Advice on Network

Lee Monk

Lee Monk

Lee Monk

Associate
Joined
21 May 2020
Posts
138
Hi all,

I'll try and explain how I originally setup and where I am now coupled with the problems I am facing and then a possible soloution. Feedback on any of this, particularly the soloution part, will be greatly appreciated.

If it can be today then even better as one of my soloutions is half price until 10pm!

Virgin Media have a connection at the front of my house and I've been with them for 20+years.

2 Years ago we built and extension at the rear of the house and I had the builders run some cabling from the front of the house to the extension. The termination point sits roughly in the middle of the house.

At this point they installed a switch plate (not sure of the name) LINK.

This then distributed connections back to the front of the house and into the Kitchen/Diner (extension). As thsi was the termination point of the incoming cable this was also the location of the wifi router.

Thus effectively...... cable in from front. terminate at wifi/router in extension near middle of house. Distribute from there.

However, The main Coaxle (?) cable to the middle of the house broke and my Wifi/Router is now back at the front of the house. As it's a wifi/router the wifi is now at the front of the house too. I hard wired into the front room PS and TV and reverse the cat6 connection back to the face plate in the middle of the house and cross wire (my terminology for connecting to side-by-side ports) into my PC

Still with me? (if not the summary below is far shorter and might just make more sense. K.I.S.S)

I recently installed this LINK which was useless. The range worked but as it was so close to the VM wifi our devices in the house really struggled with what to connect to and would drop and reconnect as we moved around the house.

We've now removed it but all my wifi devices seem to be struggling and I want to resolve this. One of hte problems we had was that my Sonos system whcih is dotted around the house seemed to be connecting to differnt wifi's at differnt times thus being nightmarish to control. We could only print to our wifi printer if we stood in certain parts of the house.

One Soloution:
  1. Get a single Eero mesh (though I appreciate a single one will not 'mesh').
  2. I'd keep the VM router at the front as there is no option there.
  3. Then with the single CAT6 that still reaches into the conversvator (middle of house) connect to a network switch
  4. From the network switch (new kit) connect backinto the original plate and out to CAT6 hardwired devices in the conservator
  5. and into the Eero to provide wifi from middle of house
  6. and at the same time turn off the VM wifi so that there is only one wifi in the house.
Will this fix everything? Will all my sonos connect to eachother/app correctly again?

Is there a better/simpler way?

Wall of Text............ sorry for that.

Regards

Lee
 
Have you got a budget in mind. Really you want to hard wire it to a central switch if you can. This is the more ideal solution.

Forget these extenders and power lines if you can. In regards to WiFi you want APs run to couple places.
 
hey. Thanks for the prompt reply.

To be honest I'm not sure I know what you mean.

I 'think' that was what I was triyng to do first time around.

The connection came into the middle of the house, connected to the router then went to the plate and out to all 'fixed devices'. Wifi also went out from this point and life 'seemed' okay.

I didn't realy have a budget but was considering the Eero when it was £99 + a switch at £20/25(?). The Eero is half price until 10pm.

By central switch do you mean this? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tp-link-8-port-gigabit-easy-smart-switch-tl-sg108e-nw-156-tp.html


*EDIT*

Could the netgear device work if it was the only wifi connection instead of the Eero?
 
What you're describing seems okay.

Something like...

Place a switch at the central location where the router used to be.
Connect between the router in its new location and the switch with a network cable.
Connect some sort of wireless to the central switch.
Disable wireless on Virgin's router.
 
bremen1874 said:
What you're describing seems okay.

Something like...

Place a switch at the central location where the router used to be.
Connect between the router in its new location and the switch with a network cable.
Connect some sort of wireless to the central switch.
Disable wireless on Virgin's router.
Click to expand...

This. I think that network needs a little overhaul somewhere.
 
You can see the black coax cable under the plate. This used to go to the router which then routed out INTO the plate. All the names on the plate are hardwired CAT6 connections.

The Lounge 2 is where the connection comes in from the front of the house now (via Cat6) and goes back into the Data point (the blue cable is a single cable) to feed the PC (or the PC would have to be wireless.

What I think is that my only option is to use the Lounge incoming CAT6 to feed a switch and new wifi device (eero or netgear). The switch can push back out to the plate where needed - in particular DATA.

However as my router is at the front next to my PS/TV/APPTV then it makes sense for me to hard wire direct to those rather than coming back to the switch only to push out again?

A key question is:
If I have a single source of wifi in a decent location that is powerful enough will it allow my, sensitive, wifi devices to all be on the same channel etc?

The biggest issue is tring to print from various rooms or trying to control Sonos speakers in another room that seem to be connected elsewhere.
 
bremen1874 said:
What you're describing seems okay.

Something like...

Place a switch at the central location where the router used to be.
Connect between the router in its new location and the switch with a network cable.
Connect some sort of wireless to the central switch.
Disable wireless on Virgin's router.
Click to expand...

This is what I was thinking but just looking for confidence for it to work.

Like all of these things .... its timing. I imaging my, what I thought useless, netgear 'thing' might actually work in this setup however I dont have switch to test it and the Eero is 40% off today.

Just chcked and my netgear 'mesh thing' only runs to 50megs. I'm on a 75(ish) connection.
 
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