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All about networking

A

asellus

Member
JustROLLIN said:
Oh, I use a Motorola cable modem... I have for years, not one single problem.

Nate, I saw a deal the other day, you get a free cable modem from Circuit City if you sign up for Comcast internet. Good deal if you dont already have service. It will save ya the rental from them every month.
Click to expand...
Owning a modem is a double edged sword, really. If something happens to it... you're fucked... as opposed to a rental modem you just get a new modem, free of charge (save for the $3/mo). Then again, I'm used to business services, not residential bullshit.... :D
 
AJ

AJ

110 HP of FURY!
Say I want to replace my current Linksys wireless router with a more savvy unit to support more outputs than the 4 I have now. What direction would you guys suggest.

In my situation I have a den room upstairs, it has a little closet that resides over the stairway and thus easy access to the basement. I'm hoping to make this into a server room of sorts over time. Have everything ran though one cental point and then routed under the floor and in the walls to all rooms.

Ideally I'd want at least 8 connections

Upstairs
Bedroom 1
Bedroom 2
Den
Living Room
Kitchen

Downstairs
Family room
Bedroom

And then one in the garage ran though what I assume woudl just be some pvc conduit I'd put in the ground.
 
A

asellus

Member
If nothing is wrong with the router itself, all you need is a simple switch (NOT a hub, if you can even get those anymore). If you wanna get fancy and take the performance hit, you can have multiple access points that span over to wired networks again... but this is slow and expensive. :p

There are several different pieces of network equipment:

Hub -- the most basic networking equipment. Horrible if you have more then 2 people on it.
Switch -- an intelligent hub, can handle literally hundreds of clients with ease.
Router -- an intelligent switch. They usually incorporate DNS forwarding, a DHCP server, NAT/NAPT, a switch, and sometimes a WAP.
WAP -- wireless access point. A simple physical bridge from wired to wireless.
 
J

JustROLLIN

Guest
asellus said:
Owning a modem is a double edged sword, really. If something happens to it... you're fucked... as opposed to a rental modem you just get a new modem, free of charge (save for the $3/mo). Then again, I'm used to business services, not residential bullshit.... :D
Click to expand...
Oh, I completely agree. But, with this offer you get one at no cost when you sign up. That way Nate can get the free one and save the $3 charge until that modem fails. (If it does) Then, just call Comcast and get their modem for the $3/mo. charge.
 
Big Nate

Big Nate

Chaos Engineer
I already have a motorola from Comcast I was just think I may want to own my modem. But from what I hear in this thread I am going to just keep renting and let it be.

Also how can you hook up a wireless router that is to small (ie not enough ports) to the switch like JustROLLIN is talking about?
 
Picklz

Picklz

SUDO Make me a SAMCH
Just a cable from one of the 'pc' ports on the router to the switch. Then you can plug all your PC's into the switch (or some into the router / some into the switch). I would advise against buying a Hub - they offer rather low performance in comparison to a switch.

Switch - Takes in a 'packet' looks at where it is supposed to go, looks in a table of addresses and figures out what port the destination is on, and forwards the packet there.

Hub - Takes in a packet - forwards it out all other ports, every time.

And also I agree that leasing for $3/mo from comcast isn't a bad deal, they can't just say oh its your modem then because its THEIR modem :), if it aint broke I wouldn't mess with it.

If you are looking to hook up 8+ Devices I'd reccomend a 16 port switch, you are going to need 1 port for the connection up to the router, so that'll leave you some room to expand also, something like this would work:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=1098773&CartID=done&nextloc=

You could go cheaper or more expensive, you don't really need all the features the more expensive managed switch would provide so just a soho switch should work just fine.
 
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AJ

AJ

110 HP of FURY!
Say I get a switch, would anything above allow me to see the differance between my current 6mg service and upgrading to the 8mg? Needless to say in my eyes there is never fast enough cable connection. :)
 
dmention7

dmention7

Hater
AJ, most networking equipment operates at either 100mbs or 1000mbs. That means your cable modem is the slowest spot in your network. So upgrading your connection would be noticable no matter what kind of switches/NICs you have.

On the other hand, upgrading to all gigabit equipent would not make a lick of difference in your internet speeds. Where it would make a difference is on file transfers on your local network (i.e. networked printers, or storage devices).
 
dmention7

dmention7

Hater
By "mg", he meant "Mb/s" or megabit/sec. 1 Mb/s = 1 million bits per second. Make sure you keep track of bits and bytes though. It's a littkle confusing because bytes (abbreviated capital "B") are the typical measurement of storage, but bits (abbreviated lower case "b") are used for transfer speeds.

1 byte = 8 bits. So an 8Mb/s connection would be able to transfer 1 MB (megabyte, the familair unit of storage) per second.

As a point of reference, the typical mp3 file is 3-5 MB (megabytes)
 
Picklz

Picklz

SUDO Make me a SAMCH
That refers to the speed at which you can transfer data over your internet connection. Now days most connections are measured in Megabits per second. There are 8 bits in a byte so 8megabits would be 1megabyte per second. Cable around the cities usually seems to be 6 or 8mb (megabits) per second, DSL can be anywhere from 1.5mb (or slower) up to around 7 or 8.

That is download speed, unfortunatly with cable upload is a lot slower, somewhere around 256-512kb (kilobits, around 1000 of those in a megabit). DSL can offer faster upload speeds (generally speaking) I had 7mb/784k DSK for quite a while and loved it.

Damn Jay you beat me!!
 
Picklz

Picklz

SUDO Make me a SAMCH
Well faster is better of course :) It will not affect what you buy in any way. Like was said above the connection you get from cable or DSL is going to be the weakest link in speed. Anything you buy for your home network is going to be able to transfer faster than your internet connection.
 
AJ

AJ

110 HP of FURY!
Can I just stick a T3 line in ground and be done with it? Seriously, I wish there was somthing that allowed me to get like 12mg up and down service.

I DL a crap load of info and data.
 
dmention7

dmention7

Hater
Check out business class service AJ. I don't know if it's possible to get it to residential addresses, but you can get service that's a shit-ton faster than cable through business class service packages.
 
AJ

AJ

110 HP of FURY!
I may look into this and I'll post what I find. Worst case just for the info itself.
 
Picklz

Picklz

SUDO Make me a SAMCH
A full DS3 is 45megs both ways, and will cost into the thousands of dollars per month. A DS1 (t1) is 1.5mb both directions and will probably run 300-500 a month. You can also get fractional DS3's (t3) if you dont need a full 45 megs.

Like Jay said a business class service may get you features such as a faster upload and static IP addresses, but at a higher cost. Upload is great if your sending files to someone, hosting a web or public file server at your house, etc but if your just downloading large files a big upload wont make much difference.
 
J

JustROLLIN

Guest
Isn't there a higher tier cable connection that Comcast offers? I am pretty sure they have 3 levels of service. The low grade that they dont even advertise, the mid that they push like crazy, and a high end which is higher D/L speeds and more bandwidth.

I dont know how much of an improvement or if you already have it AJ, but it may be worth looking into.
 
dmention7

dmention7

Hater
Comcast offers an "upgrade" for about 10 bucks/month but that is just the 8Mbs vs 6Mbs. Also, that upgrade is only available to customers who also purchase a cable TV package.

Unless they have some hidden options that they never show me!
 
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