Hi there good folk,
The new place i am moving into has the internet come into the house on the other side of where I am planning to have my office + my NAS(which needs ethernet). I much prefer having my stuff connected through ethernet, but not sure what do now, as I cant really run cables across the house. Am also renting the place so cant drill holes in walls etc… As far as I know, there are two ways for me to get ethernet in my office:
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COAX to POE: The place does not have ethernet ports in the walls either, but it does have some wallmounted coax sockets. Is it worth looking into coax to poe adapters for either end of the sockets? Not sure how much of a fan I am of this due to the amount of cables this ends up being.
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The other way would be to have a WiFi-extender in my office, but i guess this will sacrafice some more speed than the other solution(?). This way I would have a small switch connected to the extender which will get me some more ports too.
I am planning on buying into the Unifi prodcuts, specifically the Unifi Express device as a router. While expensive, I love the polish and feature set and control it brings. What other Unifi devices should I get into, considering probably wont be able to use PoE?
Lemmy know your thoughts, opinions and the rest - am open for all sorts of solutions!
If it were me and there was no way to have an additional drop installed from the exterior, I would still consider running a single cable through the living space to your desired location, as discreetly as possible.
It’s difficult to suggest exactly how to do so without pics or a floorplan, but I would try to match the wall or trim color and keep the cable tucked close to the floor and/or ceiling throughout the run.
Once in place, the cable will quickly disappear into your surroundings and you’ll be left with rock solid reliable networking.
I installed cable in a couple of apartments I rented. I just made it look professional and nothing was ever said about it. In one apartment town home I even had access to the attic and was able to run cable in the walls. I did have to drill through the floor and door headers in some instances, but it can be done.
MoCA is a way to send wired Ethernet up to (300mb/s, at least the version i have) over coax. Verizon fios would provide these devices to send internet to set top boxes over existing coax cabling, but you can get a pair of these devices and send Ethernet in on one side, and Ethernet out the other side.
I have noticed however, it adds a bit of latency to the connection, which may be trouble.
Hello friend.
You can get 2.5gbps MoCA now. You may want to consider upgrading.
Nice username btw
What about power line adapters? I’ve got a pair and they just sit there doing their thing, no config needed, just plug in and away you go. So long as you’re on the same electric circuit, they’ll connect over that. Mine are made by TP Link and never had a problem (not sure if Unifi make them, sorry). Best of luck to you!
Didn’t know this was an option even, will defo look into this asap and evaluate wether this fits my use case or not, thanks!
I had a set of four for getting ethernet around the few places I rented. There was maybe the odd quality decrease when there was a lot of electrical load, but they worked great otherwise.
A set of four what? I’m sorry, not quite following.
Sorry, four of the power to ethernet plugs. You put one near your router to essentially supply internet to your house’s electrical circuits, then distribute the others where you need them, such as office, living room if you want to connect a TV or console, etc.
Depending on where you live and what your power circuits look like (not the outlets, the circuits that power them), you may have a great, or very poor experience.
I’d need to know what country you live in to know more, since power wiring standards vary from country to country. In the USA and Canada (I’m in Canada and the USA is the same), we use split phase and crossing the split phase will severely hinder the ability for powerline to perform.
It’s a viable option, not my favorite option, I’d recommend MoCA (coax) over powerline, but it’s ultimately up to you.
Where is this happening? Which country, which laws?
NAS on WiFi works, but it is less fun than NAS on a cable.
PoE works only with solid copper wire installed in the walls, connecting these rooms with as few interruptions as possible. Never with flexible lines.
Norway. It works, but I dont have a networking card anyways and much prefer having things wired if possible.
I guess you should simply talk to the landlord about your needs, and try to find an agreeable solution together.
You can TRY power line adapters:
TP-Link AV2000 Powerline Adapter https://a.co/d/0fa6e3f3
Their application can be hit or miss, but mine have been perfect. Had them just under 2 years. Able to get full bandwidth and no discernable latency addition
FWIW, these are effective only when both are used on the same circuit. If you live in an older home, the chances of this being the case are higher.
My entire apartment, except for the washroom, is on the same circuit. It also means I can’t run an air conditioner without tripping the breaker. :|
Maybe it’s ignorance on my part, but my office and the router in the house aren’t on the same circuit.
Or, at least they have different sections in the breaker.
House is brand new, put up in 2021
It’s not dependent of circuit, things just need to be on the same phase. Our house uses three phases total, so power line adapters only work for 1/3 of the house here.
Huh good to know thanks!
Tell the ISP you’re signing up with that there’s no drop for their service, and have them run a new one to the office. Check your local laws about touching their wire or box on the outside of the house before removing it.
Also, it’s really easy to patch holes in drywall with a little joint compound and matched paint.
Otherwise, MoCA and powerline ethernet can work. Modern wifi is pretty good too, though consider walls, etc. between points A and B and which frequency you’ll be using.
Landlords are familiar with utility install people and how unpredictable they can be. Even if they get mad, this will put the blame squarely on someone else so it’s probably a good option for you. “I dunno why he put it there. You know how utility guys are. It’s the only place he’d put my hookup.”
I use one of those coax/Ethernet converters in my house. It’s a 2-story place and running Ethernet was going to be too daunting for a room.
Overall it works very well (I had bad experiences with using network over electrical power). The only thing that will be a downer is the gigabit coax converters seem to be expensive. Since I just had 1 client in an isolated network, 100mbps was fine for me but would hamper your NAS throughout. You’d also need to buy 2 sets of converters for your use case, so that’s potentially not cheap if you’re wanting gigabit from end to end.
Some of the newer wireless standards are very quick, but you’d also need to ensure all NICs are compatible and a newer AP wouldn’t be free.
Perhaps talk to the landlord about splitting the cost of getting Ethernet professionally run in all rooms. It may be the most cost effective solution, but the drawback is you walk away with nothing. The landlord would be able to advertise Ethernet ready infra, so there is some benefit for them to do it.
Second this. Landlords don’t want their stuff screwed up by inexperienced tenants’ diy projects, and they don’t want to pay for something they think it’s unnecessary. I’d get an estimate for a pro to do it (could be a guy off Craigslist or whatever, just someone who does this for a living) and then just ask the landlord if they’d be alright with you paying to get it done. They’ll probably want to know exactly what they’re going to do, and they’ll likely say yes, especially since you say they already have coax running through the house.
My current home, the landlord doesn’t have a cable and I’m separate from the house. I’ve been using a wifi router to pick up the signal and then I just connect my devices to that router. It works as an access point basically.
I’m using the GL.inet Flint and it’s been solid for several years. It runs openWRT. Just make sure the router has the ability to repeat. A lot of wifi routers are one way only.
I’ve been in similar situations while renting. I ran ethernet cables along skirting boards and around doorframes and hid them inside adhesive cable raceways.
Q: why is running a cable across the house not an option?
it’s not length, since 30m should be enough for most mcmansions.
it’s not cost, since cables are fairly cheap. Cheapest option there is.
you run along wall edges, taking the long way if you have to. When crossing open areas, you lay a rubber cable protector over the top (or a strip of carpet with a gutter cut out underneath), to stop tripping and make it look nice.
You’re probably right, I need to look again at running cables. But it is on separate floors too. Have not moved in yet, so will have to evaluate again when I move in. Thanks for the tips.
I’ve run cables between floors, down stairs and such. Stairs make things easier, because you can run the cable across them without tripping anyone, or needing to cover them. You can wind through bannisters to avoid using tape too.
Also, you should only be running one cable, and putting a switch at the other end.
Power-line tends to be quite slow and error prone. If you have existing coax, that is likely the better option. You can get up to 2.5gbit adapters for it: https://til.simonwillison.net/networking/ethernet-over-coaxial-cable
I spent a year tracking down random afci circuit breaker trips, until I realized it was my powerline Ethernet. Never again.
I think people’s experience with PLE will always be subjective. In the old flat we were in, where I needed it. It would drop connection all the time, it was unusable.
But I’ve had them run totally fine in other places. Noisy power supplies that aren’t even in your place can cause problems. Any kind of impulse noise (bad contacts on an old style thermostat for example) and all kinds of other things can and will interfere with it.
Wifi is always a compromise too. But, I guess if wiring direct is not an option, the OP needs to choose their compromise.
IMO, powerline is going to depend on a lot of factors including what kind of power you use, which varies from country to country. Where I am in North America, we use 240v split phase, and the powerline adapters are 120v (half phase), so if one unit ends up on one side of the phase, and one ends up on the other side of the phase, you’re going to have a bad time, if it links at all… So knowing which “side” of the split phase your powerline is on becomes critical, which is not something most people know about their power situation. As a result, it’s basically a crap shoot whether it will work well or not.
Most power line adaptors say to keep it on the same circuit. The one I have is running a small VoIP phone and I don’t have issues with call quality.
If it’s cable internet and not fiber/DSL, I’d look at connecting the ISP’s coax to the house’s coax. Provided all of the house’s coax ports are connected to a splitter, you could feed the ISP coax into the nearest port and plug the cable modem into the office port.
Put the nas and router where the internet comes in at and the just use WiFi for your office and the rest of the house. Thats what 99% of the people do. All the new WiFi routers are really efficient at beam forming and other technologies to get you a decent signal.
At my house, since it is raised up I was able to crawl under and run Ethernet to the living room for the htpc(gaming) computer and it was pretty easy to install a keystone next to a power outlet. Not sure if that is viable in your situation.
But even then I didn’t bother running Ethernet to all the rooms because even streaming 4k video is viable over WiFi. Though I understand it might not work so well if trying to edit on a nas or something similar.
Normally I wouldn’t mind doing this too. But my server is fairly large back box and the Internet comes into the house in a really awkward spot. I might however buy into the new Fractal Mood case, as those seem super slick for leaving servers anywhere in the house.
You could source a pair of gigabit media converters and a length of fiber on Amazon for about $100. Just use the media converters to extend the Ethernet port from where the Internet hands off in your house over to your office. You can affix the fiber along baseboards and up over door frames with adhesive cleats and zip ties, or those nylon staples on a nail they use to tack down coax cable.
If you’re willing to spend a little more on the fiber for a custom color, you can probably even order the fiber in a more neutral color than SMF yellow to blend into the trim better.
