Hello, Thinking of Joining Sky....

[Netgeezer]

Ceri

Which router are you using now? I have just switched to Sky but still have my Virgin Media cable line in place on which I am running the Apple Extreme Base Station (AEBS). Sky sent me their router which I am using on their network as I am contractually obliged to. It is one of their new Phase 2 routers which is fairly bulletproof compared to the Phase 1.

Now, like you, I would rather use the AEBS - and so when I finally terminate with Virgin I will simply plug the AEBS into a spare port on the Sky router. That will keep my 1GBPS wired LAN connections and my 802.11n Wireless connectivity on the go. It really does not matter about the additional hop across the Sky router to get to the outside world. The added hop/latency will be insignificant in all but scientific terms.

Don't fuss about the Sky router - use it as the final gateway to the Internet. So long as your existing router has an ethernet WAN port you can jack it straight into one of the Sky router's ports.

[Ceri]

Originally Posted by Netgeezer

Ceri

Which router are you using now? I have just switched to Sky but still have my Virgin Media cable line in place on which I am running the Apple Extreme Base Station (AEBS). Sky sent me their router which I am using on their network as I am contractually obliged to. It is one of their new Phase 2 routers which is fairly bulletproof compared to the Phase 1.

Now, like you, I would rather use the AEBS - and so when I finally terminate with Virgin I will simply plug the AEBS into a spare port on the Sky router. That will keep my 1GBPS wired LAN connections and my 802.11n Wireless connectivity on the go. It really does not matter about the additional hop across the Sky router to get to the outside world. The added hop/latency will be insignificant in all but scientific terms.

Don't fuss about the Sky router - use it as the final gateway to the Internet. So long as your existing router has an ethernet WAN port you can jack it straight into one of the Sky router's ports.

so that's one of the 4 ports on the netgear then?

i'm now thinking of getting one of those poweline adaptors anyway

[Netgeezer]

Originally Posted by Ceri

so that's one of the 4 ports on the netgear then?

Yes it is. See the attached diagram in PDF format for an example of how you could configure it out. Essentially I've left the Sky router to its default LAN address of 192.168.0.n. I've left the AEBS WAN port to auto-configure using its DHCP client, in the same way that it auto-config'd from Virgin. Then I've re-numbered the AEBS's LAN to be 192.168.1.n. All the Mac and PC clients that are using the AEBS as their router are therefore on the 192.168.1.n network.

If you want you could have other hosts on the Sky router's 192.168.0.n LAN segment but be aware that there could be routing issues between the two LANs.

In this config you are ending up with a double-firewall approach, no bad thing. The only other consideration is if you are using port forwarding you will have to set up the ports on both routers.

Alternatively, turn off routing on the AEBS and use it as a simple bridge to the Sky router's LAN so it will share the 192.168.0.n addressing.

Hope this makes sense.

[reddwarfcrew]

Originally Posted by Netgeezer

Alternatively, turn off routing on the AEBS and use it as a simple bridge to the Sky router's LAN so it will share the 192.168.0.n addressing.

Hope this makes sense.

Something I've always wondered....

if you did this, then everything would ultimately be routed thru the sky router... yes? If so then wouldn't it drop the LAN connection to 100Mb instead of gigabit.

To retain full gigabit throughout your network wouldn't youhave to siwtch off the DCHP in the sky router and have the Airport Extreme do it all with teh sky router simply acting as the modem and nothing more?

[Netgeezer]

Originally Posted by reddwarfcrew

Something I've always wondered....

if you did this, then everything would ultimately be routed thru the sky router... yes?

Yes, that is correct. The keyword is "ultimately". The Sky router would be your network's "Gateway of Last Resort" i.e. somewhere to go when your network does not know where else to route the packet.

If so then wouldn't it drop the LAN connection to 100Mb instead of gigabit.

No, not necessarily.
Referring to my diagram in the previous post. If all of your devices were connected to the AEBS ethernet ports then all communication between the devices would be at gigabit speeds. Simply because the packets know where to go, as they are "on-net" to that specific LAN segment.

Now to qualify the "not necessarily"
Let us assume you have a device directly connected to the Sky router segment (192.168.0.n) that you want to communicate with from another device that is on your AEBS LAN segment (192.168.1.n). In this case the packet would leave your 192.168.1.n segment and cross over to the 100Mbps (Sky router) 192.168.0.n segment. As such the effective speed would be a maximum of 100Mbps between the two devices (albeit across the AEBS which would handle the speed translation).

Think about it - this is exactly what is happening when you go out into the Internet itself from your network - gigabit or 100Mbps it does not matter, your effective communication speed out to the Internet is governed by the speed of your WAN port (that which connects you to the ISP). Meanwhile, however, local machine-to-machine speeds are at whatever your LAN operates at.

To retain full gigabit throughout your network wouldn't youhave to siwtch off the DCHP in the sky router and have the Airport Extreme do it all with teh sky router simply acting as the modem and nothing more?

No - see above. To retain full gigabit throughout your network all you need do is ensure that all of your devices are connected to the physical ports on the AEBS. If you need more ports you can hang a simple gigabit ethernet switch off the back of one of the AEBS ports (I do just this using a Netgear GS605 v2 that I picked up from PC World for £20).

My closing comment with regard to setting the AEBS to bridging mode does nothing more than cause the AEBS to act as a simple ethernet switch. It will therefore allow you to create a mixed mode (100BaseT [Sky router] and 1000BaseT [AEBS]) network of two physical segments with a single IP address range - being that of the Sky router.

I tend not to bother about using bridging - opting instead to use the pair of routers cascaded as shown in the diagram.

[Ceri]

WOW! you guys are WAY cleverer than me!

heheheheh

thank you very much for all your help, all i have to do now is wait.....

i've been recommended by a friend so we can both get sky+ boxes.. but its taking AGES for SKY to email me the link.. pah.