distance between cable socket and modem
Nima Rezai
I want to install a cable modem but I dont want to have the modem in
close proximity of my TV.
So I guess I need a long coaxial cable to maximize the distance between
the socket in my wall and the modem, to which I want to connect my
router as an access point for 2-3 PCs.
Will I have losses on bandwidth if I take a cable of 10m?
I dont want to use any "bridge solution" such as WLAN due to its
inherent instability.
Best regards
Nima
Todd H.
In general, you're far better off making that run with ethernet cable
verus co-ax. Leave the modem near the jack where teh installer tested
and verified signal levels and cabled it with a cable they made from
the proper grade of co-ax.
From there, run any ole standard ethernet cable to wherever you'd like
to place your router.
You might get away with adding 10m of off the shelf cable to your
modem drop, then again you might put yourself on the ragged edge of
upstream gain, cause a lot of packet loss and generally make your life
hell. Make the run in ethernet, and you're far less likely to have
trouble.
Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/
Todd H.
> 10 meters of coax OR ethernet won't affect your speed at all.
10 meters of ethernet isn't going to trouble anyone, it's true in
almost all cases.
However, I'm afraid this is simply not true for all cases with co-ax.
You can degrade the cable modem upstream path in a hurry with the
wrong grade of cable, poor connectors or both in addition to the loss
on 30 additional feet of marginal co-ax cable. Or in my case given
the length of my outdoor drop, another 30 feet would make things
simply not work here.
Todd H.
> Anyone _can_ have a bad experience, of course, but I think you're being
> unduly pessimistic. The first problem with your suggestion of putting
> the cablemodem at the wall-socket is that whilst seated at the computer
> you then can't see the indicator lights -- which are, after all, put on
> the device for a reason. In a perfect world, the cablemodem wouldn't
> have those lights but ...
>
> I live on the fourth floor of a seven-storey building. The cable service
> comes from under the street into the basement and is then distributed
> throughout the building. In my living room is the jack -- 'where the
> installer tested and verified signal levels' ??? HA! You must be
> joking.
Not joking. I have 4 installs of experience since starting with cable
modem in 98. All 4 times, the installer verified signal/noise
downstream signal strength and upstream required gain at the inside
jack where the modem was to be installed. These numbers can vary by
3-9 dB just inside one home, and bad cable or connectors can create
issues that aren't directly measurable as well.
And half of those, I've been lucky enough to have issues with drop
length and signal quality with two separate cable modem providers,
company owned new modems in two of 4 separate single-family residences
in suburban Chicagoland.
No doubt indicator lights are a nice to have, and if you can get your
modem near your computer, great. If you want to run cable once and be
confident it's quite unlikely to change things, you run ethernet. If
the install happens to be on the edge of a good signal one tends to
care a lot more about 15% packet loss than seeing winky blinks. If
the net goes down, a walk over to the TV is generally what you have to
do anyway to compare modem carrier to what if anything has changed
with the catv signal. :-)
> In any event, I have a five-metre cable running from the jack to the
> first television (and the first splitter), then another five-metre
> coax to the second television (and splitter) and finally a third
> five-metre coax to the cablemodem, on the shelf above my primary
> computer and next to the router.
>
> Everything works fine!
Count yourself rather lucky that you put your signal through 2
conventional (non-directional coupler) splitters with things still
working without a hitch. You must have excellent signal in your
building.
My point is simply that adding 30 feet of unspecified quality co-ax
cable with possibly consumer-installed terminators to a cable modem
run is not nearly as foolproof as plugging in a 30 foot ethernet
cable.