Network Layout for 25-person house

[Concordium]

Hey there. I've been appointed to make sure the internet works on some 20-odd computers in my household. The other day, at least 10 of my housemates reported total loss of connection. After some investigation, I've discovered some interesting things about our network:

1) Our cable modem is connected to a router on the first floor.
2) An ethernet cable runs from this first floor router to the WAN port of a different router on the 2nd floor, which people on that floor connect to.
3) Another ethernet cable runs from this 2nd floor router to the WAN port of the 3rd floor router, which, you guessed it, is used by people up there.

All these gateways seem to be really slowing the network down, and may even be limiting the number of people that can connect; at least, that's my theory.

Would it better for me to make sure there was only a switch between every router and the modem, instead of yet another router? If not, what would be the ideal network setup for my household? Any and all suggestions are appreciated!

[matt261102]

Using switches will result in reducing the number of networks to 1, meaning all devices will share the same gateway. Just remember that Microsoft recommends any network of over 10 PC's should be server/client instead of peer/peer.

[johnwill]

Well, since this is strictly for sharing the Internet from a common source, I can't see worrying about a server for this network.

As long as you don't have more than three total switches daisy-chained, you shouldn't see any measurable slowdown. Remember that the router has a switch on the LAN side, so your description of two more switches in the chain would be fine.

I'd lose the rouer on the second floor and do this all with switches. If you need the wireless capability of the other routers, connect them as follows, this will simplify the network a bunch.


Connecting two (or more) SOHO broadband routers together.

Note: The "primary" router can be an actual router, a software gateway like Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing, or a server connection that has the capability to supply more than one IP address using DHCP server capability. No changes are made to the primary "router" configuration.

Configure the IP address of the secondary router(s) to be in the same subnet as the primary router, but out of the range of the DHCP server in the primary router. For instance DHCP server addresses 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.100, I'd assign the secondary router 192.168.0.254 as it's IP address, 192.168.0.253 for another router, etc.

Note: Do this first, as you will have to reboot the computer to connect to the router again for the remaining changes.

Disable the DHCP server in the secondary router.

Setup the wireless section just the way you would if it was the primary router, channels, encryption, etc.

Connect from the primary router's LAN port to one of the LAN ports on the secondary router. If there is no uplink port and neither of the routers have auto-sensing ports, use a cross-over cable. Leave the WAN port unconnected!

This procedure bypasses the routing function (NAT layer) and configures the router as a switch (or wireless access point for wireless routers).

For reference, here's a link to a Typical example config using a Netgear router