1 internet connection 2 private LANs article

[sirshambling]

I found this article very interesting and I hope it will be the way to implement what I'm trying to achieve - but I have one or two questions which I hope somebody here will help me with before I try it out. I'm a newbie here so if these questions are naive/uninformed please excuse me!

I have a home network running both wired and wireless devices quite happily. But as these devices run on different speeds the network must default to the slowest device. So what I'd like to do is separate out the slow devices and put them in a separate network leaving the quicker devices to take advantage of my very quick broadband internet connection.

I envisage Network A consisting of a wireless radio and a wireless picture frame running at g/B speed. Network B would consist of 4 PCs connected by either cables or by wireless running at n speed.

My questions are:-

1. Would this work?
2. Can my main PC be a part of both networks via its 2 ethernet ports?
3. If so how do I configure the two network connections (I'm running Vista) so that it only uses the n speed connection to access the internet?

Thanks for reading this. John.

 

[Unregistered]

Draytek

Hello,

One possibility is to use a single router that provides port-based virtual LANs i.e. that allows you to assign each individual ethernet port to a different VLAN.

I have used Draytek routers for this for several years and they do indeed work quite well for that.

You can mix and match the assignment of VLANs to ports, both for the wired and the wireless section.

HIH

Lnz

 

[thiggins]

But as these devices run on different speeds the network must default to the slowest device.

The entire network does not slow to the speed of the slowest device. Only the speed of each device-to-device connection slows.

I envisage Network A consisting of a wireless radio and a wireless picture frame running at g/B speed. Network B would consist of 4 PCs connected by either cables or by wireless running at n speed.

My questions are:-

1. Would this work?
2. Can my main PC be a part of both networks via its 2 ethernet ports?
3. If so how do I configure the two network connections (I'm running Vista) so that it only uses the n speed connection to access the internet?

1: No need to do it, really, except for separating the 11b/g and draft 11n traffic. For that, just convert one of the routers to an AP.

2: If you do use two routers, then yes.

3: Edit the TCP/IP properties for the NIC connected to the 11b/g router and blank out the Default Gateway settings.

 

[sirshambling]

Thanks for the replies - and for treating me gently!

Much food for thought especially this comment

"Only the speed of each device-to-device connection slows" - are you saying that the speed of data from an N speed router to an N speed device is not affected by the presence of a G speed device on the same network? If you are my idea is completley redundant.

 

[thiggins]

The presence of a mix of b/g and draft n clients in the same network (associated with the same access point / wireless router) does not affect speed. Only if both are active (sending / receiving data) simultaneously, will the speed of both connections be slowed.

For you to really see the slowdown, both the b/g and draft n devices would have to be continuously busy, like doing streams or long file transfers. I'd try the single router with mix of clients and run some experiments. If your speeds are acceptable to you, then you're done. If not, then you could add the AP to separate the b/g traffic.