Amateur to basic home networking - help required

[Ulti]

Hey Hexites,

I just wanted some help with setting up my home network as I wasn't sure what the best way would be.

I've got the O2 package where I'm currently getting a download speed of 17Mb/s on the line according to my O2 Wireless Box IV. I'm living in a 2 floor place where the ground floor is a takeaway that my family own and we live upstairs where there are 3 bedrooms, all very close to each other with a desktop PC in each room. We also have a Wii, PS3, a laptop and phones that use WiFi. I'm on O2 as I've had a bad experience with Virgin Media, we used to be throttled during peak times and we didn't download much or torrent anything! I've never once been throttled with O2. I'm also very happy with O2's customer service and price hence why I'm with them even though I could get much faster speeds with cable providers.

The only telephone jack is downstairs and I've put the filter in first with the router coming out one end and the phone connections all coming out the other end and all of this is fine. You can basically say that the router is in the middle of the house downstairs, right next to the telephone jack.

Previously, I had a router upstairs with a telephone cable extension cable which went into a telephone to router cable and the speeds were slightly slower at roughly 14Mb/s. I'm not sure how it was wired but I'm sure I was getting those speeds. However, we had a problem with our telephone systems downstairs and my dad rearranged the adapters and filters and we ended up with 5Mb/s download speed on the line after he put a triple telephone adapter in the socket first, followed by the filter with the telephone system coming out of that, and the previous telephone cable extension coming out of the telephone adapter. I was getting fed up with the low download speeds and I didn't know which way to connect the cables up so I spoke with the O2 technical advisor and he advised me to take the router downstairs and plug in the filter first with the router cable going directly into the router from the filter and this does solve the problem. However, now my computer can no longer be connected to the router via ethernet and I wonder what the best option for me would be to connect up the PCs?

I know that our maximum download speed of 17Mb/s is rather low or average so we don't need any fancy equipment unless O2 were planning to do free line boosts in the near future.

I've currently got 2 PCs connected via a wireless USB adapter and it's been working fine but before I buy an additional wireless USB adapter, I just wondered if there was a "better" way to connect my computer up to the router.

I came up with several ideas and thoughts as follows:

1. As stated, simply buy a wireless USB adapter for around a tenner or so.
2. Buy a 10-15m ethernet cable going from the router to my PC, pretty similar to what I used to have when the router was upstairs, except now the cable is one that runs from the router to the PC as opposed to the cable running from the telephone jack to the router.
3. Buy a cheap-ish wireless repeater/bridge/access point type thing (not 100% sure what the differences are but basically a wireless "thing" that my current modem router can connect to which I'll have in my room and then use an ethernet cable to go from the "thing" to my PC).
4. Buy a homeplug and fit one besides the router downstairs and one in my room. [Pretty much discounting this one as homeplugs are still expensive and I imagine the electrical wiring in my house is old]

To me, either point 1 or 2 seem to be the "best" due to value for money. I'd probably prefer the ethernet cable route as I can simply route it around my room anyway so it won't stand out at all and from my short google searches, it looks like 10-15m shouldn't affect the speeds or ping any more than wireless should.

In addition to the O2 Wireless Box IV that I'm currently using, I've also got an Asus DSL-N12U modem router but I'm not using it as for some reason, it won't play nicely with my wireless adapters and some desktops fail to connect to the router. All the other wireless devices (consoles, laptop and phones) do connect without a problem though.

I'd also like to note that my parent's room uses an Asus F1A75-I Deluxe motherboard which has a built in Atheros WiFi chip but even after trying different antennae from the stock circular ones to up to a whooping 40cm tall 13dBi antenna, the WiFi still fails to connect 99% of the time so I'm just using a wireless adapter. I did try several different channels (using inSSIDer to check for interference), made sure the router's boost was on max and turned off wifi power saving options in the router menu and on the power options on that PC. I did notice that the download speed there according to speedtest would fluctuate a lot more from around 6Mb/s to 14Mb/s whilst in my room and my sibling's room, both our PCs get 12Mb/s to 14Mb/s.

Sorry for the long post, I hope it's organised enough with all the information required in order for someone to help me with, thanks in advance.

[capt_cornflake]

It really depends how stretched you are for budget.

Personally I would go for the homeplug. Assuming you just want net access and aren't looking for a superfast home network you might be able to pick up some of the older slower sets (200 Mbps) for very little which should be good enough. I was skeptical about the wiring in my house, but I've no issues whatsoever.

My second choice would be wireless. You don't mention what type of machine it is, but if it's a desktop and you have space for a wireless PCI card that would be my preference (USB adapters can lose connection if nudged)

An Ethernet cable that long is likely going to issues with signal degradation (I *think*)so probably isn't a great idea, and they tend to be bulkier than phone extension cables, so less easy to conceal.

Wireless repeater is likely the most expensive option, and as you've indicated budget is an issue, is probably a non-starter. One exception would be if you already have (or can salvage) on old wireless ADSL router which has the ability to be run as a bridge.

[Dareos]

powerline adapters are around 25quid to 30 quid for basic ones, and seem ok, best course there would be to try them out tho. might need to get them from a place with a no quibble return policy or buy under DSR.

Direct cable almost always best option

driver updates for wireless adapters and firmware update for router might be an idea

[Phage]

+1 homeplugs. Devolo are good. I bought mine from Amazon for their returns policy.

[Dareos]

10-15m should have no problems with signal on ethernet

[Ulti]

Thanks for the speedy replies. To me, homeplugs seem rather cluttered as I'd need one near the router with an ethernet cable running between them, and the same in my room. Not sure if it's a problem but my room only has one power socket, so I'm using one of those 10 socket power strip tower things and the situation is almost the same downstairs with only two power sockets there and a power strip packed to the full. I've heard that homeplugs can be impacted by older electrical wiring or perform worse on power strips.

Every PC in the house including my own are all built on the mini ITX platform so there aren't any spare PCI slots for a wireless card I'm afraid.

Although budget isn't truly an issue, I just don't see a need to "overdo" it when my ISP connection maxes out at 17Mb/s so I'd rather spend less on this.

I've nabbed the small nano USB adapter and it seems to work reasonably fine to me and pingtest says the jitter is 2ms.


With the wireless repeater option, I can try to get in touch with Asus to see if the DSL-N12U supports it but I don't think it does but I'm not sure if the O2 Wireless Box IV would be able to use the Asus as a wireless repeater anyway - tried to read on google how to get it to work but they all mentioned wired bridge/access point methods. It does also seem like to hassle to setup but obviously, like all the other options, I'd only have to set it up once and I then I could forget about it completely.

Looking at prices, it seems it'd be around £10 for a wireless USB adapter, £2 for 15m of ethernet cable, £20-30 for a pair of homeplugs and I'm not sure what the wireless repeater option would cost.

Apart from speedtest and pingtest, would there be a better test of how "stable" the wireless connection is? I've been using it for around 5 hours a day for the last 2 days and this wireless USB adapter does seem fine though so I might just buy another one as it's the least hassle out of the options IMO. I've always preferred the "guaranteed" wired option though, especially if 10-15m shouldn't have any problems but I will need to spend perhaps 5 to 15 minutes routing it from my PC to behind my shelves, under my bed before putting it through the hole under the carpet where it leads downstairs into the router whereas the USB wireless adapter would literally be a 10 second job of plug and play.

EDIT: Is there something about homeplugs that I'm missing? They all seemed to be greatly loved here!

EDIT2: Ah I think I'm beginning to get it. With homeplugs, you can reach 200Mb/s whereas with wireless adapters, you'll most likely not reach that, plus as it's wireless, the actual connection will be lower and most of you will have much faster internet speeds than me hence the need for homeplugs. I guess this doesn't apply to me?

[Dareos]

200Mb is fairytale land as far as powerline adapters go, usually a lot less.

Ethernet cable, if its an option, is still going to be the fastest and most stable way of connecting your devices. Traditional thinking puts it at 100m before it needs a repeater, doubt you will see any loss at all over 15m

[Ulti]

Well the ethernet cable arrived today, and I put it through my floor and went downstairs and wow, the previous telephone cable has been wired all around the place, going in and out to make it look neater... I guess it's not really worth the hassle of drilling more holes and sticking those wire pin holder things into the wall so I'm just gonna go and buy a wireless adapter due to laziness.

I guess due to my limited max speeds a wireless adapter is the best option. I doubt I'll be getting an upgrade in speed before 2014/2015 so I doubt I'll be affected much. As long as I get a stable 10Mb/s+ with less than 50ms ping and low jitter I'm happy really.

I do wonder why people need super fast internet though, am I missing out on something?

[TechOasis]

I've always had issues with the homeplugs, especially for gaming. I find wireless more reliable.

I don't think people *need* super fast internet. I think anything above 4mb is fine for most houses. More is required if multiple people are using the connection, or if high-def video is being streamed. The only other thing I can think of is for quick torrent downloads.

I have 3mb at home (not quite enough to stream and browse), and 16mb at the office - which is the wrong way around damnit!

[Biscuit]

Well the ethernet cable arrived today, and I put it through my floor and went downstairs and wow, the previous telephone cable has been wired all around the place, going in and out to make it look neater... I guess it's not really worth the hassle of drilling more holes and sticking those wire pin holder things into the wall so I'm just gonna go and buy a wireless adapter due to laziness.

I guess due to my limited max speeds a wireless adapter is the best option. I doubt I'll be getting an upgrade in speed before 2014/2015 so I doubt I'll be affected much. As long as I get a stable 10Mb/s+ with less than 50ms ping and low jitter I'm happy really.

I do wonder why people need super fast internet though, am I missing out on something?

I always thought that... till i got infinity. Everything else is just frustrating now!
80Mb down is incredible if you are ever downloading a game off steam or something like that.

Unless you are pretty hardcore, wireless should be fine for gaming etc. I cant handle wireless because my main storage is networked so everything is on a GbE LAN.

[Phage]

No issues here with Homeplugs for gaming. If you're getting a bad result it's probably due to old/poor wiring in your home. I get 2.5mbs from my ADSL line which is exactly what I also get from the wireless repeater upstairs.
Router -> plug -> WiFi Plug -> Gamer

As I have three teenagers in the house plus 2 adults, I regularly hit issues when we're all online. I now download games and patches first thing in the morning before the teenagers get up !

[b0redom]

As others have said, wired is far and away the cheapest and most stable. Cat5 is rated to runs of >100m before the signal attenuates significantly. I would personally run a single cable inside some D-Line trunking downstairs, and put a switch at the top of the stairs, and cable all of the PCs to that.

[TechOasis]

No issues here with Homeplugs for gaming. If you're getting a bad result it's probably due to old/poor wiring in your home. I get 2.5mbs from my ADSL line which is exactly what I also get from the wireless repeater upstairs.
Router -> plug -> WiFi Plug -> Gamer

As I have three teenagers in the house plus 2 adults, I regularly hit issues when we're all online. I now download games and patches first thing in the morning before the teenagers get up !

It's not the speed/throughput that homeplugs suffer with, it's the ping (important for fps games) that suffers.

[Biscuit]

It's not the speed/throughput that homeplugs suffer with, it's the ping (important for fps games) that suffers.

Depends how hardcore you are, some dont notice it and some do.

[Phage]

Indeed. I have a a few years experience in FPS and am well aware of what ping is. I'm also aware that it's not a problem with homeplugs on wiring that has been installed in the last 20 years.

[TechOasis]

Sorry, but that's not what I have experienced. We lived in a quality new-build, and did comparisons between homeplug and wifi (we were all playing FPS online).

Also, having fitted homeplugs to several customers houses (some new, some old) and run tests - the throughput is fine, but the ping suffers. As I said - fine for all but keen FPS gamers!

Glad you're not having the same issues though