home networking setup

lorddjj · April 21, 2016

ok so i have a very basic understanding of this , so you have a modem which takes information via fiber phone cable or coax depending on your provider uses, then from the modem you go to either a wireless access point or a switch , and some routers have Ethernet ports to act as a switch. now the stock stuff you get from your isp is this all in one modem access point router good enough ? like will it limit your bandwidth or even reduce your speed because it is bottle necking one of the 2 , so if i were to have internet 20 mbps down and 1.8 mbps up via my stock combo unit , would there be a increase in with speed or even bandwidth available to computers or is there no significant gain

Oshino Shinobu · April 21, 2016

Modems are hardware that basically converts signals between ones that the router and PCs can read, to signals that can be sent over whatever line your ISP uses to provide you with a connection. A lot of people confuse modems and routers for the same thing, as they're often a single, combined unit from ISPs.

You go from a modem to a router, then typically to a switch, where everything else is connected. A lot of ISP provided routers are actually a collection of many things, including modem, router, switch, firewall, access point, DHCP server and so on.

Whether the ISP provided unit is limiting the bandwidth depends on the individual unit model and the connection you have (not what you pay for, those are "up to" speeds).

With a 20/1.8 Mbps connection, it's very unlikely that the ISP's unit is limiting your speed. Switching it may help in certain situations, such as if you have a lot of people on the network at once, but for most home users it is just fine. What you may want to do it get a dedicated access point and use that for WiFi, rather than the built in one on the ISP's unit. This can help with WiFi range and the amount of clients supported, as well as potentially offering better speeds in some cases, especially for local transfers. If you do a lot of local transfers, investing in a good gigabit switch can be a good idea, either for the additional ports, or for the large backplane of decent ones, compared to the ISP's unit. You could go for a managed switch, but typically it's not needed on a home network.

Huntsman · April 21, 2016

Think of it this way, a modem is what converts fibre/dsl/cable/wimax into a standard interface which a router could use. A router then does the distribution of data packets to their target devices. A network switch is sorta like a multiple socket extension which allows multiple connections to communicate with each other. Then there's the wireless access point, which basically does the same job as a network switch except without wires.

Usually, the so-called "router" you buy or given by ISP combines all these functions into one box. Which is why alot of people are confused with them. Also, each of the components performs a large variety of functions on their own.

A "router" given by your ISP would be very unlikely to bottleneck your internet speed unless:

1. You have a very large number of connected devices

2. Wifi environment is terrible

If you have a large number of connected devices, it is very possible that your "router" will either have low internet speed, high packet loss, high jitter or just plain crashes randomly. This is due to cheap "routers" have very very limited hardware such as RAM and processor. It just can't keep up with routing multiple connections. To solve this, there is no other way but to buy better hardware.

If the issue is with overcrowded wifi environment, first step is to move your wifi channel to one which is less crowded. This only works up to certain point as usually people are retards who uses any channel they like and end up overlapping each other. Channel 1, 5 and 11 are non-overlapping channels. Best case scenario is have all your neighbours alternate between these 3 channels instead of choosing whatever they like.

On the subject of wifi, the construction of your building and position of AP matters too. Depending on how many walls and material of the wall, you will encounter wifi "dead spots" around your house where internet connections are slow or fail to get wifi connection at all. Also, it is generally a good rule of thumb to place the AP in the center of your house. If the building is large, consider using multiple APs to cover all the space. BUT be sure to uses non-overlapping channels described above.

One thing people always forgets/ignore is that you CANNOT increase your internet speed past what you subscribed from your ISP by purchasing better hardware. You can however increase your local network speed, which is the connection speed BETWEEN your devices by purchasing better hardware. Remember, the speed of the connection is only as fast as the slowest device in the chain.