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Using a second cable modem. Is it possible?

Serradifalco

Serradifalco

Senior member
Greetings,

We currently have our cable modem in the study. I will be building an HTPC this month which we will use in the TV room. We will be streaming all of our TV content from the internet. I want the fastest possible connection in the TV room... faster than wireless. I would like to leave the cable modem in the study as it is attached to our main PC. We have several wireless devices in the house. Is it possible to have a second modem without a second static IP address?

Please advise on the second modem, and if not a possible scenario, please offer other alternatives faster than wireless. Thanks.
 
Serradifalco said:
Greetings,

We currently have our cable modem in the study. I will be building an HTPC this month which we will use in the TV room. We will be streaming all of our TV content from the internet.
I want the fastest possible connection in the TV room... faster than wireless. I would like to leave the cable modem in the study as it is attached to our main PC.
Click to expand...
You should use a gigabit (assuming all your PCs support gigabit speeds), router and connect via a Cat6 or Cat5e cable.
 
You may be over-complicating and worrying for nothing. The wireless router you have can do up to 300 Mbs, and I would assume you would put a wireless networking card in the HTPC of similar capability, so you'd have that kind of speed available in the link. However, most cable modems I've seen can only deliver data to your home at speeds of 6 to 10 Mbs, MUCH slower than your in-home network. The limit on your download speed is in the cable service and modem, not in your network. Don't waste time on the fastest possible home network link if you cannot come close to filling up that link's capacity.
 
Yes, you can, but you'll have to coordinate with your cable company and they will charge you extra. I agree that upgrading your LAN is a better idea.

If your wireless isn't cutting it, consider running some Ethernet cables (dead simple and cheap) or getting a set of powerline networking adapters.
 
Paperdoc said:
You may be over-complicating and worrying for nothing. The wireless router you have can do up to 300 Mbs, and I would assume you would put a wireless networking card in the HTPC of similar capability, so you'd have that kind of speed available in the link. However, most cable modems I've seen can only deliver data to your home at speeds of 6 to 10 Mbs, MUCH slower than your in-home network. The limit on your download speed is in the cable service and modem, not in your network. Don't waste time on the fastest possible home network link if you cannot come close to filling up that link's capacity.
Click to expand...

The thing about this is it's more about range. I have two wireless routers, one in my basement, and one in my room. Before we moved the one up to my room I was lucky to stream 300KB/S music up here from my server. If the router is centrally located in the house however you should get decent speeds.

As for your original inquiry I believe you will be charged double for your internet if you plug in a second modem.
 
Thanks for all of your input. The reason I brought up this topic is that we are getting rid of our cable service. It is getting rather expensive, especially for the amount we use it. I will replace it with an HTPC. I am going to give it a go with our current wireless set up. If we need better, then I will think of upgrading. Thanks again.
 
It might be a good idea to have wired to the computer/htpc/tv and then have everything else wireless. If that is not good enough, you might need to run wired ethernet from one room to another room. Generally the cable connection is separate for the cable modem and they only give you one IP Address. So unless you are going to purchase 2 IP addresses, both cable modems would have to be hooked together and share the sime IP Address.

Might be a good idea to upgrade the connection speed to get more bandwidth.

Might also be a good idea to get a better router with "N" wireless.
 
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