Networking and structured cabling - carry 2 routes?

[RemarkLima]

Hi all,

I have a friend who has the following setup:

Pstn 1 terminate upstairs, with FTTC, a draytek router.

Pstn 2 terminates downstairs, with Sky FTTC and the sky router.

The house has structured cabling, and I've been able to use the draytek as the primary router, with the sky router on the draytek's WAN interface and setup load balancing. Their at the end of the FTTC loop and hence slower than ideal speeds.

The problem is that there's only one ethernet link to the sky router downstairs. There's a pc and printer downstairs which I'd like to get on the draytek network. So if there were 2 ethernet cables, I could use one for the WAN connection and the other for the kit to attach to the draytek LAN.

Is there a device which can split the single ethernet into two? My other thought is to either try and hook everything up with the draytek WiFi (signal may be a bit of an issue) or get some powerline adaptors? Any thoughts appreciated!

[xeny]

The "right" answer you're looking for is a VLAN capable switch, of which you'd need two. That let's you run multiple segregated networks down a single wire (called a VLAN trunk). The cheapest I could easily find were https://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Link-DGS-1100-05V2-Giga...

The not best practice option that comes to mind though is that if the two networks are on different subnets, and you can juggle things so only one of them is DHCP''d and the other uses statically assigned addresses, then you can run them both over the same wire as is, and neither one will "see" the other.

edit:the 8 port is cheaper than the 5 port.

Edited by xeny on Saturday 21st August 06:43

[RemarkLima]

So each end would need a VLAN switch to work, that'd make sense. But may need some work where the structured cabling terminated.

I'd like to get everything on one networks so that everyone can use the printer and scanner, rather than that being on it's own network.

I was hopeful there was a 2 port VLAN plug N play device as ideally it's a home network so would rather not have to support everything if it does go wrong! ;-)

[Captain_Morgan]

If gigabit speeds are needed then vlan switches are the only way to avoid running another drop, if 100Mb will suffice then you can use a pair of splitters.

https://linuxhint.com/ethernet-splitters-speed/

[eliot]

yep vlan capable switch at either end is what you need.

[xeny]

Nothing to stop you running the LAN that the upstairs network devices live on back downstairs though as far as I can see? Just plug it into the upstairs switch, pick a VLAN ID, trunk it downstairs, put a couple of ports in that VLAN and plug them into that

I can see the support concern, you'd certainly want well labelled/documented ports.

[RemarkLima]

The support is why I'm thinking of maybe doing the WAN side of the network over some powerline adaptors... Saying that, the draytek support VLANs, but not sure if it does on the WAN interface... Thanksgiving for the tips and as there is a 16 port switch upstairs, it may be just as easy to swap that out.

Thanks all for the tips!

[NorthDave]

Could you not do it with Unifi and wireless uplinks? If you put in an AP Pro with two ethernet connections I think you could wirelesssly link to upstairs and then use the LAN connection to liven up a small 8 port switch. This switch could then be for the devices (or plug the printer in directly and use a wireless card for the PC which might give it more throughput). I'd, personally, rather have the WAN hardwired.

It would need some research to confirm the above works.

Edit - in fact can you not just wifi for the PC and the printer? Problem is then solved!

Edited by NorthDave on Sunday 22 August 15:28

[quinny100]

I'd just run the Sky router up to the Draytek on a Powerline adaptor. If it's a slow FTTC connection even low end Powerline will be fine, although I'd recommend the TP Link AV600 units - the 600Mbps is pipedream but they'll do 150Mbps easily and they're only £25 a pair. I use a pair to my home office work PC and they're way more stable and consistent than WiFi - and I've got Cambium enterprise grade WiFi at home.

[RemarkLima]

NorthDave said:

Could you not do it with Unifi and wireless uplinks? If you put in an AP Pro with two ethernet connections I think you could wirelesssly link to upstairs and then use the LAN connection to liven up a small 8 port switch. This switch could then be for the devices (or plug the printer in directly and use a wireless card for the PC which might give it more throughput). I'd, personally, rather have the WAN hardwired.

It would need some research to confirm the above works.

Edit - in fact can you not just wifi for the PC and the printer? Problem is then solved!

Edited by NorthDave on Sunday 22 August 15:28

I think the wifi signal isn't the greatest to downstairs, but I'll check. Otherwise it's a repeater somewhere which isn't ideal either... At least, it'll be best to keep everything hardwired, but my thinking is the WAN side would only ever manage 40mb/s so doesn't need to be as quick as the LAN.

[Captain_Morgan]

RemarkLima said:

I think the wifi signal isn't the greatest to downstairs, but I'll check. Otherwise it's a repeater somewhere which isn't ideal either... At least, it'll be best to keep everything hardwired, but my thinking is the WAN side would only ever manage 40mb/s so doesn't need to be as quick as the LAN.

If the wan is only 40mb, what are they doing with the pc / printer that requires above 100mb?

Seems to me the Ethernet splitter I suggested a number of post back is the simplest solution...

If it’s a question of the robustness of the solution and / or the printer / pc requires a gig connection, then a pair of cheap managed switches to create a vlan for the wan traffic is more robust than powerlines.

Edited by Captain_Morgan on Monday 23 August 04:51

[maffski]

If you want to permanently move the PC to the draytek lan you could just use a pair of splitters:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TWIN-Network-Splitter-Fem...

No POE support and max speed is 100m/bit, but other than that they just give you two ethernet connections where there was one.