Which is faster?

[TheShinyMac]

I am in a networking problem. I need to connect my xbox 360 and macbook pro to the internet via ethernet.

Solution A. Buy a powerline adapter.

Solution B. Have my neighbor snake some "cable" and create a new cable jack in my room so I can use a modem and router.

Solution C. Long almost 70 ft ethernet cable from the router i have now to my room, not snaking it.

Any input is nice!

 

[yg17]

B and C are the same assuming the same type of cable (ideally Cat 6) is used.

I can't say for sure about A, I've never used a powerline adapter. The preferred way would be B.

You have to also keep in mind that A, B and C and WiFi are probably all faster than the speed you get from your ISP. If you get 10mbps from your ISP and have a 100mbps link from your MacBook to the router, you're still going to get 10mbps on the internet.

 

[dmr727]

B and C are the same assuming the same type of cable (ideally Cat 6) is used.

I'd think in the case of B he's talking about coax, since he mentions attaching a modem to it. Isn't there more signal loss with a given length of coax than with ethernet cable? Maybe C, while not as clean a solution, would be fastest?

I dunno - you guys are much bigger geeks than me!

 

[TheShinyMac]

B and C are the same assuming the same type of cable (ideally Cat 6) is used.


You have to also keep in mind that A, B and C and WiFi are probably all faster than the speed you get from your ISP. If you get 10mbps from your ISP and have a 100mbps link from your MacBook to the router, you're still going to get 10mbps on the internet.

I understand that, but I would like the lowest latency and ping times. I think B is looking more likely

 

[Rodimus Prime]

B and C are the same assuming the same type of cable (ideally Cat 6) is used.

I can't say for sure about A, I've never used a powerline adapter. The preferred way would be B.

You have to also keep in mind that A, B and C and WiFi are probably all faster than the speed you get from your ISP. If you get 10mbps from your ISP and have a 100mbps link from your MacBook to the router, you're still going to get 10mbps on the internet.

all of them should max out the ISP. Biggest issue will be ping times. I want to say option A has the highest ping time.
B and C would have the same ping. Wireless is generally has a slightly higher ping than wired.

 

[lewis82]

One thing you have to take into account if you choose to extend a coax cable is that each joint or splitter in the cable reduces the quality of the signal and thus the speed, and even availability of the connection.

I used to have internet which frequently disconnected for no reason. I tought it was the router, but it wasn't. The cable inside the house was made of two lengts of coax cable connected together. Once the ISP's tech replaced it with a new cable, the problem stopped.

 

[TheShinyMac]

One thing you have to take into account if you choose to extend a coax cable is that each joint or splitter in the cable reduces the quality of the signal and thus the speed, and even availability of the connection.

I used to have internet which frequently disconnected for no reason. I tought it was the router, but it wasn't. The cable inside the house was made of two lengts of coax cable connected together. Once the ISP's tech replaced it with a new cable, the problem stopped.

How can I check for that?

 

[lewis82]

There really isn't any way you can do it yourself apart form tearing the walls apart. However the technicians from your ISP have machines that can check the signal level.

 

[yg17]

I'd think in the case of B he's talking about coax, since he mentions attaching a modem to it. Isn't there more signal loss with a given length of coax than with ethernet cable? Maybe C, while not as clean a solution, would be fastest?

I dunno - you guys are much bigger geeks than me!

Ah, my bad.

Use the least amount of coax possible - get the modem as close to where the coax comes into your house from the cable company. The less it's on coax, the better, because the coax cable in your house may be old or in the case of my parents' house before they got AT&T U-Verse and had the coax situation cleaned up, a jumbled mess of extensions and splitters and god knows what else thanks to Charter's incompetence.

Keep the modem in the basement near the coax entry point, and then run Cat 6 ethernet cable from the modem up to your room for the router.

BTW, I'm not saying you shouldn't have any splitters - if you have cable TV, you'll need some, but your cable modem shouldn't have to go through more than one splitter. The cable should come into the house, hit one splitter, and one branch of the splitter goes off to the modem and the other branch goes to the TVs (and possibly more splitters, depending on number of TVs). I've found that the TV signals tend to be more resilient to splitters than the internet signals.