My Network

Out of interest this was my experimental network at home some time ago. It changes weekly and probably today looks nothing like it, especially as I have upgraded to Hub2 and I am on WPA-PSK now, but it may inspire some readers to try unusual combinations.


The new Dell Inspiron 1520 is my main home office machine and runs Vista Home Premium.

My old IBM T22 with Windows XP Home is used as a music server to the lounge Hi-Fi system and also to view family pictures on the TV. It is good enough to stream BBC iPlayer "last 7 days" TV on Internet Explorer 7, with screen on 800x600 res.
The T22 also has Ubuntu 8 (Hardy Heron) for experimental purposes.


Both machines will connect to any of the BT Home Hubs by Wireless, using WEP encryption with MAC address filtering, and when running Windows or Linux.

The Hubs

One slave Home Hub (version 1) Speedtouch 7G firmware version 6.1.6.9. It is set to WEP to allow wireless slaving to the lounge hub. The study hub is also a charge point for a second hub phone which is registered to the Lounge's master home hub. DHCP and Firewall are both disabled and it has a fixed IP of 192.168.1.175.


The slave Home Hub in the loft (Version 1) is running Speedtouch 7G firmware version 6.1.6.9 (just for a lark) and is connected to the study slave Home Hub by a 10metre Ethernet Cable fed through the study ceiling into the loft, and is up there to give coverage in the garden for the Dell. DHCP and Firewall are both disabled and it has a fixed IP of 192.168.1.176.

The Master hub in the lounge is connected to BT and runs always the latest firmware (unless BT screws it up again). It connects to the study hub by WDS and WEP. I would have preferred WPA-PSK for better security. However needs must, and the hub to hub wireless allows more reliable wifi speeds, and that needs WEP. I have recently added MAC address filtering (see How-to's in the Hub index page).
Also Linux is easier to setup on Cat5 and then by wifi in the network itself, rather than trying to get some Linux distros to work reliably with wireless.

The phone socket of the laptop is connected to the hi-fi amplifier, and the TV has a SVGA socket which is fed by the laptop's output. I can use the laptop screen for setups whilst the family is watching something else.

Now that both slaves are running SpeedTouch firmware, the only hub that allocates 192.168.1.253 to the USB-A port is the master in the lounge. That means I can have a 2.5" hard disk in a USB enclosure attached to the Home Hub's USB-A socket as a shared always-on (albeit rather low) network drive.

It is mapped to \\192.168.1.253\bt_7g in windows explorer.


For more info about connecting several home hubs see repeater and multi hubs pages

The effect of having a hub in the roof space on the signal at 25 metres down the garden can be seen in the pic below. All three hubs circled are approximately 25 metres away. Speedtouch-lofty is in the roof space, whereas lounge-lizard is in the lounge, and study-desk is in the spare bedroom at the far end of the (small) house.

Uses Dell's Wi-Fi Catcher (tm) - Click on the image to enlarge.