[lug] OT: wiring a house for ethernet

[Frank Whiteley]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ryan Wheaton" <ryan.wheaton at comcast.net>
To: "Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List"
<lug at lug.boulder.co.us>
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 11:06
Subject: Re: [lug] OT: wiring a house for ethernet


> Yes, we will most definitely get permission from the landlord.
>
> we have 802.11b right now (for laptops), but the speed difference is
> just too much.  We do a lot of file transfers between computers and
> such, and I find 802.11b to be tedious when transferring files.
> Exactly how much faster is 802.11g?  Still, the problem with that is
> that we'd incur a lot of cost buying a new wifi router (802.11g) and
> new wifi nics for all the workstations...  The cheapest G router i've
> found is $55 and the cheapest G nics i've seen are $30 a piece.  That
> would be about $175 to get it in there across the board for all our
> workstations...  If the speed is there, then i'd probably be completely
> willing to invest, but I'm just not really convinced.
>
> -rtw
>
<snip>
I used 802.11b for a while until Excel managed to fry my router.  Am looking
to a g upgrade but nothing compeling since I have ethernet around the house
anyway. (Actually, the router was probably suspect also since the
manufacturer no longer offers support of any kind for it.)

FWIW, 802.11b was too slow for connecting to my customer database and
running 10 or so Excel spreadsheets even with 100% signal.  For some reason
the router would lock hard from time to time also, resulting in some
re-work.  For Internet it was fine, but that's orders of magnitude slower by
comparison.  g might work, but pulling an ethernet cable across the room is
much faster, more reliable, and cheaper and if all I want is Internet, one
of my clueless neighbors is painting the cul-de-sac with his Linksys running
wide open on Comcast and I know the ESSID and WEP key for my next door
neighbor's wireless access point on DSL;^)

Tape fishing is not too bad from an accessible attic or unfinished basement,
but if your wall joists have a fireblock, well.....  Older homes often have
an old ChannelMaster
installation, so new TV cable and ethernet pulling is not too bad, but a LOT
more expensive than wireless, especially if you need the tools.  A good set
of DIY tools, with tester and cable, will run at least the cost of the
802.11g network.

Frank Whiteley