10-02-2014, 05:57 PM
I just upgraded my home network due to the ever increasing need for bandwidth. A few weeks ago, I canceled everything except for the basic cable package (minimal channels), and upgraded the bandwidth to 50Mbps -- keeping it at about 45$ / month. I catch up on "popular" shows when they get to Hulu, or Netflix, or somewhere else on the Internet.
I'm probably not the only one who's migrating from broadcast media to streaming media. My two kids now both have iPhone's and have iPads for school, and we have 3 gaming/homework machines, with mine also doubling for "other administrative duties". We also picked up an AppleTv for our master suite media cluster.
I guess like many homes, mine is a pretty long rectangle, with the cable access point on one end, nearer to the "Family Room" where most of the 70's era television watching used to occur. That happens still in our house, when friends come over for the football game, or when we have family movie night and popcorn. Increasingly, though each of us in the family watch our own things on our own devices, and mostly on wireless devices.
From the cable modem, I connect right there in the family room to a gigabit capable 4 port firewall, router, and wireless device that covers that end of the house. It is close to the family room media center, which has the big TV, DVD player, old seldom used VCR, plus 3 different Ethernet connected game consoles. We've set up that room so that it is easy to move things out of the way to also go Kinect sports type games -- which in Minnesota is a big hit for active boys in January. 4 ports on the router weren't enough so I added an 8 port gigabit switch in that same cabinet. With the desktop computers, and the game consoles, most of the switch is now used.
I had bought one of those cheaper wireless repeaters you plug in a wall outlet to extend the range to the other end of the house to the bedrooms. It was poor at best (intermittent, flaky and < 4Mbs). Last week I ran a 75 foot cat 6 cable from one end of the house to our master suite, originally I had used it only as a direct connection for the AppleTV which sucks bandwidth. But, yesterday installed a TL-WA901ND WAP on that line, and let the AppleTV go wireless (about a foot away from the WAP) It was only $38, and the difference is amazing. Everything just works better now.
I'm probably not the only one who's migrating from broadcast media to streaming media. My two kids now both have iPhone's and have iPads for school, and we have 3 gaming/homework machines, with mine also doubling for "other administrative duties". We also picked up an AppleTv for our master suite media cluster.
I guess like many homes, mine is a pretty long rectangle, with the cable access point on one end, nearer to the "Family Room" where most of the 70's era television watching used to occur. That happens still in our house, when friends come over for the football game, or when we have family movie night and popcorn. Increasingly, though each of us in the family watch our own things on our own devices, and mostly on wireless devices.
From the cable modem, I connect right there in the family room to a gigabit capable 4 port firewall, router, and wireless device that covers that end of the house. It is close to the family room media center, which has the big TV, DVD player, old seldom used VCR, plus 3 different Ethernet connected game consoles. We've set up that room so that it is easy to move things out of the way to also go Kinect sports type games -- which in Minnesota is a big hit for active boys in January. 4 ports on the router weren't enough so I added an 8 port gigabit switch in that same cabinet. With the desktop computers, and the game consoles, most of the switch is now used.
I had bought one of those cheaper wireless repeaters you plug in a wall outlet to extend the range to the other end of the house to the bedrooms. It was poor at best (intermittent, flaky and < 4Mbs). Last week I ran a 75 foot cat 6 cable from one end of the house to our master suite, originally I had used it only as a direct connection for the AppleTV which sucks bandwidth. But, yesterday installed a TL-WA901ND WAP on that line, and let the AppleTV go wireless (about a foot away from the WAP) It was only $38, and the difference is amazing. Everything just works better now.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.
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