Tutor
•
8 Messages
New Home, new AT&T customer, and need advice on internet/TV setup
Hi - My education is lacking in the networking equipment and networking knowledge realm. In addition, I'm also new to Uverse. The past 2 days I've been feverishly reading the internet on the best way to setup a router behind the 2WIRE wireless RG. However, I'm not confident I understand which solution is the best for me or how to connect it up. I've attached a PDF of my current equipment and potential layout.
As an overview:
Downstairs Family Room: 2WIRE RG, non-DVR STB, and a TV.
Upstairs Bedroom Closet: Th hub (where I believe the fiber is terminated) with all of the ethernet cables.
Upstairs Media Room: DVR, Tv, Xbox one
Downstairs Study: PC
Wireless: 2 laptops and 2 tablets.
Almost all of the rooms in my house I had ethernet cables installed, but I don't intend to hook them all up. Before I started reading about the AT&T equipment I purchased a Netgear GS105 Prosafe 5 port switch.
What I'm after is performance - both for TV and Internet. I'm not sure if I need to do the VLAN (i.e. return my GS105 and get one or two of the GS108T models) or if I can physically separate the TV and internet paths using two GS105's. I feel I'm going to need to do the VLAN. I prefer to have my TV's connected via wired ethernet, but does this mean I need a switch in each room?
Hhopefully I can get some feedback on the RG and switch placement. I appreciate any help.
BeanyMan
Tutor
•
8 Messages
10 years ago
That might be true, but I'd prewire wired ethernet for netflix in which case I would need the switch I believe. Both TV's support a wifi dongle, but the one samsung dongle I had broke about a year ago.
0
0
browndk26
ACE - Professor
•
5.8K Messages
10 years ago
I think that would work. If you were accessing netflx through another device you wouldn't be getting any TV data going through the switch and overloading the switch. Similar to what I did when our STB was connected by coax. I connected an apple TV to the ethernet port on the STB and it acted like a switch.
0
0
BeanyMan
Tutor
•
8 Messages
10 years ago
Sorry I meant to say there that "but I'd prefer wired ethernet for netflix...." I only have one ethernet jack in each room.
0
0
JefferMC
ACE - Expert
•
35.1K Messages
10 years ago
The reason is that most consumer grade wireless equipment gets all flumoxed when it sees the multicast traffic: (1) They don't support IGMP v3, so they can't partipate in the conversations between the STBs, the RG and the VRAD when they set up the multicast IPTV streams, so (2) They just treat the multicast traffic as broadcast traffic. And since there's no way to handle error retry, they slow the wireless data rate waaaaay down to make sure that it all gets received. So it brings your whole network to a crawl anytime an STB that's on the same LAN segment from the RG gets turned on and starts watching a channel.
Using the VLAN to keep the wireless router on a different virtual LAN from the STB avoids this issue, because the IPTV multicast traffic won't ever go out an RG port where there is no STB requesting it.
If you don't understand what multicast IP traffic is, and how it's used in U-verse IPTV, I'll cover that in a later post. Just ask.
0
0
BeanyMan
Tutor
•
8 Messages
10 years ago
Thanks, JefferMC. Yes, I would like a further explaination if you don't mind (you can send a PM if you want).
Also - would I gain or lose anything if I removed the switch upstairs in the closet and just used the extra ethernet ports on the RG to go to the other rooms?
0
0
JefferMC
ACE - Expert
•
35.1K Messages
10 years ago
Nope. As long as you have enough ports on the RG.
U-verse (which is an implementation of Mediaroom, built by Microsoft but recently sold to Ericsson) primarily uses multicast distribution. AT&T sends out from a single national VHO a multicast stream for each channel. Each channel has a unique IP address to which that data is sent (as opposed to a normal unique host address in standard, unicast, addressing). At the local VHO (apparently one for each TMA), the local channels, regional sports feeds, etc. are sent alongside the national VHO traffic out to the COs. The COs then forward them out to the VRAD, and from there they can get to your home.
Which you first tune to a channel, the receiver immediately asks for and gets a unicast (i.e. only to its unique address) stream of channel data and that's what is used to start showing the picture. Basically at the same time, IGMPv3 negotiation begins where the receiver tells the RG that needs to subscribe to the multicast address for that channel. That gets relayed up the line to the VRAD or CO, which causes that multicast stream to be sent into your home. The RG only sends the multicast traffic to the port(s) that requested. Once the receiver gets the mulitcast stream, it matches up the packet numbers its been using on the unicast stream and shifts over to the multicast stream for display. The unicast stream ends after about 10 seconds.
Once you tune away from the channel, another IGMPv3 conversation gets the multicast feed turned off for that multicast address.
Note that mulitple receivers in your home can all read the same multicast stream at the same time. This is exploited by the DVR such that it can buffer what is being watched on an STB, allowing for Whole Home DVR features on live TV at any STB, but also allows you to watch the same program on two STBs without requiring two of your limited streams.
0