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Help me Obi wan... oh wait, help me oh powerful ant!

ivang

New Around Here
See my name is Ivan, recently I got hold of an apartment, 115 m^2.
I designed my own electrical system and prewired all the rooms with CAT5e and CAT6...

I have one large living room, 3 smaller rooms, 1 huge hallway... My apartment is built mostly of reinforced concrete... The hallway is positioned in the middle (I will attach the photo in another post if necessary) All the UTP cables terminate at one point, middle of the hallway. There are 27 of them, some will be used for telephone (if I ever need that low tech crap) there are 12 CAT6 and 15 CAT5e, a patch panel is being installed next week... In an unrelated story there is a patch panel for COAX TV :D 6 lines :D

So now I have my wired backbone, but now comes a problem... What to use with my "uber" copper... I want a great home network, I will have at least 8 wired machines and at least 5 wireless clients, some wireless will be laptops with N, some g, a few mobile phones mostly G...

My idea was, buy a dumb unmanageable switch, 16 gigabit ports, buy one wireless access point, buy one VPN router so I can VPN to my setup from anywhere I want and something to give out DHCP to the rest of the network, the internet shall come by means of crappy DSL provided modem in bridge mode.

List of wired:
iMac, HTPC streamer, another HTPC streamer, homebuilt NAS, small server, maybe some arduino stuff but thats not really important, TV and maybe some more stuff but never more than 16 at a time.

List of wireless:
MacAir, Lenovo x200s, Asus w5f, a few blackberry phones and an android here and there...

So I kinda had an idea,
Backbone of my network the DHCP heart and soul, Cisco RV120W, it's perfect if you look at the specs, plus a device less! but bad reviews kinda got me bummed... So I kinda decided against it for now...
And am looking at Cisco RV042. Last resort is using my old wrt54GL with DDWRT as a router and QoS manager...

My switch would be a Dlink DGS-1100-16 16-port Gigabit EasySmart switch, actually with some basic web ui too! Great price :D

My WAP, I think I'd go with Dlink too on this one, DAP 2553.

So the thing is I live in Croatia, most of the cool stuff is either unavailable or expensive so much I'd rather shout 10111011 :D

Please help me, I need to sort this out...
 
Since you have reinforced concrete, I'd expect you'll need multiple access points. So I wouldn't worry about getting a wireless router.

If VPN is important, get a real VPN router vs. messing with flashing DD-WRT.

You can buy a switch based on price, brand preference and warranty. They will all perform the same. Many Gigabit switches now have lifetime warranties, which is a good idea since Gigabit runs hotter so is more apt to fail than 10/100.

What are you concerned about for the RV120W? Note that there is also now an RV110W.
 
Well a lot of people said RV120W drops connections a lot, but new firmware seems to have fixed it... still...

What do you say to this

DSL modem in bridged mode -> RV120W -LAN-> SWITCH -LAN-> fast stuff
-WLAN-> devices i need mobile
-LAN-> another AP running for the other part of the flat? what would that AP be? i wanted WAP 4410N but found to many horror stories :/ Would like dlink dap2553

http://imageshack.us/f/849/wlanathome.jpg/

a picture of my flat... the red thingies between the rooms are reinforced concrete, 5-10 cm thick, for USA people, 2-4 in
 
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The RV120W drops wired or wireless connections?

Your proposed configuration is pretty standard stuff. With Ethernet drops in every room, you don't need a powerful/ fancy AP. You can use most anything, including converting a router to an AP.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Wireles...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

this kinda scared me off...
i do have a wrt54gl and a wrt610n (currently RMA cos the switch kinda died...) but i'd really like the rv120w just i'm scared it won't work, and having a reliable backbone to assign DHCP, do QoS and an occasional VPN and still be rock solid is important for me..

and well if i use multiple aps i'd need seamless transfers from one AP to another, I was spoiled at work by pro cisco stuff
 
Thanks for the link.

"Seamless" AP-to-AP handoff is more a client than AP issue. That said, it's unlikely you'll find any prosumer / consumer product that will do it. Although it's a pain, you're better off assigning unique SSIDs to each AP and manually selecting the one with best signal.

With concrete block walls, it's very likely you'll need more than one AP for whole house coverage.
 
yeah i know... that is something frustrating... see in Croatia we like to build stuff from well concrete... it's a bad for wlan... imagine how was it for the guys laying the Ethernet cables, they had to make holes in the walls :D now 27 lines of CAT6 and CAT5e through solid concrete...

The thing is i'd really like to have 1 SSID and really want to try it... so a RV120W + maybe an old trusty wrt54gl or something new and fast like the D-link 2553?
 
The thing is i'd really like to have 1 SSID and really want to try it... so a RV120W + maybe an old trusty wrt54gl or something new and fast like the D-link 2553?
Go ahead and try it. Just don't expect it to work, i.e. "seamless" roaming.
 
It doesn't have to be really seamless, if it just works in under 5 seconds I'd be thrilled


edit: i can always go to WDS if all else fails :(
 
5 seconds shouldn't be a problem. The main issue is that clients are too "sticky" and stay associated with the first AP they see until the signal drops instead of switching when error rate or RSSI gets below a certain point.

If the client driver lets you control roaming aggressiveness you might have a shot.

Why would WDS help?
 
it wouldn't it would allow users who can't switch networks cos they don't know how to at least use wlan everywhere at a speed loss premium...
 
Multiple APs connected via Ethernet all set to the same SSID give you the same thing, without the WDS repeating throughput hit.

Even with WDS, the "stickiness" problem is still there.
 
yeah that is true...
most intel cards have the roaming aggressiveness setting, well it's going to max... any good info on that subject? something that is going to force it?
 
yeah that is true...
most intel cards have the roaming aggressiveness setting, well it's going to max... any good info on that subject? something that is going to force it?
Sorry, I don't. Maybe stevech will have some info for you.
 
well thx anyways. btw. this site is great a real beacon of hope for small net builders around the globe, there to say you are not alone :) there are other people like you :D
 
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