Home Network Design Help - U-verse, etc.

[OgreMkV]

Hello,

I've been doing a lot of research on this and I'm not a stranger to home networking, but this is my first really complex network build and I really wanted a second opinion. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

We're building a new house (yay!) and I've got the network cables all set up with enough jacks in each room. But I need to make sure that this thing is going to work. I don't want my X-box competing with mom's HD-dancing with the stars.

We will have U-verse (fiber to the house, also yay!) and the 2-Wire residential gateway will be in my closet along with an On-Q panel. I'm planning on having a switch in that box for almost everything.

I see two possible ways of setting this up.
The first is two run the two TV setup boxes directly from the U-verse gateway. Then setup the switch to not forward any multicast packets.

The switch would then have support dedicated gigabit ethernet to 1) Roku, 2) X-Box360 3) My PC 4) Mom's PC 5) A wireless router 6) printer 7) NAS 8) Wife's laptop when docked. More probably, I'll put the wife's laptop dock, NAS, my work laptop, and printer on a smaller switch in my office.

The second plan would be to have a larger (16-port) managed switch with each device having a direct connect (everything mentioned above + two televisions) and let the switch manage traffic. Again, using a smaller switch in the office for a few items. I've never done a managed switch before so that's a point of concern.

My understanding is that unless the switch stops the multicast traffic, then it will hit the wireless router and impact our tablets, phones, and whatever laptops are on the wireless network.

I guess the question is, which would be better? Go ahead and plan for a managed 16-port switch where I can (begging for help) set up a couple of V-LANs and only use the residential gateway to connect to the internet OR plan for using the residential gateway as part of the system?

Second question would be: Anyone have any advice for a 8-16 port managed switch (for a noob) that will fit in an On-Q panel (fanless).

 

[stevech]

All the U-verse installations I've seen are not fiber to the home.
They're fiber to the neighborhood VRAD, then copper wire to the home (existing phone wires). This is like a garden hose connected to a fire hydrant.

But perhaps in new home construction tract areas, they're installing fiber underground.

IMO: Think twice about going with AT&T.

Switches: Lightly managed switches from Netgear: I have some. Inexpensive, and they do VLAN and port mirroring/monitoring.

 

[OgreMkV]

All the U-verse installations I've seen are not fiber to the home.
They're fiber to the neighborhood VRAD, then copper wire to the home (existing phone wires). This is like a garden hose connected to a fire hydrant.

But perhaps in new home construction tract areas, they're installing fiber underground.

IMO: Think twice about going with AT&T.

Switches: Lightly managed switches from Netgear: I have some. Inexpensive, and they do VLAN and port mirroring/monitoring.

Sigh... in our area, we have a choice of broadband. We can use U-verse from AT&T or U-verse from AT&T. If we don't need broadband, then you can (maybe) get 4G from Clearwire (or whatever they are called).

Considering my equipment and working from home, I have to have something that can handle multiple streams, including TV, simultaneously.

 

[Heihachi07]

sultan

From this we could see ALL cables are working to Gbit specs and all devices too... but, to have Gbit speeds, or even 100 mbits speed capable of doing 1080p between NAS -> Router -> Network Player, i have to set the link of the NAS to 100 mbits! But when doing so, the laptop connection between NAS -> Router -> laptop, drops from 60 MB/s to 10-12 MB/s.



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[System Error Message]

to prevent any competing you can plan for the future. This means cat6 cables, 4 connectors per room, etc. This prevents competing and by using a larger switch means that devices wont compete for bandwidth and not needing to use small switches all around.

As for managed switches stay away from netgear smart switches and any dlink managed switches since both have firmware issues (weird bugs at some features). I'ved used netgear and it fails at random stuff while my new mikrotik CRS has a very steep learning curve and is actually quite complicated because of their different terminologies. ubiquiti may have promising managed switches. Aside from those i would recommend cisco, zyxel, netgear fully managed and asus. Go for the non consumer ones if you can.

 

[stevech]

U-verse.
Run!
Just say no.