Relocating the Cable Modem

[SamSpade]

You know, probably the most exasperating part of the Internet in my house is, the modem is down in the furnace room. I've tried all kinds of ways to expand coverage and speed, but not as fast as my household adds wifi devices.

It occurred to me that every single setup I've seen for optimizing coverage begins with a centrally located modem.

Has anyone ever - tried that? Run cable through their house to try and centrally locate the modem?

 

[PrchJrkr]

No, but it makes sense. If it's tucked in a corner in the bottom level, I would think that the signal is weak to begin with, especially by the time it reaches the highest level of the house.

 

[DoWhat]

Has anyone ever - tried that? Run cable through their house to try and centrally locate the modem?

Yes.
I ran a coax cable to our office.
But I have a basement with a drop ceiling.

 

[GURPS]

Has anyone ever - tried that? Run cable through their house to try and centrally locate the modem?

No I ran an ethernet cable and added another wireless access point in bridged mode

 

[SamSpade]

No I ran an ethernet cable and added another wireless access point in bridged mode

I don't know why this wasn't an immediately obvious answer to the problem. I'm going to work on this one, I think.

So I guess the big challenge will probably be, how to run the cable to a place I can use without destroying my hardwood floors.
Something to think about.

 

[GURPS]

So I guess the big challenge will probably be, how to run the cable to a place I can use without destroying my hardwood floors.

I have a crawl space under the house so drilled a 1/4 inch hole for the cable and put an end on it [ it is behind the TV ]

 

[SamSpade]

I have a crawl space under the house so drilled a 1/4 inch hole for the cable and put an end on it [ it is behind the TV ]

Yeah, I don't. I have a basement with a finished ceiling, and there's probably one or two practical locations for it upstairs, but I am unsure how to do it. I'm not particularly handy - I supposed the hardest part would be snaking an Ethernet cable up into an interal wall, but I have no idea how to do that without making a HUGE MESS.

But the wheel is cranking in my brain for alternatives - thanks for the suggestion.

 

[kwillia]

You can find how to videos for practically any subject on YouTube.

 

[GURPS]

Yeah, I don't. I have a basement with a finished ceiling,

what about a furnace or laundry room ?

 

[glhs837]

What Gurps said. You need to do some detective work and find existing penetrations through the floor between them. Once you find that, then it's time to get creative with things like string and wire and magnets.

 

[Clem72]

You know, probably the most exasperating part of the Internet in my house is, the modem is down in the furnace room. I've tried all kinds of ways to expand coverage and speed, but not as fast as my household adds wifi devices.

It occurred to me that every single setup I've seen for optimizing coverage begins with a centrally located modem.

Has anyone ever - tried that? Run cable through their house to try and centrally locate the modem?

Yes, of course. Basement is the worst because you will be going through pipes and the bottom of your appliances and multi-pathing off the concrete walls.

If you can't find a way to wire to a central location, try these:
Amazon product

g.hn wave 2 is generally better than the AV powerline standards (like AV2000). Try to find two plugs on the same phase, same circuit would be great.

 

[SamSpade]

Yes, of course. Basement is the worst because you will be going through pipes and the bottom of your appliances and multi-pathing off the concrete walls.

If you can't find a way to wire to a central location, try these:
Amazon product

g.hn wave 2 is generally better than the AV powerline standards (like AV2000). Try to find two plugs on the same phase, same circuit would be great.

I might. I do use the AV powerline things - but I've heard and observed they top out at under 100 Mps, Right now what I have is, router connected to the modem, and a powerline think running from it to the opposite end of the house - where with only two exceptions, most of the household Internet traffic originates - TV, kid's computers, area where people use their cellphones and tablets - and so on. I really never thought I'd see it, but we've been experiencing data logjams in that room in the evening, where everyone is sitting around with their gadgets.

About a year ago, I tried some of those mesh wifi things, and I learned from experience that they drop suddenly and often needed a manual reboot, although frequent digital reboots is bad enough.

Worse, in design they don't really "mesh" - you'd think they intertwine by the name, but they each really only link to ONE other node, so in my house, they form more of a daisy chain than a mesh. So if one goes down, everything linked AFTER them is down also. Then of course, I look at mesh examples and lo and behold! it's exactly what I DON'T have - my Internet source located in the center of the building. When they came up with the product, they were thinking more of a starlike configuration. And there's no practical way to do THAT with the modem in the far corner of the basement.

 

[Clem72]

I might. I do use the AV powerline things - but I've heard and observed they top out at under 100 Mps,

The number on the box represents the physical layer maximum network speed among all devices on an ideal circuit (this is higher than the usable speed after applying TCP/IP overhead).

On top of that the old AV1 to AV1000 standards usually only had a fast-ethernet port on them anyways, so you would never get more than 100mbit.

You also need to distinguish between the "connection speed" and the actual throughput as measured.

I have used AV, AV2, AV300, AV1000, AV2000, and G.hn Wave 2 over the years. On the same exact set of outlets I went from getting around 25-30mbit on an "80mbit" connection with Homeplug AV (with drops whenever the AC kicked on or someone used the microwave) to being able to max out my 200mbit internet with less than 2ms additional latency over directly connecting to the modem with g.hn wave 2. Transfers between computers directly connected to the adapters could sustain around 600-700mbit UDP or 200-300mbut TCP bi-directional using iperf3 to test. And my circuit is not an ideal circuit (two floors apart, but they are on the same phase)

If you tried it several years ago, go ahead and try again you may be pleasantly surprised.

Try not to mix and match, even when compatible (like AV2 and AV1000) as your network will be slowed down to the lowest common denominator. And if you need to use the outlet to actually power something, buy the version that has an integrated power plug, this allows the unit to better isolate from interference.

The one I linked has gbit ports and integrated power and is one of the best available right now.

 

[Ken King]

Have you thought about relocating the modem within the basement? I would think moving to where it is under your major use area (and maybe on a shelf closer to the ceiling) would increase your connectivity.

 

[Clem72]

Have you thought about relocating the modem within the basement? I would think moving to where it is under your major use area (and maybe on a shelf closer to the ceiling) would increase your connectivity.

Not likely a good idea. Hard to describe in a block of text, but the pattern coming off those 1/4 wave dipole antennas is like a squashed donut that gets bigger the further away from the antenna you are. If you position the elements vertically then you will have a hole directly above and below that gets larger the higher you get, so that would be pretty much the worst possible solution. If you position the elements directly sideways you will get good top to bottom coverage, but it wont be very wide so two sides of the house would get little coverage. You could put them at 45 degrees and get decent coverage directly above on the first floor, but the second floor directly above may have poor coverage.

Typically the best pattern (with three elements) is the center straight up and the two sides at 45 away from the center (like an upside down Atari symbol) centrally located in the house. Otherwise try to imagine the donuts and line your antennas up accordingly.

 

[Ken King]

Not likely a good idea. Hard to describe in a block of text, but the pattern coming off those 1/4 wave dipole antennas is like a squashed donut that gets bigger the further away from the antenna you are. If you position the elements vertically then you will have a hole directly above and below that gets larger the higher you get, so that would be pretty much the worst possible solution. If you position the elements directly sideways you will get good top to bottom coverage, but it wont be very wide so two sides of the house would get little coverage. You could put them at 45 degrees and get decent coverage directly above on the first floor, but the second floor directly above may have poor coverage.

Typically the best pattern (with three elements) is the center straight up and the two sides at 45 away from the center (like an upside down Atari symbol) centrally located in the house. Otherwise try to imagine the donuts and line your antennas up accordingly.

View attachment 162994

Yeah, okay. But as was described the modem is in the furnace room. Given the proximity to the metal furnace, ducting and such, moving the router into a less "blocking" location might be all that is needed and is what I would do first. It might only need to be moved a few feet to make it more effective for his needs.

 

[Sneakers]

You could also tip the modem on it's side to change the direction of the pattern from sideways to up/down.

 

[GURPS]

You could also tip the modem on it's side to change the direction of the pattern from sideways to up/down.

build a foil covered reflector

 

[GURPS]

 

[SamSpade]

Have you thought about relocating the modem within the basement? I would think moving to where it is under your major use area (and maybe on a shelf closer to the ceiling) would increase your connectivity.

Sure, that's actually the name of the thread. But I am still trying to figure out what I can do. The tough thing is, the basement has almost no usable electrical outlets, which is weird.

I do kind of like it sitting in the corner though, because I hook up my entire home office to it directly, without a router.