Coax to Ethernet?
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@89th said in Coax to Ethernet?:
My main concern is my remote work and the virtual desktop connections and video/team calls that I want to ensure are top notch. Honestly though... the price between 200 and 1,000 MBPS wasn't that much. Maybe 30 bucks a month? Plus once I get all our TVs up and running, streaming 4K content will likely be t3h pipez hog.
Zoom itself says you need only 1.2 Mbps to do video call. Instead of getting one very high speed connection to your house, consider splitting the cost and get two medium speed connections (from two different service providers) to your house instead. That way you (1) get redundancy/backup when one goes down for any reason and (2) get to isolate your "work" stuff from your "entertainment" stuff if you really want to. Added bonus is that if/when one provider jacks up your your price after a promotional period ends, you can cut it loose without actually losing Internet access for the house. All that plus your 5G/4G/LTE cellular service means you rarely have to go without Internet service short of a regional catastrophe.
@axtremus said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@89th said in Coax to Ethernet?:
My main concern is my remote work and the virtual desktop connections and video/team calls that I want to ensure are top notch. Honestly though... the price between 200 and 1,000 MBPS wasn't that much. Maybe 30 bucks a month? Plus once I get all our TVs up and running, streaming 4K content will likely be t3h pipez hog.
Zoom itself says you need only 1.2 Mbps to do video call. Instead of getting one very high speed connection to your house, consider splitting the cost and get two medium speed connections (from two different service providers) to your house instead. That way you (1) get redundancy/backup when one goes down for any reason and (2) get to isolate your "work" stuff from your "entertainment" stuff if you really want to. Added bonus is that if/when one provider jacks up your your price after a promotional period ends, you can cut it loose without actually losing Internet access for the house. All that plus your 5G/4G/LTE cellular service means you rarely have to go without Internet service short of a regional catastrophe.
Is there hardware that can do some form of intelligent routing in that situation?
Max download speed will still be limited by the max single-line speed. But loading a website, for instance, could be sped up by loading its components via different lines.
When having a dedicated server in the cloud that would receive and then split data streams, one could, provided a suitable software exists, even combine the max speeds.
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@axtremus said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@89th said in Coax to Ethernet?:
My main concern is my remote work and the virtual desktop connections and video/team calls that I want to ensure are top notch. Honestly though... the price between 200 and 1,000 MBPS wasn't that much. Maybe 30 bucks a month? Plus once I get all our TVs up and running, streaming 4K content will likely be t3h pipez hog.
Zoom itself says you need only 1.2 Mbps to do video call. Instead of getting one very high speed connection to your house, consider splitting the cost and get two medium speed connections (from two different service providers) to your house instead. That way you (1) get redundancy/backup when one goes down for any reason and (2) get to isolate your "work" stuff from your "entertainment" stuff if you really want to. Added bonus is that if/when one provider jacks up your your price after a promotional period ends, you can cut it loose without actually losing Internet access for the house. All that plus your 5G/4G/LTE cellular service means you rarely have to go without Internet service short of a regional catastrophe.
Is there hardware that can do some form of intelligent routing in that situation?
Max download speed will still be limited by the max single-line speed. But loading a website, for instance, could be sped up by loading its components via different lines.
When having a dedicated server in the cloud that would receive and then split data streams, one could, provided a suitable software exists, even combine the max speeds.
@klaus said in Coax to Ethernet?:
Is there hardware that can do some form of intelligent routing in that situation?
Max download speed will still be limited by the max single-line speed. But loading a website, for instance, could be sped up by loading its components via different lines.
When having a dedicated server in the cloud that would receive and then split data streams, one could, provided a suitable software exists, even combine the max speeds.
Yes, that's done in software. Call it some combination of "load balancing" and "link aggregation." Hardware alone cannot do this because you need a lot of 'context' information to do this right. Cannot speak to cheap, 'consumer grade' routers, but most business/enterprise class routers that explicitly support dual-WAN (or even more generally 'multi-WAN') should have this capability.
The underlying protocols actually lend themselves quite nicely for various components of a webpage to load through different paths on the Internet. Unless you deliberately restrict the path by using, say, a VPN or a security tunnel, loading different components through different paths (when multiple paths exist) is often the default, expected behavior.
Depends on the router/software, there are typically various parameters you can set to influence how traffic got "divided up" into two (or more) Internet connections. E.g., you can say "10% for this link and 90% for that other link", you can say "always use this link as primary and the other as backup for when the primary fails", or allow the underlying protocols to dynamically figure out which is the "best link" to use for any given source/destination at any given time. For the power users and network security professionals, you can even hand-tweak the routing tables to very precisely control which source/destination addresses need to use which specific links.
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@klaus said in Coax to Ethernet?:
Is there hardware that can do some form of intelligent routing in that situation?
Max download speed will still be limited by the max single-line speed. But loading a website, for instance, could be sped up by loading its components via different lines.
When having a dedicated server in the cloud that would receive and then split data streams, one could, provided a suitable software exists, even combine the max speeds.
Yes, that's done in software. Call it some combination of "load balancing" and "link aggregation." Hardware alone cannot do this because you need a lot of 'context' information to do this right. Cannot speak to cheap, 'consumer grade' routers, but most business/enterprise class routers that explicitly support dual-WAN (or even more generally 'multi-WAN') should have this capability.
The underlying protocols actually lend themselves quite nicely for various components of a webpage to load through different paths on the Internet. Unless you deliberately restrict the path by using, say, a VPN or a security tunnel, loading different components through different paths (when multiple paths exist) is often the default, expected behavior.
Depends on the router/software, there are typically various parameters you can set to influence how traffic got "divided up" into two (or more) Internet connections. E.g., you can say "10% for this link and 90% for that other link", you can say "always use this link as primary and the other as backup for when the primary fails", or allow the underlying protocols to dynamically figure out which is the "best link" to use for any given source/destination at any given time. For the power users and network security professionals, you can even hand-tweak the routing tables to very precisely control which source/destination addresses need to use which specific links.
@axtremus said in Coax to Ethernet?:
Unless you deliberately restrict the path by using, say, a VPN or a security tunnel, loading different components through different paths (when multiple paths exist) is often the default, expected behavior.
Another win for stateless protocols such as IP and HTTP!
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Update, so I guess the wireless card on my previous desktop was just older. The new desktop has a Killer WiFi 6 AX1650i card which gives me around ~900 MBPS download speed.
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Another question. I have quite slow internet - about 3-5 Mbps download and about 1.5 Mbps upload. DTAC is offering a "hotspot" where you get the internet from a cell phone tower. Speeds are supposed to be maybe 15-20 Mbps.
The hotspot box is about the size of playing card deck. I borrowed one from somebody and to get the best signal, the hotspot has to be placed in a certain location in my place. However, that means that other locations get a very week or random signal.
So, my question is this:
How to extend the range from the hotspot? The hotspot box has no external connections (other than the power port connection). Someone mentioned that you could set a router to work backwards - using it as a "bridge".
Any thoughts from the technical "gurus" here? Thanks!
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Another question. I have quite slow internet - about 3-5 Mbps download and about 1.5 Mbps upload. DTAC is offering a "hotspot" where you get the internet from a cell phone tower. Speeds are supposed to be maybe 15-20 Mbps.
The hotspot box is about the size of playing card deck. I borrowed one from somebody and to get the best signal, the hotspot has to be placed in a certain location in my place. However, that means that other locations get a very week or random signal.
So, my question is this:
How to extend the range from the hotspot? The hotspot box has no external connections (other than the power port connection). Someone mentioned that you could set a router to work backwards - using it as a "bridge".
Any thoughts from the technical "gurus" here? Thanks!
@taiwan_girl many companies make "range extenders" that connect to your wifi router. I have one installed in our condo because, with the metal studs in the walls, signal can deteriorate.
Is your hotspot box also a router, or do you have to plug in. If the latter, investing in a router might help.
I don't know if any of these will work with your "hotspot box", but I have one linked to my T-Mobile internet modem which uses 5G for connectivity. Works pretty well.
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@89th So, I saw MoCa adapters on sale the other day. Got them and put my nest wifi points on the opposite sides of the house.
It's pretty sweet. Pretty much full bandwidth on each side of the house. Next to no practical benefit
@xenon said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@89th So, I saw MoCa adapters on sale the other day. Got them and put my nest wifi points on the opposite sides of the house.
It's pretty sweet. Pretty much full bandwidth on each side of the house. Next to no practical benefit
Awesome! Now how's the connectivity on that sweet patio?
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Another question. I have quite slow internet - about 3-5 Mbps download and about 1.5 Mbps upload. DTAC is offering a "hotspot" where you get the internet from a cell phone tower. Speeds are supposed to be maybe 15-20 Mbps.
The hotspot box is about the size of playing card deck. I borrowed one from somebody and to get the best signal, the hotspot has to be placed in a certain location in my place. However, that means that other locations get a very week or random signal.
So, my question is this:
How to extend the range from the hotspot? The hotspot box has no external connections (other than the power port connection). Someone mentioned that you could set a router to work backwards - using it as a "bridge".
Any thoughts from the technical "gurus" here? Thanks!
@taiwan_girl do you know if the hotspot device supports any of the following "Wi-Fi 6," "802.11ax," or "802.11ac" or "WDS"? (Check the box or any documentation that comes with the hotspot device, or post the exact brand/model of the hotspot device and I can try to look it up.)
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@xenon said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@89th So, I saw MoCa adapters on sale the other day. Got them and put my nest wifi points on the opposite sides of the house.
It's pretty sweet. Pretty much full bandwidth on each side of the house. Next to no practical benefit
Awesome! Now how's the connectivity on that sweet patio?
@89th said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@xenon said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@89th So, I saw MoCa adapters on sale the other day. Got them and put my nest wifi points on the opposite sides of the house.
It's pretty sweet. Pretty much full bandwidth on each side of the house. Next to no practical benefit
Awesome! Now how's the connectivity on that sweet patio?
I will say - after years of trying different wifi router brands, the google ones have proven to be HIGHLY reliable. (they may not be the fastest)
Resetting your wifi every couple of weeks seemed like a normal thing. I've had Google wifi for a few years now and I can't remember the last time I had to restart my wifi.
Maybe all devices have gotten better and I just happened to have the google ones while that happened. Still - highly recommend.
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@89th said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@xenon said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@89th So, I saw MoCa adapters on sale the other day. Got them and put my nest wifi points on the opposite sides of the house.
It's pretty sweet. Pretty much full bandwidth on each side of the house. Next to no practical benefit
Awesome! Now how's the connectivity on that sweet patio?
I will say - after years of trying different wifi router brands, the google ones have proven to be HIGHLY reliable. (they may not be the fastest)
Resetting your wifi every couple of weeks seemed like a normal thing. I've had Google wifi for a few years now and I can't remember the last time I had to restart my wifi.
Maybe all devices have gotten better and I just happened to have the google ones while that happened. Still - highly recommend.
@xenon said in Coax to Ethernet?:
... I've had Google wifi for a few years now and I can't remember the last time I had to restart my wifi.
I am guessing Google remotely manages your firmware update, and they probably update your firmware multiple times a year and "restart" for you after each update without you noticing.
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@89th said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@xenon said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@89th So, I saw MoCa adapters on sale the other day. Got them and put my nest wifi points on the opposite sides of the house.
It's pretty sweet. Pretty much full bandwidth on each side of the house. Next to no practical benefit
Awesome! Now how's the connectivity on that sweet patio?
I will say - after years of trying different wifi router brands, the google ones have proven to be HIGHLY reliable. (they may not be the fastest)
Resetting your wifi every couple of weeks seemed like a normal thing. I've had Google wifi for a few years now and I can't remember the last time I had to restart my wifi.
Maybe all devices have gotten better and I just happened to have the google ones while that happened. Still - highly recommend.
@xenon cool, I may look into the nest pro mesh set up… First, need to baseline where my current router is limited inside (and outside somewhat) if the house to see if it’s needed. I tried an extender last year for the garage/driveway but didn’t like how it changed the SSID and was stubborn to change back to the faster main router.
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@taiwan_girl said in Coax to Ethernet?:
From my understanding, the hotspot box is just that. There is a "port" for the power cord, but no other ports.
So it sounds like a range extender might be what you need, rather than a router.
(though a router can function as one).
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@xenon well I installed the Nest Pro. Short story is it was really easy to set up, but will be returning it.
Overall speeds in various rooms didn’t change much, most rooms were already plenty fast. Mainly I wanted a few slower spots to speed up, which they sort of did, but the trade-off is other faster rooms actually got a bit slower… ultimately not worth the extra hardware (aka moving parts).
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Jeff Bezos' philosophy is said to be 'not customer focused, but customer obsessed'. Every time I deal with a return through Amazon, I recall that. They bend over so far backwards to make it easy. And it matters a lot to how convenient it is to buy through them.
I guess they refuse to sell products that get returned a lot. Most cheaper and less reliable products I buy have an insert begging the buyer to contact them directly first if there are issues, rather than return to Amazon. I don't think they want to risk the wrath of Amazon. And they try harder to help you, too, with the ever-present risk of the Amazon return as an option.
Also the easy-open tape they use on their boxes consistently reminds me that they really want your experience to be a pleasant one.
Education is extremely important.
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@xenon well I installed the Nest Pro. Short story is it was really easy to set up, but will be returning it.
Overall speeds in various rooms didn’t change much, most rooms were already plenty fast. Mainly I wanted a few slower spots to speed up, which they sort of did, but the trade-off is other faster rooms actually got a bit slower… ultimately not worth the extra hardware (aka moving parts).
@89th said in Coax to Ethernet?:
@xenon well I installed the Nest Pro. Short story is it was really easy to set up, but will be returning it.
Overall speeds in various rooms didn’t change much, most rooms were already plenty fast. Mainly I wanted a few slower spots to speed up, which they sort of did, but the trade-off is other faster rooms actually got a bit slower… ultimately not worth the extra hardware (aka moving parts).
Makes sense - in terms of performance, they're not the best. The price is only really justified if you value the administration features and ease of use.
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Jeff Bezos' philosophy is said to be 'not customer focused, but customer obsessed'. Every time I deal with a return through Amazon, I recall that. They bend over so far backwards to make it easy. And it matters a lot to how convenient it is to buy through them.
I guess they refuse to sell products that get returned a lot. Most cheaper and less reliable products I buy have an insert begging the buyer to contact them directly first if there are issues, rather than return to Amazon. I don't think they want to risk the wrath of Amazon. And they try harder to help you, too, with the ever-present risk of the Amazon return as an option.
Also the easy-open tape they use on their boxes consistently reminds me that they really want your experience to be a pleasant one.
@Horace said in Coax to Ethernet?:
Jeff Bezos' philosophy is said to be 'not customer focused, but customer obsessed'. Every time I deal with a return through Amazon, I recall that. They bend over so far backwards to make it easy. And it matters a lot to how convenient it is to buy through them.
I guess they refuse to sell products that get returned a lot. Most cheaper and less reliable products I buy have an insert begging the buyer to contact them directly first if there are issues, rather than return to Amazon. I don't think they want to risk the wrath of Amazon. And they try harder to help you, too, with the ever-present risk of the Amazon return as an option.
Also the easy-open tape they use on their boxes consistently reminds me that they really want your experience to be a pleasant one.
Indeed, this WiFi thing came in one of those plastic packages that you can re-use for returns (which is what I'm doing).
