Data Distribution

You would think a guy who makes his living writing about networking would have a state-of-the-art, elaborate system for high-speed data distribution throughout his home. As Figure 13 shows, however, my general household distribution system is quite modest.

Figure 13: The Data side

An original version Linksys BEFSR41 router is more than enough a match for the 1.5 Mbps down / 385 kbps up (or thereabouts) DSL service coming from a Sprint-branded Zyxel Prestige 645M DSL modem (not shown). The Linksys serves as my LAN's DHCP server and its four ports are enough for current needs.

The real magic happens in my office lab, where there is plenty more networking stuff that changes weekly. The one nod to my professional needs was the second "data" line that I ran to my office, instead of the single drop that all other rooms have.

I've used this more than once to get a connection from gear under test in my office back to the patch panel where it could be sent where it was needed. And in the rare cases where I temporarily need a third data line, I can just disconnect the phone line from the telco patch panel, the phone from my office jack and be good to go.