Utility Room Network Ideas?

[Deleted member 7458]

*Removed

 

[GregN]

Hey Everyone

thanks in advance for your help. i'm at a loss here for what to do. hopefully someone out here has an answer. i was referred here by a friend who swears by this site!

i'm building a new house and am getting ethernet ports run directly to every room in the house, with a few extras in the media room. so what i'm looking at doing is having about 10-14 ports in my house, as well as adding a wireless access point or two for the laptops.

my question is, what is the best way to do this? what i thought i could do (correct me if i'm wrong) is to go from modem > router > 16 port switch > wireless access point.

would this set up work? would this give me basically, 14 wired ports and 2 access points?

what i don't think i understand is, does the switch try and pull an IP from my provider for every cable connected, or does it just keep pulling local IP's from the router?

would it be better or even possible to get ahold of a gigabit 16 port router or something and just use it that way, or is the router / switch combo better

i don't care too much about sending between each system, more just for internet access all over the house including the basement suite

thank you for even reading this far!

I presume you're talking a unmanaged switch. If so what you're talking about will work great, think of the switch as just a port expander. In the config you envision the switch is transparent. I do recommend finding a switch with a brand name you recognize.

Several folks here have recommended multiple APs depending on the space, say one for each floor. You might want to provide extra drops for those.

Are you running a HTPC? I found that the number of ports needed for the media area just keeps growing, Tivo box, TV, Amp, DVD player, and HTPC are all net enabled these days. You might consider a five or eight port unmanaged switch there.

I just recently bought a gigabit 24 port managed switch off of Ebay for $70, a Dell 5226 and other than the fans running all the time I'm very pleased. You might consider that (though requires more work, managed switches need to be configured, but will allow more flexibility)

Hope that helps

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Your setup is typical.
Modem....Router.....Switch.....everything else inside

For home grade routers that run as a gateway, they obtain a single IP address from the ISP. They run "NAT"...changing to a private IP range on the inside. They run DHCP to hand out private IP addresses to up to 253 internal devices.