John McGaw wrote:
On 7/16/2019 10:12 AM, tb wrote:
On 7/16/2019 at 8:11:31 AM John McGaw wrote:
On 7/15/2019 5:56 PM, tb wrote:
On 7/15/2019 at 2:59:53 PM John McGaw wrote:
On 7/15/2019 1:41 PM, tb wrote:
I am thinking about getting AT&T Fiber internet and do the setup
myself.
The fiberoptic wall plug is in the living room of my apartment.
I would like to keep my desktop PC and fiberoptic modem in my
bedroom. The PC has an Ethernet port but no Wi-Fi, so the
connection modem/PC would be via Ethernet cable, that's why I
want to keep PC and modem close to each other.
But I have to find a solution for the connection between the
fiberoptic plug in the living room and the modem in my bedroom.
The idea is to purchase a long Ethernet cable (about 50 ft) to
do that. Do I need to purchase a crossover or a patch Ethernet
cable?
I see them both available online...
If you have a "fiberoptic wall plug" in one room and the
"fiberoptic modem" in another room in another room it seems as
though you would need a fiber between the two not a standard
cable, crossed over not not. Are you leaving something out? Most
"fiber" providers include a little magic box in the system that
terminates their fiber and converts the signals into standard
Ethernet which then go to a standard modem or modem/router/switch
box. Do you have the box which does the fiber-to-Ethernet
conversion? If so, where is it located?
Well, I live in an apartment complex that was recently wired for
fiber internet. AT&T contractors did the wiring. The apartment
management sent out a memo saying that each unit is ready for
fiberoptic internet. All we need to do is to subscribe to one of
AT&T's Fiber plans, hook up the modem etc. that AT&T sends, go
through the registration process, and voilĂ*.
All I can tell you is that they installed a wall plug in the living
room of my apartment. It looks like one of those telephone wall
plugs for the good old landlines where you plug in the cable on one
end and the other end plugs in into the phone. Only this one would
go from the fiberoptic wall plug to the modem and it would be an
Ethernet cable, not a telephone cable.
Hope I have clarified the issue.
Path of least resistance (as I see and understand it): put the modem
near the wall plug and get wireless working. Buy a good wi-fi module
for your computer in the other room. This seems to be way easier and
probably cheaper since good pre-made Ethernet extension is not a
cheap item while a wi-fi module generally is. It will also save the
considerable labor of trying to route a cable from room to room where
you are not free to drill holes in rented walls willy-nilly.
Believe me, running cables in a residence can be horrible. A few
years ago I had to run one extra Ethernet cable from my AT&T modem to
provide an extra feed to the TV box upstairs (I had pre-wired my
house for gigabit Ethernet years before but the TV box would not
willingly work when fed by a switch from the existing Ethernet jack)
so I had to run this single cable perhaps 35 feet to get it where it
needed to be behind the home theater equipment and it took the best
part of a day, not counting time to patch up necessary fishing holes
in walls and repainting. I have run literally miles of cables during
my career and this was one of the worst. Sometimes it is best to just
give in and do wi-fi. But if you are really against using wi-fi,
there are always power line systems which will give connectivity in
difficult situations, albeit sometimes a bit slower.
Thanks John. Nothing against the Wi-Fi module in the bedroom. It
would have to be a module with some Ethernet ports in the back of it as
my desktop PC and printer do not have Wi-Fi, only Ethernet ports.
Which Wi-Fi module do you recommend and commonly available in the USA?
It would have to be something really simple to set up as I am not a
techie...
This article is not too technical and pretty well describes the ways out
of your situation:
https://lifehacker.com/how-can-i-add...-pc-1569231692
I don't have any specific suggestions for any brand of WI-fi module.
There are just so many of them out there. If you are comfortable with
opening your PC and installing an adapter card I'd probably suggest that
but friends who have used USB adapters have told me that they are just
about as good. One of the established names like Linksys and Netgear are
probably safe bets but looking at Amazon it seems that the oddly-named
Chinese knockoffs outnumber them 50:1. Probably the only thing to do
there is to look for items with large numbers of verified good reviews.
(Reviewmeta.com has a neat browser add-on which evaluates reviews to
weed out the questionable)
Stick this out the back of your desktop.
Doubles as a popcorn maker.
https://www.newegg.com/tp-link-tl-wd...0XM-001R-000F4
This is the Asus version.
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Networking/PCE-AC88/
The modes of operation for Wifi are covered here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirele...of_ope ration
Since nothing remotely resembling a decent manual is
available for these products, I can't provide
any details about setting that up. The driver
has an installshield cab in it. You might be
able to use adhoc mode between two of those cards.
The 2.4GHz band is more likely to penetrate walls
and reach the other end of the house.
I'm guessing infrastructure mode uses a router,
while adhoc mode is point to point. The router
removes the dependency on one of the PCs being
turned on all the time, in order for the other
PC to receive internet connectivity.
There are also mesh networks, where "multiple wireless
router-like boxes" talk to one another, and they
attempt to give better RF coverage in large houses.
Smallnetbuilder.com has reviewed some of those meshes,
and some have better backhaul designs than others
(they don't actually shoot themselves in their foot).
Setting up a mesh costs a small fortune (as mesh
products tend to focus on high end applications).
Paul