Last time I went through the journey of getting my house setup with a full network our dwelling. When I left off, my new dual-band cable modem from Time Warner was sufficiently strong enough for a decent signal to reach from the basement on one end of the house to the second floor on the other. Technically then, I could have stopped right there. But, I have two Wireless N-class routers and another WRT54G. I can’t just let them go to waste!
My first idea centered around sharing my iTunes library to the network, and, more importantly, to have it available to an AppleTV connected to the television. My master iTunes library is hosted on a Mac Mini that uses my 32″ television for a monitor when needed. Most of the time however, it boots at 5PM when I get home form work, shares my library with the house, then shuts itself down at 1AM after I’ve gone to sleep. In the past I’ve tried to watch movies with it directly, and while it works it isn’t the ideal setup.
When my workplace rotated out some of our AppleTVs from deployment, I took one home and connected it to the network. Adding this device made things easier to stream from my library. However, I didn’t like that both the Mac Mini and the AppleTV sat next to the TV, literally one on top of the other, but had to communicate via the wireless router downstairs. It seemed rather inefficient to have it setup like that, and also put two heavy bandwidth-using devices on the network. I could make thing simpler.
Using one of the TP-LINK routers I connected both the Mac Mini and the AppleTV to the former device via ethernet, and disabled both of the latter devices wifi. Now content could be streamed between them, and it never had to leave the router’s internal network. This not only made media sharing quick, but it gave a nice signal boost to anyone sitting on the couch with their iPhone, iPad, or laptop.
The second TP-LINK ended up on the second floor in the master bedroom. This soaked the entire second floor with a strong wireless N signal, boosting the modem in the basement. Now every floor has it’s own wireless router blasting radio waves throughout the house.
As for the WRT54G, currently it isn’t deployed. Actually right now it still sits, unplugged, in my wife’s office in case the wireless card in her computer suddenly fails. It should be fine, but an open box item is still an open box item. I want to give it just a little more time before I proclaim it perfect.
When the day does come I will likely redeploy the Linksys to the garage, and push with wireless signal outside the house for when I am working in the garage or yard. I have an old MacBook that I keep in the garage to look up information when I’m working on one of our cars or something along those lines. So a little signal boost out there couldn’t hurt.
I think now I’m finally happy with the way things stand with the network. I have solid, fast signal throughout the house. More importantly, my wife’s office is set and working as it should be. The question is, can I leave things alone for a little while…