Help me solve this...

mrbios

mrbios

mrbios

Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2003
Posts
16,184
Location
Gloucestershire
My computer is up stairs in my office, the nearest phone point is down stairs by the front door.

The cable goes out of my office, infront of the front door to my sons bedroom, around the banister, down the stairs and then infront of the living room door to the phone point.

I don't want to use wireless, as someone who plays a lot of online games that'd just **** me off :p I can't pull up carpet to put cable underneath as it's a rented property, i also don't like the idea of those homeplug things as they from various reviews it's hit and miss as to how well it works and not much better than wireless.

Can anyone suggest other solutions?

I'll record a video of where the cable currently runs in a bit so to give you a better idea as to what im dealing with (i also can't tack the cable to the wall)

EDIT: this is where the cable runs at the moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9zwXLHCISo (ignore the music playing in the background)

I did have it going through the furthest gap in the banister but as it hung down the baby would grab the cable whenever we carried him past so i've kept it along the ground, as you can see, not an ideal solution especially when the littleun is starting to crawl! It's been like that for 3 months from moving in. I do have another BT phone line that comes in to my office, but it's not active and they wanted £162!!! to switch the line downstairs to the seperate one upstairs, BT rip off merchants.
 
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Sorry, but your post is full of complete nonsense.

You've listed pretty much the only two alternatives to a cable and you're saying you don't want to use either of them without ever having tried it.

If it was me the FIRST thing I'd do is setup wireless. Use it for my PC, XBox 360 and PS3 with no problems at all. Why would wireless annoy you with online games? It's faster than your broadband connection no doubt...

My second would be homeplugs. First versions of them admittedly had their problems but latest ones work rock solid these days. BT even supply them with the BT Vision box and they work great.

3rd would be to put your router/modem down stairs and run an ethernet cable up to your office. Quick search gives you 50m for £20. More than enough to run around every door in your way. You'd then just put a dedicated router in your office or hub if you're not that bothered.

Like I said though, my vote goes for wireless.

Roy
 
I knew they were the only two obvious solutions, i was simply hoping there may be another way, if there isn't though then that's a bummer.

I simply don't trust wireless for stability or security. Home plug may be a solution but i need persuading that it's any good, what are file transfer speeds like? stability? does it matter if it's plugged into an extention etc?
 
homeplugs don't work great plugged into extensions which is why they have the passthrough ones.

I have some 200mbps passthrough homeplugs which have never let me down on 50mb Virgin.

Once i'm downloading or gaming i receive a connection speed of 196mbps between plugs through to router.

As for wireless. if you have the correct security settings (wpa / wep encryption) no one will be able to hack into it.
 
magicroundabout said:
homeplugs don't work great plugged into extensions which is why they have the passthrough ones.

I have some 200mbps passthrough homeplugs which have never let me down on 50mb Virgin.

Once i'm downloading or gaming i receive a connection speed of 196mbps between plugs through to router.

As for wireless. if you have the correct security settings (wpa / wep encryption) no one will be able to hack into it.
Click to expand...

Ah forgot they do passthrough ones

As for no one being able to hack wireless, i wish i could believe that, Prior to the wireless laws of the past few years me and a few mates used to do our fair share of wardriving, a thing of the past now though (it was pretty childish), but im still concerned that wireless secuirty isn't good enough as it hasn't really changed much since those days.
 
WPA2 with a sufficient key length would take an immensely long time to crack as it stands.

It's changed a reasonable amount 'since those days', this isn't WEP with it's couple of minutes to crack the key we're talking about here.

Wireless is fine for home use, I've been using it a while with no stability or security issues.

Generally people discount wireless as being unstable or insecure for their needs before even trying it as they have misconceptions about it all.

I'm not saying wireless is totally secure, just that for home users secuirty available is plenty.
 
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magicroundabout said:
if you've a plug near your phone socket i'd go for homeplugs.
Click to expand...

Next question then...homeplug and powerline, what's the difference? Is one prefered over the other generally?

I'm googling about them but not finding much, what's regarded as the best buy in mains solutions?
 
I run 200Mbps homeplug for my xbox and its fine. Im getting a 180Mbps through it and my electrical wiring must be 30 years old!!
 
Gaz1988 said:
I run 200Mbps homeplug for my xbox and its fine. Im getting a 180Mbps through it and my electrical wiring must be 30 years old!!
Click to expand...

I use a pair of solwise 85mbps homeplugs plugged into surge protected extension blocks and I get much better connection downstairs on my xbox than I ever could with wireless.

Homeplugs are your friend give them a try, they are not expensive!

You'll need ones rated at 200mbps for streaming hd video if thats your plan. Though mine cope fine with 1gig avi's!
 
With ADSL you want the shortest phone line possible as this normally adds to attenuation.

You should put the modem next to the socket and run either homeplugs or ethernet cable.
 
Swifty55 said:
With ADSL you want the shortest phone line possible as this normally adds to attenuation.

You should put the modem next to the socket and run either homeplugs or ethernet cable.
Click to expand...

+1. You'll get much better t'internet. Homeplugs seem generally to be decent these days, but for cost I'd put router downstairs near socket in a child friendly place, and then rig up an ethernet cable to your pc and/or a cheap switch. You can buy the cables dirt cheap these days, £10 tops for like 20m. You can clip it in place, nice and cheap, just your time to make it look ok, and remove if/when you leave the rented property.
 
Ev0 said:
WPA2 with a sufficient key length would take an immensely long time to crack as it stands.
Click to expand...

This.

If you're really paranoid, you could add mac filtering and RADIUS authentication as well. But both are way OTT unless you like playing.

Seeing as you probably already have a wireless router, and at least a few wireless enabled devices, why not just try it for a week first?

I spent a couple of months on Wifi at my old place, and the only real issue was inactive SSH sessions dying every now and then, but that was with a super-cheap router/AP. I noticed no significant interruption anywhere else, not even gaming.

If wireless works for you, then it's just a case of weighing up how much throughput you need across your network to decide whether it's worth spending money on Homeplug stuff.
 
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Wireless has come a long way and in my oppinion it is WAY ahead of homeplug. Speaking from my experience, homeplugs are very picky about your household wiring. My wiring is not old reletively speaking yet my Netgear 200mbps homeplugs couldnt even handle my VM 30 Meg connection. As for Wireless security, provided you use WPA2 with AES encryption, no one is getting into your network.
 
Surely you must have something that's wireless enabled to test it out?

Like others have said, security with wireless these days is infinitely better than it was 3 or 4 years ago.

WPA2 with AES encryption is considered to be uncrackable at this very moment in time.

Have a look yourself. Any website with tutorials on how to hack wireless networks will point out that it's not even worth trying.

Turn on your wireless and put in the longest password you can with random characters, including symbols, and you're sorted.

You could problem have set it up quicker than it took you to write your OP...
 
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