Wiring My Apartment for Internet
Just bought a 2-bedroom very long railroad style condo. The building is newly renovated, but the sponsor for some reason decided not to wire the units for Internet, just phone. I have a wireless router, but it doesn’t reach into the back of the apartment, and extension routers slow the network down. I’d like to…
Just bought a 2-bedroom very long railroad style condo. The building is newly renovated, but the sponsor for some reason decided not to wire the units for Internet, just phone. I have a wireless router, but it doesn’t reach into the back of the apartment, and extension routers slow the network down. I’d like to remove the phone wiring and install Cat-6 lines through the existing phone line conduits. Ideally, I’d connect the new Cat-6 lines to my router in a central location in the apartment. Anyone know if this is practical / possible? And is this a DIY project, or should I get assistance from a pro?
Thanks to ITWorks for the great solution. I bought two Netgear Powerline 200+ adapters and was able to place my wireless router, Vonage box, networked HD, cordless phone receiver, and a Sonos S5 all in the same central location in my apt, delivering strong signals to every room. Highly recommend the Powerline adapters as an incredibly inexpensive and easy alternative to rewiring. It cost about $120 and took literally 30 seconds to set up.
Many of the posts above are headed in the correct direction.
My off hand solution would be one cat5 run from one end to the other if there was a physical path that could hide the wire. Depending on the route, a pre-made 50′ or 100′ patch cord might work. (Terminated ends need 5/8″ hole as opposed to 1/4″ for cat5).
Another wireless router corrctly configured as access point ONLY would probably work. (Turn off DHCP etc)
The other idea of a directional antenna is quite interesting. We use NetGear ANT24D18 antennas which are great. We have crossed over a half mile with these. The down side is a consumer grade router can’t drive them, they require a NetGear WG302 access point.
I keep a pair of these fastened to a test panel that we use on-site to measure signal.
There is a whole world of metal, not plastic, wireless equipment that is designed for commercial applications.
Questions you can contact me bruce at jerseydata.net.
I think you either are mis-informed about expanding your network wirelessly, you have an incredibly high bandwidth need, or you live in some kind of weird EMF atmospheric situation (since your phone doesn’t work either). I use an Airport Extreme on the top (4th) floor with an Express on the first floor of my house. The only reason I need the Express is to stream music to my stereo, not boost the signal. That said, it is no problem to simultaneously surf the web, stream a movie via Airport to Apple TV, and stream music to the stereo. Now I could be spoiled with FIOS and if you have Time Warner you could be SOL trying to use all that bandwidth, but even Time Warner should work SOME of the time.
BTW – sounds like the sponsor of your building is a complete jerk if you only have one cable outlet in your entire apt.
easier and equally effective is setting up two routers on the opposite ends of the condo in ‘bridge mode.’ any decent router supports the feature and it creates a shared network between the two that seamlessly switches to the router you have the closest connection to…
look up bridge mode…
also… diy and easier than adding cat 5 is setting up a directional antenna for your wifi router.
Thanks all. I’m actually using a dual band Airport Extreme at the moment. Problem is the cable outlet / modem is in the front room, so that’s where the wireless router is. If I could get the router to the middle of the apt I think all would be well. The Netgear Powerline adapter makes good sense as an interim fix. (I’m having a similar coverage issue with my cordless phone, which is also an otherwise reliable DECT 6.0 – I have Vonage, so the cordless receiver needs to be next to the modem and wireless router both…) I’ll give the Netgear a try and report back. Thanks again for the good advice.
you can also run wire behind baseboard where necessary
you can get better router. IEEE 802.11N have better range and faster transfer.
I also not sure about pulling CAT6 though the existing phone outlets. If there is a conduit – it will work without even touching phone cable. If phone wire is pulled though the holes in the studs – you can try to pull CAT6 by the phone cable, but you never know whether it works or not. you also can resort to running cable along the baseboards or something like this. Again Draft-N router worked for me in long rowhouse with tin ceiling.
i would run separate wires. mostly because you might not be sure how the existing lines were run.
Networking cable must be arranged in a “star”. (you could also think of it as parallel). That is, every device must have a separate wire back to a central point (i.e. a 4,5,6, port “switch” etc). House phone wiring is seldom set up as a star / parallel, but rather shares the same pair from jack to jack (i.e. serial”).
You also want to be sure that the other units aren’t sharing different pairs on the same cable running through multiple units (you never know!)
Certainly could be a DIY project, the materials are very inexpensive:
* Cat6 cable roll
* Ethernet cable ends if needed
* Patch panel block (your router would sit near this block)
* Faceplates for the endpoints (this makes your installation look cleaner)
This guy did a pretty good DIY post on the matter: http://www.madbavarian.org/cat5/
Alternately and perhaps cheaper would be to get a stronger wireless router; Apple’s Airport Extreme ($179 at the Apple Store) has far greater range than the cheap Linksys/Netgear alternatives or you can run Ethernet across your home electrical with Netgear’s Powerline adapters: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/636329-REG/Netgear_XETB1001_100NAS_85Mbps_Powerline_Network_Adapter.html