Internet Upgrade Day!

It may not look like much to_you_ but this is the start of a new internet line being added directly to my office. I’m going to be able to plug my Mac mini directly into my new gig. Internet.

My wife just said it was basically Christmas in July for me. She’s not wrong.

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Ha! Drilling holes in a wall is the easy part. The adeptness one has to pull the cable to the router through the drywall up over the ceiling or down under the crawl space defines the difference between a pro and a hack. :construction:


JJW

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Man, I’m jealous! There are no accessible Ethernet ports in my house (excluding the one that my router plugs into). :cry:

I am doing my best to stay out of his way, but so far he seems adept and knowledgeable.

Stay tuned for updates to this initial impression and time passes!

Can you send him to my location when he is done? I have an equal need (in about a month or so, so we have time to plan the travel).


JJW

No doubt! Fishing wires of any kind can be an exercise in madness (and it could help you brush up on your cursing, if you’re so inclined :stuck_out_tongue: ).

Have you tried Ethernet over power?

I had this setup a few years ago (before I sold my house) and it worked great for me.

No affiliation other than I used a Netgear one…

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear-powerline-ac1000-wi-fi-access-point-and-adapter-white/4760605.p?skuId=4760605

A few years ago my wife and daughter were out of town for a couple days, and I used the opportunity to run Ethernet to my home office and to two televisions. I got it all done, except I didn’t have time to trim and properly mount everything at the router end before they returned, resulting in a rat’s nest of cables there, haphazardly plugged into my network switch.

My Internet was unreliable for a while, but the problems went away when I took the time to trim and seat all the cables. My wholly unscientific suspicion is that the tangle of wires, which was close to my Xfinity modem, was creating interference. I remember researching the issue, and coming across articles talking about how to make sure one cable crosses another at a 90 degree angle, and some other tips.

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No, I haven’t. Is it complicated?

Spectrum’s “Gig” service is actually 920 Mbps (yeah, I know, but it is what it is) and “35 up”

So my Mac mini is getting 916 down and 38 up.

Considering that this was, until recently, getting about 100 down, I think I’m going to be very happy with this.

Here’s what my iPhone 12 Pro Max reports:

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What technology is being used to provide service?
I thought 1G implied FTTH, and would expect symmetrical
ul/dl. Is this some type of DSL??

SUPER-INCREDBLY simple IMHO. :smiley:

Plug one unit into a wall socket.
Attach Ethernet cable from router to it.
Done on one end.

Plug the other unit into a wall socket elsewhere oin the house.
Attach an Ethernet cable to it.
Attach other end of Ethernet to Mac.

At this point you can turn off your WiFi and test it out.
If it’s not autodetecting, which my Macs did with no issue, go into System Preferences > Network and make sure the Ethernet interface is enabled and running.

One caveat: If you have a MacBook, you may need an adapter, e.g., USB-to-Ethernet.

You only get symmetrical with fiber or something like that.

This is still via Spectrum, my cable company.

Sure, I’d love higher uploads, but I’m very happy with this compared to what I’ve had.

p.s. - I have no idea what FTTH is.

Thanks. Sorry, FTTH - Fiber To The Home.

I am lucky to have not 1 but 2 providers
in my neighborhood, and starting to
realize how rare 1 is, never mind 2.

Trust all will go well

Indeed. There is no other service provider here, and they just started offering the 920 down/35 up.

After spending 10+ years stuck on satellite, I’m content with this, and I try not to think about how far behind the US is from most other developed countries when it comes to Internet speeds and prices.

So does that mean it is going to be bear under your tree come Christmas! :slight_smile:

When the heat dies down and my attic is cooler than my furnace I am going to buy a Magnepull and do about a dozen drops of Cat6 cable. We’re on slab here so most of the work is relatively easily done via walk in attic access.

I have Gigabit options here but I’m not a fan of Cox so I’m eyeballing Starlink as load balanced connection since even if I get Cox Gigablast I’m still stuck with a small cap so what’s the point really. Starlink is 99 bucks a month but no cap as of yet so I can drop the extra 50 bucks I’m paying Cox for unlimited and pay for half the Starlink but now have redundancy.

Congratulations.

Nothing beats Gigabit internet over ethernet served directly from the access point in the house. We’re on fiber so the same speed down and up. I have one room with that service – the rest is wifi. You’ll really notice it with really big packages like macOS installers.

I use powerline (as @DEVONtech_Jim mentioned) in a room that does not have good wifi coverage and which would be too expensive to reach by installing regular ethernet. At the powerline adapter at that point I’m getting at best 20% of the Gigabit service that’s delivered to the house. 20% of a gig is still excellent, but there is a lot of loss in putting a signal across a convoluted network of old wiring in an old house.

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I’m trying to envision this in my head, but it’s not working. :smile:

I guess there’s no point in using Ethernet over power if you have gigabit Ethernet.

Like this?

There’s also MOCA, which is Ethernet over coax (your cable TV wiring). I used it for about a decade and it worked well for my needs and I never needed to fuss with it, although I don’t recall the speeds.

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