Internet Access

[Rupert Breheny]

I've just moved in and haven't gotten our internet access sorted out yet. Can anyone share the setup process? I think each house has to get an electrician to wire the house to the Cablecom junction box. If there are any other residents who haven't done this yet, would you be willing to share an electrician so we can minimize the call out fees? Makes sense to get some economy of scale going.

[Nevena]

Hi Rupert,

First thanks for setting up the group. Nice idea.

We got internet access after more than 10 days talking with Cablecom and hearing 10 different stories why the internet connection doesn't work. Everytime when we called there was another version why there is no internet.
We also talked with the Cablecom department for new buildings and they said the central box is set and it should work.

Now it works only if we plug the modem in one room, while the other 3 connections in the other rooms still don't work. After listening so many stories from Cablecom, I really don't know what is/was the problem.
And for the rest of the rooms it is not clear to us if it is the installation in the apartment or if again Cablecom problem.

I don't think you need to pay electrician for this. Steiner (the electrical company working for Steiner) and Cablecom should fix this.

Did Steiner start to fix the things that were left in any of the apartments? They told us that by the end of March they will fix everything that was left for A - Haus.
Unfortunately we haven't heard from them anything yet.

I hope this helps.
Nevena

[Rupert Breheny]

Thanks for the feedback - glad that people are finding these resources useful.

> Steiner (the electrical company working for Steiner) and Cablecom should fix this.

I've subsequently heard that they were guaranteeing a proper connection for the block for April 1st. Hopefully everyone will be connected now.

> Now it works only if we plug the modem in one room, while the other 3 connections in the other rooms still don't work.

So as I understand it, the rooms aren't connected by default, they all route to the wiring box, probably in your reduit. You would need to get a router unit and 4 shorts lengths of ethernet cable and plug it in there. In the room you have your modem, you should just connect it to the wall ethernet port, and that should be wired to the internet IN port on the router. All fine in principal, but I haven't tried it myself yet.

You could in theory just put the Cablecom modem directly in your junction box, and connect it to each of your ethernet lines there, and then you only need to access the ethernet port in each room. The problem in our flat is that there is no spare coaxial cable output, so I'll have to get a T-splitter or something in one of the outputs.

If this sounds horrifically complicated, I'll probably get someone a bit more tech savvy in from work, and ply them with food and booze in return for setting me up. I'll make enquiries if we can extend that relationship.

[Damjan]

Yep, we already have connected the modem in the living room and then the ethernet port of the modem via the patch panel in the reduit to the router. This works OK

But my ideal solution is like you said to also have the modem in the reduit and in the "verteiler" box. I already tried replacing the current 3-way splitter with a 4-way and attaching the modem to it, did not work. I still have some additional splitters and T-junctions to try out, maybe some combination will work. I suspect that the signal is either too high or too low for the modem when attached directly to the splitter or to a junction. But I think I will manage to get it working.

I'm a sysadmin btw so if you need some help let me know :)

 

Cheers,
Damjan.

[Rupert Breheny]

Well - I just did my Cablecom install through one of the standard wall media sockets, and I have to say it was really easy. I'm getting better speeds that I did at the old place too - see attached.

Now I just have to get a router in the electrical box in the reduit, and I should have ethernet access in all rooms.

[Lennart Meier]

Nice idea, thanks for setting this up.

As to internet: For me, it took 16 days to get DSL from Sunrise working; Sunrise claimed they made the switch on March 18th, the electrician claimed they made the connection in the basement that same day, but no signal. Sunrise then went and successfully measured the presence of the signal at their closest junction box, about 1.5 km away. They then asked Swisscom to verify the cable from that junction box to the building (as that cable is owned by Swisscom). Swisscom did and successfully measured the presence of the signal in Wolframplatz 11 - so the problem had to be with the wiring inside the house. I told the electrician as much, and lo and behold, they fixed it (I was merciful enough not to ask what went wrong in the first place).

On a positive note, the electrician has been very cooperative in fixing all the open items - my general impression is that this whole project is being handled by too few people across all entities involved, which means that any unplanned fixes take longer than you might think.

Ah, final note: The connection of the right cables in the basement was done for free by the electrician. Typically, it would cost you between CHF 100 and 150.

[Rupert Breheny]

Thanks for the info. I think that was the case with Cablecom too - it
took Steiner a while to get the "last mile" wired in. They supposedly
had an agreed delivery date of April 1st, which I believe they met.

I definitely get the sense of too few people on the project - there
are some fairly major mangellist items that are still outstanding from
the original preliminary inspection over two months ago. I'd rather
have moved in later to a properly finished flat.

[Rupert Breheny]

I finally got around to installing our cable modem in the reduit and attempted to use the room to room network cabling. Unfortunately not a single room was working.

Is anyone else in the block using the room to room ethernet already? I'd be interested to know if this is a common issue, or just an isolated incident. In case you want to try this yourselves, I can help out with the correct cabling and adaptors if you are already using a Cablecom modem. I think Lennart also had the same issue, but the Steiner electricians got it fixed. It would probably make sense for us all to get our ethernet checked and have it fixed in one pass.

[Lennart Meier]

Dear all,

If you have the same cabling that I have, then it works like this:

- In the small cabinet (where the fuses are), you will find X Ethernet sockets.
- On the walls of your apartment, you will find X double Ethernet sockets, i.e. a total of 2X Ethernet sockets.
- Each socket in the closet is wired to one of the double sockets as follows:
  . The cable leading from socket to double socket has eight wires.
  . On the closet side, the eight wires connect to the eight contacts of the socket.
  . On the wall side, each of the two sockets is connected to four wires, following a scheme which allows you to connect 100-Mbit Ethernet on one socket and a telephone on the other. You can open the double socket and change the scheme to have 100-Mbit Ethernet on both sockets or 1-Gbit Ethernet on just one of the two.

Need a picture? Look at this (pages 22 and 37):

http://www.homewiring.ch/media/filemanager/Dokumente/RDM_HWS_leicht_gemacht_dt.pdf

To use both Ethernet and phone, you will need a splitting device that plugs into the closet socket and transforms it into two sockets, one for Ethernet and one for phone:

http://www.terrashop.de/Elektronik/Kabel-Splitter-fuer-strukturierte-Verkabelung-Beschaltung-CAT-5-Etherne-EAN-4040849689093/art/07068909WA/

(Careful: These come with two types of wiring: 2xEthernet and Ethernet+phone.)

The other solution is to open the wall mount and rewire all 8 wires onto one of the two sockets - then you have an 8-wire connection to the closet and can run Gbit Ethernet over it. Which is something I'm planning to do but haven't gotten around to - 100 Mbit is typically enough for me.

Happy connections

L.

[Lennart Meier]

Just noticed to my dismay that this

 

The other solution is to open the wall mount and rewire all 8 wires onto one of the two sockets - then you have an 8-wire connection to the closet and can run Gbit Ethernet over it. Which is something I'm planning to do but haven't gotten around to - 100 Mbit is typically enough for me.

will not work unless you're willing to do some soldering on the wall mount. Or buy a different wall mount. :-(

BR, L. 

[Rupert Breheny]

So it sounds like they were never really fit for purpose? I did
request Cat 7 network cable, but my hunch is that never happened. I
actually need to ring them up and have them come in and fix what's
already here. I tried the modem in the reduit and all sorts of cable
that works straight out the router, but nothing comes out any of the
room network ports when I connect them through to those. I hear it
doesn't take them too long to fix this. Right now my wireless backups
are just crawling along!

[Lennart Meier]

On 2014-04-06 17:50, Rupert Breheny wrote:
> So it sounds like they were never really fit for purpose?

Oh no, they are fit for the purpose intended by the planners, i.e.
having a single Ethernet (cat 5 or 5e) cable's 8 wires split onto two
connectors in the wall mount: pins 1,2,3,6 on one for Ethernet and pins
3,4,5,6 for phone on the other. That's why only one of the two
connectors will work for each service. Unfortunately, the connectors are
made such that you can connect the wires of the cable only to precisely
those pins, which is why you cannot simply rewire them to have e.g.
1,2,3,6 on both (to have two 100 Mbit/s connections) or 1-8 on one and
nothing on the other (to have a single 1 Gbit/s connection). You'd have
to exchange the wall mount to do that, with something like this

http://www.brack.ch/feller-ediziodue-steckdose-139370

or this

http://www.brack.ch/feller-ediziodue-steckdose-139369

BR, L.

--
Dr. Lennart Meier +41 76 5292266 (mobile)

[Rupert Breheny]

I'd be content if they just got the ethernet working full stop. Given
it's been broken for the entire year, and I have no intent of ever
getting a landline, I wonder if I can ask them to wire them for the
faster possible ethernet as you describe, when I eventually get them
round here to fix the installation.