room a single router would have been enough as my study is all hardwired anyway. I attempted an access point in the living room but the two ssid situation played havoc with my cast devices only showing on the relevant ssid for some reason meaning speaker groupings just weren't playing properly.

Adding the mesh solved every issue I was having and ramped my WiFi speed up to take full advantage of the 200/20 speeds. The real test is the end of the month when my upgrade to gigabit kicks in. That's when I'll see what the tenda routers can actually handle. Either way all the hardwired thing should take advantage of the speed boost.

cyril7

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#2326968 30-Sep-2019 08:44

Hi, so why do you not forgo the wireless in the router, most ISP provided routers have not so flash wireless, and instead turn the wireless in the router off, place the router at the hub, get a couple of mesh APs with built in lan ports to place at your office location and elsewhere, set these up to use the cable as the backhaul rather than wireless mesh. A switch at your main AV location or it also could be a mesh unit also if that unit has enough lan ports.

Cyril

Yoban

278 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2327036 30-Sep-2019 10:47

if you are running two switches you may want to consider link aggregation assuming you have plenty of cable runs (2-4) between them to reduce any bottle necking. I have a similar setup and have linked 4 ports on each switch for connection to a NAS and moving media between it.

mags88

33 posts

Geek

#2327128 30-Sep-2019 14:39

Thank you all for the heads up and feedback, greatly appreciated and it sounds like i am going in the right direction.

everettpsycho

145 posts

Master Geek

#2327241 30-Sep-2019 18:08

cyril7:
Hi, so why do you not forgo the wireless in the router, most ISP provided routers have not so flash wireless, and instead turn the wireless in the router off, place the router at the hub, get a couple of mesh APs with built in lan ports to place at your office location and elsewhere, set these up to use the cable as the backhaul rather than wireless mesh. A switch at your main AV location or it also could be a mesh unit also if that unit has enough lan ports.

Cyril

This is what I have done, it's set up for 2 nodes as a mesh in bridge mode and wired backhaul between them. The ISP router is handling the DHCP side of things. I'm happy with mine now, the only bottleneck is all traffic for my living room has to go through the main mesh node as the second one has to be connected to the out port on it to work (not sure if that's just a quirk of the tenda MW6 though) and I only have 1 cable to leave the study and reach the living room so I've no alternative.

I think it just sounded very similar to the OPs set up, I'm not after advice but thought they may be able to use my situation I've been fiddling with recently. The fact they have a single port to the living room creates issues with router placement that's a pain to overcome. The cardinal rule is the ont must be connected directly to the router with no unmanaged switching equipment, after that you can use switches on any of the outputs even if it's a switch connected to another switch. As I said it's really hard to advise without knowing the cable situation. Where is the ont located and how many cables do you have to each room from the patch panel. Knowing that people can advise the best way to reach the router then liven all the other ports around your house.