Networking multiple rental properties

[philpoe]

Hi All,
I'm looking for ways to network 3 different rental properties. The landlords want to offer the tenants free internet service. Looking into it a little bit, Comcast Xfinity is available, but Verizon FiOS is not. I found DSL at 1 location, but I think I'm going with Comcast, where there's a special on 20Mbps internet-only service.

Property A is a 4 bedroom house, 3 floors including the finished basement, still under construction - The builder apparently normally runs a single phone line, instead of ethernet. I think I can get him to consider cat6 instead, but instead of hacking cat6 into 10/100 + phone, wouldn't the "best" thing be to run cat6 for data, cat6 for phone and RG6 for cable, or is that overkill? The original thought was to offer wifi to the tenants by placing a wireless router (setup as an AP) on the middle floor, which seems fairly easy to do with a single ethernet run to a key location, but it seems like running cables all over is too good of an opportunity to pass up since the house isn't finished. Thoughts on that?

Property B has 2 split level apartments taking up 3 floors, with the downstairs apartment having a basement (4 total floors), where electrical and phone lines come to. As far as I can tell, no POTS has ever been activated (everyone uses cell phones). I also don't know how much coax, if any, is running through the apartments. The best case scenario is that the builder ran phone lines and used cat5e cable (the building is 3 years old), and that can be used. Otherwise, I was thinking about trying 200Mbps homeplug on each apartments electrical wiring. Is it worth trying to re-plumb cat5e/6 cable instead?

Property C has 3x 2br apartments, and a basement separate from any of the apartments. All electricity comes to the basement, and I don't think that POTS has been activated in any of these, but there's at least some coax cable in the basement, but I don't know if it goes to 1 apartment or all 3. This building is 3 years old as well, from a different builder. I have the same consideration of using homeplug if there's no cat5e/6 to use, or is there an alternative that the separate basement provides?

Any thoughts appreciated!

 

[thiggins]

You are always best off using Ethernet. It will provide the highest speed, most reliable network connection.

If you don't want to run CAT to every room. At least run a cable (two is better to a central point on each floor from wherever the Internet service enters the building. This will allow you to place multiple wireless access points, networked via Ethernet. You don't want to mess with wireless bridging/repeating unless really necessary.

If the building is stone/concrete construction, you should consider Ethernet to all rooms where you want Internet. If that isn't possible, run a cable to either end and centrally to each floor. This will give you the best chance of wireless coverage

CAT5/5e/6 can be used for phone or Ethernet. If you don't want both in a given location, you can always convert between the two.

 

[philpoe]

Thanks for the reply.
For the new construction, I think I'll ask for 2 cat6 runs per location. I may ask for coax as well, since cable's the only real option in those areas. Hopefully he won't charge too much to make multiple runs. Since network speed is probably limited by the ISP performance or disk performance, is 10/100 fast ethernet OK? I've seen the comparison of 200 vs 500 Mbps Homeplug in the powerline FAQ, but is there another comparison between those and Fast or Gigabit Ethernet?

I agree that I don't want to deal with wireless repeating. I was reluctant to try homeplug before reading some of your articles here.

You are always best off using Ethernet. It will provide the highest speed, most reliable network connection.

If you don't want to run CAT to every room. At least run a cable (two is better to a central point on each floor from wherever the Internet service enters the building. This will allow you to place multiple wireless access points, networked via Ethernet. You don't want to mess with wireless bridging/repeating unless really necessary.

If the building is stone/concrete construction, you should consider Ethernet to all rooms where you want Internet. If that isn't possible, run a cable to either end and centrally to each floor. This will give you the best chance of wireless coverage

CAT5/5e/6 can be used for phone or Ethernet. If you don't want both in a given location, you can always convert between the two.

 

[thiggins]

100 Mbps Ethernet is fine for Internet access. But if you are going to be moving large media files between wired clients, you'll want to put a Gigabit switch in there.

100 Mbps Ethernet will give you pretty much "wire speed". Gigabit will get you to at least 500 Mbps, and higher depending on computer internal architecture, Ethernet adapter and how you are actually transferring files.

I wish more people would at least try current-generation powerline stuff. I have to shake my head at the hoops that people will jump through to get wireless to work when they have the alternative of powerline networking.

 

[philpoe]

Now that powerline's less than $25/port for 200 MBbps and gets around 40Mbps in real throughput, that's a deal I can look into! I would have looked at 500Mbps for about $45/port, but I can't think of the use that the tenants would need the extra speed for. At some point in the future, I'll upgrade to something faster and cost effective, and use the 200Mbps stuff somewhere else.

Does anyone have thoughts/opinions on powerline wireless APs such as the D-Link DHP-W306AV, Netgear XAVNB2001 or TrendNet TPL-310AP? All are 200Mbps ethernet adapters with wireless N included as an AP. I'm thinking of using one of these instead of "regular" homeplug adapter (Actiontec MegaPlug A/V) combined with a cheap wireless router (Tenda W268R) because of the price. Thinking more, a wireless adapter would be much neater aesthetically, and avoid the issue of the separate router being plugged into the same outlet as the powerline adapter, potentially causing loss of bandwidth because of line noise from the power supply of the router.

100 Mbps Ethernet is fine for Internet access. But if you are going to be moving large media files between wired clients, you'll want to put a Gigabit switch in there.

100 Mbps Ethernet will give you pretty much "wire speed". Gigabit will get you to at least 500 Mbps, and higher depending on computer internal architecture, Ethernet adapter and how you are actually transferring files.

I wish more people would at least try current-generation powerline stuff. I have to shake my head at the hoops that people will jump through to get wireless to work when they have the alternative of powerline networking.