scoopy Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 I am looking at my possibilities to network a friends home. Currently they have 3 (windows) machines in two different rooms (on two different floors). They have a recently built home that was prewired for a future internet cable connection. The setup I saw while there, was an incoming Cat 5 type wire with about 25 feet of cable rolled up on the wall in their basement. The rooms have a wall outlet with a coaxial type connection. I am not at all familiar with this type of networking. The broadband services available include Comcast High Speed (the local cable company) and Verizon DSL(our phone company). So my choices are to either figure out the needed hardware that will fit this setup or just go the wireless setup route. I am looking towards the most cost effective way, which would include the cheaper Verizon service at maybe $35 per month (cheaper if they include them for phone service). They currently have 3 AOL accounts... which would be another project in itself (to reformat the three systems to rid them of this virus) What do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 Well.. how far away are the rooms? If they are less than 100 feet, just use those cat 5 cables to do the networking part. A wired DSL/switch router with 4 ethernet ports is so cheap right now it's not worth to turn on one whole pc just to get internet sharing. Of course, you can do the wireless setup, but afaik, even though the wireless router is quite cheap, the wireless cards are not. If your friends have computers built in the last say 3 years, they probably have built in NIC in their motherboards. So that will lessen the expenses. If not, a cheapo PCI network card can be bought for less than 15 bux. So I figure the cable/dsl modem will go to the switch/router, then from the switch router divide the connections 3 way into your friends' computer using cat 5 cables. Then there is one free outlet for you to play around with :) The total cost up front shouldn't be more than 100 dollars. Around 50 for the router, and 50 (or less) for the cables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 If you are trying to use CAT 5 wiring, you are going to have a few difficulties. 1. The maximum bandwidth across CAT 5, at least according to the NIC's that can use it, is 10Mbps. 2. You are going to have a very difficult time finding a router that is able to use CAT 5 cables. Most of them use RJ45 twisted pair cabling. Therefore, you would have to find a way to convert the coax cable to twisted pair in order to make use of the router. Therefore, if you may be stuck using a computer for internet sharing. In terms of hardware, you are going to have to look for 10BaseT cards that also have thin ethernet connection on them. Basically, this looks like the same type of connector that you would have on the back of your TV. My suggestion, either go wireless, although if the 3 computers span 3 floors of the house, you may need a repeater somewhere to boost the signal. Or run Rj45 twisted pair wiring throughout the house and use that. That way you can use standard routers and NIC's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 1. The maximum bandwidth across CAT 5, at least according to the NIC's that can use it, is 10Mbps. cat5e which is easliy confused for cat5, can do 1000Mbps, cat5 can do 100Mpbs Fuzzy .. .I think you are confused ... cat5/cat5e IS UTP (unshielded twisted pair) the coax type cable is BNC actually for about $100 NZD ... which equates to about $50 USD I would buy a unmanaged switch with 10Mbps BNC (thats what the coaxial thing is ... its BNC) the switch can then switch between the cat5e and BNC network seamlessly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 D'OH!!!!!!!!!! I knew that, I really did. I gotta get more sleep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 OT: sleep is for old timers ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 (edited) DOH Personally I'd scrap the COAX and replace it with TP CAT5 BUT like Paul says... why not just put in CAT5e You can buy 10,000' of CAT5 for about $25 Cat 5e is is more but you don't need that much.... The trick is the crimping... If you take CAT3 crimping needs to be about as good as a telephone... If you crimp CAT5 badly it will drop back to CAT3 (presuming you get all the wires in the right holes) If you make CAT5 too long it will drop back to CAT3 However.... BNC coax is actually better shielded than TP since the error correction in TP relies on the pairs. 100tx is more sensitive than 10 etc. So you might find the cables pass some power cables and get noise. If this was ME and the house was permanent I'd but in CAT5e... BUT it is FUSSY about the crimping. At the moment (ay my car) ooops:: at my BAR I have a CAT5 cable and CAT5 ends BUT its too long and only works at 10Mb/s (which is fine since its only for internet access) BUT at home I can't use 10Mb/sec its WAY to slow... In fact Ive been considering upgrading to Gigabit anyway for streaming movies etc. If you put in CAT5 or CAT5e you are probably going to have to rip out the coax... When you do use it to pull through the CAT5... Leave plenty of extra cable and CUT OFF at least a couple of inches afterwards since you get plaster and all sorts of crap coming out of the conduits. Then crimp on the CAT5e ends... You will only be able to test it up to 100Mbit (unless you happen to have a spare gigabit device lying around or a FLUKe network meter) You might wanna consider playing safe and putting extra shielding around the cables just in case.... Wireless??? Well it's too slow ...given I now find 100Mbit too slow. AND Its is HELL to get working under linux unless you use an aincient and even slower standard like 802.11a or b. However... you can add an access point direct to the switch and use it for laptop access etc. edits:: hehe fraudian slip?? NO my car isn't netowrked YET!!!! Edited November 7, 2003 by Gowator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 gowator is correct ... nice crimping is the trick don't untwist that cable too much otherwise you loose signal, and never ... never run power and cat5 parallel for more than a meter, otherwise you get noise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 Yeah, I actually label my cables as to how well I think I crimped!!! I have only got a FLAT cable crimper ... (Does RJ11/45) so crimping to the cheaper round cable can be a pain. Still: I always know just how well its crimped wheras if you buy pre-made cable you don't know. (Not to mention its about 100x more expensive - goes through smaller holes etc.) I have lost count of the number of peoples networks I fixed after they spent a week playing with drivers, changing NIC etc and I just walked up, cut the cable and recrimped. Honestly .... They are not exactly good at taking strain so sooner or later the little crimped plastic retainer gets stressed and then the pins... I KEEP TELLING PEOPLE .... Like my Brother... who never seems to listen. He always strats off with software (but then he's a WinBlows guy) and tries messing with protcols/drivers etc. I guess in the winblows world things just stop working randomly, like you install MSN and your printer stops working.... Thank goodness I left that world behind.... The fact is when you use linux you know things don't just change themself so you look elsewhere. My observations over the years are if your network isn't working all of a sudden then someone (or thing) stretched a cable, gnawed a cable, untwisted a cable or generally did something to it. My FIRST DIAGNOSTIC is Always to use a known working cable.... If your cable isn't GOOD you can mess around with software/protcols till you die of old age and it won't work.... SO: If you are planning to network a house DO IT RIGHT else you know the deal, you'll be round fixing it .... NOW my Bro' phones me I just tell him to get a working cable and try it. (Sometimes good for single guys with no life looking for a free meal/beer) But I figure Scoopy has better things to do..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linux_learner Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 i dont see why yall are worried about speeds over 10Mbs. comcast is just now starting to do 3Mbs. (i work for comcast). the 3Mbs isnt in all areas yet, so the areas that it isnt 3, it would be the speed it has been, 1.5Mbs. obviously even a nic card at 10Mbs would be more than suffiecent. same with cabling (cat5, cat5e, coax, and so on) personally i wouldnt go wireless due to the security issues of it, but thats me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 WHY.... 1) Because when you are streaming live video or whatever over your internal network 10MB is SLOW. 2) Becuase I have a local proxy cache so even though my BW is limited to 512k to my ISP anything in the cache (30GB of it) is accessed at 100Mbit. 3) Because when I move 20-100GB of data from one machine to the other 100MB IS PAINFULLY SLOW. 4) Because X is horribly ineffcient and if I do a remote login through a remote X session 10MB feels like treacle.... My PC's at home are all networked. All my data is on NFs drives. Hundreds of GIGS of data.... (well some duplication) When i use my laptop from the bedroom to watch a DVD running on the PC in the server room or living room etc. BW is important. X is very bandwidth hungry, especially using it properly with authentification and sound as well. BANDWIDTH IS CHEAP... A 100MB switch is about 100$ or less I wouldn't dream of using a 100MB hub What you have to consider is queuing. If a network is running at above 60% (on ethernet ATM is different but who can afford it at home) then if a very bandwidth intensive process starts of it will saturate the network. Once this happens all hell breaks loose. Lots of protcols are not bandwidth friendly. For instance ftp will grab whatever bandwidth it can. If Im writing a movie across the network then another PC starts an ftp the ftp will grab the bandwidth. If Im on a hub then the timeslicing of the requests will take more time than the actual transfer. If you do a large transfer which streams then you only require a SINGLE tcp HEADER. If it is interupted and cannot stream it will require a seperate header for each packet. However TCP/IP uses a slow-start protocol which means each interuption will set the packet size back. Only uninterupted traffic will allow it to naturally progress to its more efficient streaming state. Only its worse than that because the network is just part of the chain... somewhere the data is being read/written to disk. Once you develop a queue its like a traffic jam. It is self maintaining. It generates its own additional traffic and this makes the situation worse. So all in all..... If you are using a client server set-up bandwidth isn't just important its is critical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2003 I now see this home was wired for a 10Base2 (BNC) network, which is just about obsolete. I am finding the needed hardware is not readily available at our local computer store (Staples) or anywhere else for that matter. Also, the Ethernet cards I would need for each computer all seem to be for ISA slots, and they don't put them on boards these days, which also means, if they go and buy a new computer, it would kind of screw things up. Speed wise, just about anything will be better than what they get now. Security ? They are using windows 98/ME and AOL. We would most likely go with Verizon at 768 Kbps DSL. As for Comcast, they are charging $18. more per month and offer 1,500 Kbps here, but are promising 3,000. Verizon also offers a $10.00 discount with phone service. I also think Gowator is right, and I don't want to become their on call tech repair guy... tho the free beer and food still works for me sometimes. :D So I would like to stick to stuff they would easily be able to replace themselves if need be. So if I have read your suggestions correctly, and weighing in the quick and painless verses doing it right, we are looking at the setups below. (these are just quick prices from Staples) ------------------------------------------------------- The wireless way: $80.00 Linksys BEFW11S4 Router w/ 4-Port Switch $15.00 Belkin F5D5000 Desktop Network PCI Card (direct connect to #1) $60.00 Belkin F5D6001 Wireless Desktop PCI Network Card $60.00 Belkin F5D6001 Wireless Desktop PCI Network Card FREE DSL Modem and filters supplied with service TOTAL: $215.00 ------------------------------------------------------- The Cat 5 way: ( includes the hassle of running the wires through the wall and inbetween floors, which I am not sure they or I would want ) $15.00 Belkin F5D5000 Desktop Network PCI Card $15.00 Belkin F5D5000 Desktop Network PCI Card $15.00 Belkin F5D5000 Desktop Network PCI Card $40.00 Netgear FS605 10/100 5 Port Dual Switch $40.00 50 feet of cable (ready to plug in) to reach to other 2 computers FREE DSL Modem and filters supplied with service TOTAL: $125.00 ---------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for all the pointers... I may need them when the time comes to upgrade my own network someday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted November 8, 2003 Report Share Posted November 8, 2003 Scoopy, Thats an 802.11b NIC... 11Mb/s ... Also I have Belkin on my blacklist. For various reasons..... You might at somepoint at least get them using a linux server/gateway/firewall/mail server/proxy/cache somebody stop me..... Like if they by a NEW PC and need something to do with the old one..... 802.11b is really on its way out. Its at least compatible with 802.11g BUT you don\t wanna put them in the same position as they are now with the BNC cable. Stuck with an old standard thats way inferior BUT way more expensive to keep. You can actually BUY Coax to RJ45 converters FOR LOTS OF MONEY.... If the COAX is in conduit and reasonably easy to pull out and get the TP cable in then the NG switch is a better option. Id be really tempted do do CAT5e though. I know my home NW is a little overspecced for most people today but networking is moving SO FAST you never know. For instance I just bought a HW (embedded linux VoIP phone) ,... Its great, just plugs into my network and gets a IP from my DHCP server ... and runs across the NAT. FREE CALLS ANYWHERE (so long as the other person has broadband) but I just plug it in becuase I have the infrastructure. Cable and Crimping tools are always a good investment... IMHO.... when you decide to move one computer etc. you just knock up a new cable... Extending a wired NW to wireless isn\t a big deal either, you can just plug an access point into the switch which allows a more incremental switch over as technology matures. More and more things are coming network enabled.... I dont mean fridges but DVD players etc. or projectors. These consumer appliances are going to push up home bandwidth usage and that in turn will push up ISP bandwidth. just my 2c Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2003 You can actually BUY Coax to RJ45 converters FOR LOTS OF MONEY.... At first I thought you were trying to pull one over here, but I googled and did find these starting at $40 each and up. And I would need one per computer, plus the nic card. I think we scrap the bnc way and try one of the other routes. I need to open up those wall outlets and see what we have inside there, but I think I am leaning towards the rewire job... especially if they want to buy me one of those kits with 1,000 feet of wire, crimper, and tester ;) Just for you (and because we would probably mail order anyway), I will avoid the Belkin stuff. If I order, there is a D-Link nic card for $12.00 each or a no-name brand for $9.00 each (although these are probally made by same outfit that makes those LG cd-rom drives) I don't think there is any chance of getting this family to see the light with Linux at this time. But then again, I will have to reformat all their systems (AOL to real internet conversion) and I could slip one by them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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