OT... but a little networking knowledge desired

[Rashkae]

Michael Comperchio wrote:
> I manage an organization housed in a hundred year old house built by the
> Catholic church to house it's Nun's. It is built like a brick crapper.
> Consequently, wireless signal in this place is problematic. The person
> before me had some network cabling run, unfortunately, not to every
> room, and the connection block is in the basement. So right now I have
> the cable modem downstairs, plugged into one of the connections, and the
> wireless router upstairs, plugged into the other end of that connection.
> This is a so-so solution, because there are areas of the house that get
> not signal what-so-ever. The obvious answer is to pay some guy to rewire
> the house. Not Going To Happen. Next answer is me rewire the house, also
> NGTH. So I though that I would buy a 5 or 8 port switch, attach it to
> the cable modem, patch the switch into 5 or 8 of the already run cables,
> and attach the wireless to the other end of the most advantageously
> exposed spot. But, before I did this, I though I'd ask... can I put a
> switch in front of the wireless router? like so:
> 
> cable modem ----> switch ---> patch panel ----> wireless router? 
> 
> Michael.
>

Nope, sorry, you're close.

cable modem --> 'Router' -> switch --> Patch Panel -->  Wirless access point


The problem is, so called routers (really, internet sharing devices that
couldn't route if your life depended on it, but that's another rant) and
Wireless access points are almost all packaged as a combo unit.  You can
buy them separately, but that's usually more expensive, so you end up
with a wireless router in the basement that probably offers redundant,
unused wireless, and a Wireless Router upstairs that has all of it's
router functions turned off.  (You'll need to manually assign it's IP
address, and disable DHCP, on the upstairs unit, so as not to conflict
with the router downstairs.)

Hope that makes sense.. you might want to consult with a local geek for
more details if mailing list tech support gets confusing.


Note: As an alternative rigging, if you really want to confuse people,
put a single wireless router upstairs that has nearby access to 2 ports
on the Patch panel, then you can wire the modem, through the patch
panel, to the router, then back to the patch panel (on another cable),
and from there, into the switch.. weee!