Help me design my home’s network. 802.11n vs Powerline?

[AlefSin]

Hi,

I have recently moved to a new house and I need to design my home’s network. The thing is that I need wired connections inside the dining room in at the first floor as well as inside my office on the second floor. Unfortunately this is a rental house and layout of the rooms is in such a way that I cannot run wires between the two floors.

Here is what I have in each room:

• Dining room: LCD TV (with DLNA client), Blue-Ray player (LAN access for BD-Live) and Xbox 360 game console.
• Office: Desktop computer, NAS (DLNA server), Printer attached to LAN
• Mobile: Two laptops and two PDAs. Guests may also use WiFi.

The internet connection is through a medium speed 20 Mbps cable connection. I have the possibility to put the modem in either room. My router is a Dlink DIR-855 802.11n with gigabit ports.

I thought the best place for the NAS is in the office so that it can talk to the desktop computer more quickly when I transfer huge files over gigabit Ethernet. The cable modem and router can also stay in that room so that quality of wireless signal is going to be acceptable in all rooms (the house has 3 floors).

I have two different plans and I’d like you to comment on them:

• Plan 1: I can buy a small gigabit switch, put it in the dining room and connect everything to it. Then I can add an 802.11n access-point in that room. Modem and router can move to the room in the second floor and connect devices up with wire.
  Pros and cons: using 802.11n should provide enough bandwidth for media streaming and gaming. The downside is that media streaming needs lots bandwidth and having multiple users on the laptops at the same time might make it suffer. The delay for gaming on the console might not be optimal either. Finally, I’ve never used an access point to connect two wired LANs together so I’m not even sure this plan would work.
  
• Plan 2: After reading the recent review of Belkin’s gigabit PowerLine kit, I thought maybe I can replace the access point in the Plan 1 with a pair of Belkin’s PowerLine adapters.
  Pros and cons: my previous experiences with PowerLine products has been less than perfect. They are usually too slow and are sensitive to the noise on the power lines. In home environment noise might come from motors in vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines, etc. I guess Powerline can potentially have lower delay than 802.11n and also eliminates the bandwidth issues for media streaming when multiple mobile users are working on their laptops.

So what do you think? Powerline or WiFi? Does current PowerLine technology offer comparable speed to 802.11n? How is the delay? What about using a wireless access point to connect two LANs?

Finally, am I missing any obvouse, better solution here?

Thanks,
AlefSin

 

[slam5]

your best bet

Your best bet is to concentrate everything together in one place (your office on second floor). I really don't think powerline thing is any good even if the review said it is good. An old house may not have the right kind of wiring to give you good speed. I recommend you keep on using the dlink 855 in conjunction with a gigabit switch. Hook everything up to it and that is it. As for wireless streaming, it really depends on radio envirnoment you are in. I suppose all your entertainment equipment is running with wire, right? I don't think you will need an access point unless you have signal strength problem. An AP hooked up to router is running on the same gigabit network segment as the DIR-855. If you have signal strength problem with wireless then you will add a wireless access point so you will have better wireless coverage in your house. Anyhow, I hope this help.

 

[AlefSin]

Thanks Slam5.

Unfortunately I cannot put everything in one room. That's the major problem. As explained, basically there are two rooms on different floors, each with its own gigabit LAN. The idea of my plan 1 was to hook the router in one room and add an access point to the second room so the devices in these two rooms can talk to each other (and to the ineternet) over WiFi.

You have point though that the wiring in the older houses might not be reliable. I have an old dLAN PowerLine device that only transfers 10Mbps between these two rooms. However, it is an old model and I'm not sure if this low speed is due to wiring or simply the best this adapter can do.

-AlefSin

 

[thiggins]

Diagrams help when discussing issues like this.

Your best and most reliable connection will be via Ethernet.
Second best would be powerline. Stick with HomePlugAV for now. The latest gear should give you pretty steady 40 Mbps throughput. See HomePlug AV Adapter Roundup.

Least reliable will be wireless, even 802.11n.

You'd need very old power wiring (individual wires on insulating posts) to negatively affect current-generation HomePlug AV.

 

[AlefSin]

Thanks thiggins. Your comments are very useful. I read the roundup article too; it was excellent. I saw today that Netgear has announced a new 500Mbps PowerLine series. They are supposed to be in the market within a few weeks. Just in time for me to use them for my network

 

[futonpimp]

Thanks thiggins. Your comments are very useful. I read the roundup article too; it was excellent. I saw today that Netgear has announced a new 500Mbps PowerLine series. They are supposed to be in the market within a few weeks. Just in time for me to use them for my network

and if it sucks..just return it

 

[thiggins]

The 500 Mbps adapters were announced months ago. Latest info from NETGEAR is that they won't be shipping until December.