Hi Everyone

[G+_Brian Griffin]

Hi Everyone,

 

Looking for some guidance as I help a family member out. I am an electrician and have experience with all cable terminations but not a basic network set up. My brother has asked me to terminate all cat 6 cables that were run to jacks and home run to a closet in his new home. He has also asked me to set up wired network for him. Not sure if I should be buying a router or a switch and how complicated the settings up with those will be. He has roughly 10 jacks that are run back to the closet. Currently he is set up with a basic modem and wireless router on his second floor. Id like to avoid replacing those items if at all possible. Thanks in advance for the guidance!! Also, am comfortable with network related set up when I have instruction

[G+_Doug Wagner]

Am afraid the sentence "not a basic network setup" belies the complexity of the situation.  As a long time IT worker and CCNA student I can tell you one size DEFINITELY doesn't fit all.  While a modern $100 switch could solve all issues, it may leave the home network unprotected or not designed well to meet everyone's networking needs. A good talk with a qualified network tech can bring some realistic focus on what's possible.   Do you have a map?   What are the specific problems to be solved?

[G+_Ben Reese]

You could put RJ45 plugs on all of the cables, but it would be better to use a small patch panel like this:

Intellinet 12-Port Cat6 Wall-mount Patch Panel (560269) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BSJJ1M/

 

T568A or B doesn't really matter as long as your consistent, but B is what I've always used for data. And actually consistency isn't that important to functionality since most equipment is auto-switching now anyhow.

 

Router or switch really depends on whether or not you plan on relocating the DSL modem. If it's staying where it's at with the wireless router, a switch is all you need.

 

If you don't have one, cheap ethernet cable tester is real handy for maintaining sanity. Tonor TM RJ45 RJ11 RJ12 CAT5 CAT 6 UTP Network Lan Cable Tester Test Tool https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OUFX38W/

[G+_Doug Wagner]

At the risk of being preachy, document everything that you do when setting it up.  You will save yourself a ton of headscratching & re-work in future.  Couldn't agree more with Mr. Ben Reese.  Patch panels are definitely the way to go.

[G+_Steven Wang]

The most basic setup would be just extending the current modem+wireless router for more ports.

 

After setting up the patch panel (I prefer terminating into a keystone/modular patch panel, with keystones.  A bit more work, but keeps placement open.)   Patch cord them all up to a standard 16 port gigabit "dumb" switch, and a patch cord from new switch to the  LAN port on the "wireless router".  Done.

 

Something like this (or Rack version for nice OCD clean setup lol)

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ProSafe-16-Port-Ethernet-JGS516NA/dp/B0002CWPOK

 

Next step up is a managed switch (for vlans, etc..)..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122381

 

Like Doug Wagner says, just document and send the plans for approval =).

[G+_Brian Griffin]

Thank you everyone for the advice!

[G+_Brian Griffin]

Steven Wang , do you think the basic set up you mentioned (unmanaged switch) would be adequate to handle a sling box, gaming system and maybe a couple other streaming devices? Just want to make sure I don't give him something that will bog down...

[G+_Ben Reese]

As Padre said on the last Know How, the Gigabit switch should never be a bottle neck for normal home network use. Unless you're also copying large files to a NAS connected directly to the router, there shouldn't be much affect from multiple devices. If he's streaming to 2 or 3 devices at the same time, his 10 Mbps DSL will slow him down much sooner.

 

His router could also end up being an issue. Do you know what model router he has? Does it have Gigabit LAN ports, or is it limited to 100 Mbps?

 

As another piece of advice, I've always left a service loop in the cable. An extra foot could come in handy if you have to repunch a cable later.

[G+_Steven Wang]

Brian Griffin lost everything I just wrote because of refresh! lol

 

A gigabit switch is as fast as it gets now without spending wads of cash, but at around 100MB/s each way, each port, it will be sufficient for multiple compressed video streaming.  High bandwidth devices wired up to switch will perform better than wireless (especially if the wireless router is tucked into the corner of the home with all other electrical and metal housings).

Use a "wifi analyzer" and "speedtest" smart phone app if you can, to get a rough idea of how consistent the WiFi performs vs speed. Then there's also the bottleneck of the internet.

 

If the wireless does become and issue, I treat the switch as the backbone and have everything wired to it including other wireless "AP"'s (multiple small, low powered AP's around the home and turn off the wifi on the router).   (An example is deploying a few Unifi ac-lite and a cloud key... I'm liking these new "unifi ap in-wall" ones....  but that's another topic).

 

Some internet providers like Verizon FiOs have wire-to-wireless bridges to add to the network to increase the WiFi coverage, and is self provisioning (automatically names wireless network(s) according to main router)

 

hope this helps.