Browse Forums Home Theatre & Automation 1 Apr 28, 2013 1:09 pm Trying to figure out what other equipment would I need to buy for the house. We have "Star Serve" installed by Intelligent Homes in the garage, all rooms prewired with Cat 6 and have one data point. The question is will all devices on the network be able to "talk" to each other? What we'll have: Home Theatre: 4 devices - Smart TV, Apple TV, Time Capsule and BluRay player. All these have ethernet port, do I just buy 5 port gigabit switch and plug all of them into one data point in theatre room? Other rooms will have TV plugged directly into data point. I want to be able to access Time Capsule on all AppleTVs throughout the house as well as Desktop which will be plugged in directly into data point in the study. Living Area: 2 devices - TV and Apple TV. Another 5 port switch to share one data point, correct? Where do I put wifi router for iPhone and iPad? Do I need to place it in the garage in Star Serve box or can I plug it in one of the 5 port switches to share wifi connection around the house? Any help and advice is appreciated. Thanks P.S. we'll have fibre connection (FTTH) in the house. Re: What else would I need? 2Apr 28, 2013 2:45 pm Hi, You are correct on the use of 5 port switches where you need more than one device. You will need a router located at your central point in the garage. Most routers include a four port switch so you can use this to distribute the Internet to the other locations in your house (as well as being a wireless access point). If the Wi Fi signal isn't strong enough at other locations in your house then you can add access points to the network too - Apple Airport Express units work well and are relatively inexpensive (You can also use a cheap modem router and disable the DHCP & router, but if you aren't too familiar with networking then the Airport Express is much simpler). As you have FTTH your Internet connection will be delivered as an Ethernet service, so you need a router with an Ethernet WAN port, not a modem/router as you would use with ADSL. The Netgear WNDR3700 is one such router, or if you want to stick with Apple then you can use an Airport Exteme. Paul Re: What else would I need? 3Apr 28, 2013 11:41 pm paulw11 Hi, You are correct on the use of 5 port switches where you need more than one device. You will need a router located at your central point in the garage. Most routers include a four port switch so you can use this to distribute the Internet to the other locations in your house (as well as being a wireless access point). If the Wi Fi signal isn't strong enough at other locations in your house then you can add access points to the network too - Apple Airport Express units work well and are relatively inexpensive (You can also use a cheap modem router and disable the DHCP & router, but if you aren't too familiar with networking then the Airport Express is much simpler). As you have FTTH your Internet connection will be delivered as an Ethernet service, so you need a router with an Ethernet WAN port, not a modem/router as you would use with ADSL. The Netgear WNDR3700 is one such router, or if you want to stick with Apple then you can use an Airport Exteme. Paul Thanks for your reply. So if I were to get either Netgear WNDR3800 or WNDR4500, do I have to place it in the garage or can it be placed somewhere in the house connected to one of the data points? Netgear GS605 (5 port Gigabit switches) for connecting TVs and Apple TV's to data point... I looked inside of Star Serve box and all cables (cat 6) seems to be allocated and connected to each room... since router will only have 4 ports on it how will I get other ports connected inside Star Serve box (if you know what I mean)... I have 7 data points inside the house... Re: What else would I need? 4Apr 29, 2013 6:52 am You will need to locate the router in the garage because you only have one data point in each room. The router needs to connect to the Internet connection, which is in your garage. If you want to have an active port in all 7 rooms then you will need an additional switch in the garage that connects to one of the ports on the router, but will you have wired devices at all 7 locations? or will some be ok with WiFi? Re: What else would I need? 5Apr 30, 2013 1:05 pm paulw11 You will need to locate the router in the garage because you only have one data point in each room. The router needs to connect to the Internet connection, which is in your garage. If you want to have an active port in all 7 rooms then you will need an additional switch in the garage that connects to one of the ports on the router, but will you have wired devices at all 7 locations? or will some be ok with WiFi? I wonder if router will fit in Star Serve box??? I have a data point in the study, can i plug in the router in that data point and then desktop into the router? Re: What else would I need? 6Apr 30, 2013 8:10 pm AubinGroveFan I wonder if router will fit in Star Serve box??? I have a data point in the study, can i plug in the router in that data point and then desktop into the router? The difficulty in housing additional equipment, such as switches and routers, is one of the problems with systems like StarServe. You can put the router in the study, but you would then need another data cable back to the Starserve to plug into a switch to distribute the Internet to the other points - the first connection would be taken up to deliver the "raw" Internet connection to the router. If you were happy with 100mb rather than gigabit connection to the study then you can use [url="http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Lindy-UTP-Port-Doubler-2-x-10-100Base-TX-to-1-Port-/330915992971?pt=UK_Computing_Powerline_Networking&hash=item4d0c21558b&_uhb=1#ht_2369wt_982"]port doublers[/url] It isn't the ideal solution but they are ok when there is no other option. Note that you need 2 - one for each end. Re: What else would I need? 7May 01, 2013 11:22 pm It will be interesting to see where we head after starserve ... it has been such an interesting system (within the limitations of technology) but the next gen of this is going to be really cool! 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