This is a bit of a different question than the normal ones you see in this forum. I have an apartment complex I want to cheaply wire every room for internet. I want to use existing infrastructure so the only choices I have are phone, electric, wireless, or cable. Right now I'm investigating cable and it seems like all CMTS transmitters are $10,000+. Could I possibly use a regular cable modem combined with a semi-sophisticated router to send the signal and then cable modems in each room to recieve?
Cable modems to receive what? Wouldn't it be better for the cable company to wire each apartment for internet cable (as well as TV)? Make your life much easier.
No. The cable modems that subscribers get, transmit below about 40 MHz and receive near 800 MHz, so there's no way to get one to talk to another. If you have two spare phone pairs running to each unit, you could use 10baseT ethernet, provided the building was wired with CAT3 cable.
Maybe. I'd be more concerned by RFI, amongst other things. Phone wire wasn't meant to be used as Ethernet. Plus let's not forget he did mention wireless. So there's a possability there.
Perhaps the least expensive, and actually rather effective way would be to place a few switches in the phone wiring closet (enough for 1 port per apartment) and, as James suggested, utilize the green & brown pairs of the phone cable to each apartment for ethernet. If the outlets are homerun to a location in the apartment, splice the green & brown pairs of the cable from the main closet with the cable for the outlet you're going to use for your ethernet. If the outlets are daisy-chained, splice those pairs from the first outlet all the way through to where you'll have your jack. Then bring in either a T1 or a 1.5Mbps DSL connection.
You could utilize the caox only if you have a private cable system -- one that is owned (headend and all) by the apartment complex and has nothing at all to do with the local franchise cable company. The downstream for cable modems is wherever you decided to locate it, from
88-860MHz. One of the engineers here wanted to place cable modems at
117MHz, but lost out to 519MHz. The upstream can be pretty much anywhere from 15-42MHz. The return path is 5-42MHz, but most digital cable boxes (DCTs) use ~11-13MHz. If you're a part of the local franchise system, you're SOL for a cable modem solution. If the system is yours and you do want to go that route, let me know. You can get a good CMTS for smaller applications such as yours for ~7k or so.
Try VDSL. It works over the phone copper and does not prevent normal phone service over the same line. Plus last I checked the VDSL modems were quite cheap (though the CO-part might cost somewhere in the range of $1000). Still way cheaper than becoming a small time Cable-ISP. Speed depending on line quality up to 25mbps in the downstream.
I certainly don't like running data and voice on the same cable, either, but when a house or apartment building is built with only 1 cable to each outlet, what ya gonna do? I inherited some townhouses and some apartments that were cabled like that (the apartments were daisy-chained with 1 CAT3, and the townhouses were homerun with 1 CAT5 per outlet At least there are 2 CAT5s going in from outside).
No complaints of degradation in phone service or reduced internet performance at all.
Apartment owners love to install proprietary cable television as a supplied service, picking up in the process an additional fee from the tenants who, if they want cable television, must contract with the owner for it. The same can be said for internet access; all it takes is a clause in the lease. It has nothing to do with technology; it's all about the money.
How would anyone be hijacked out of their existing internet? Using pairs 3 & 4 for ethernet for a high speed internet network still leaves pairs 1 & 2 for phone service, so they could still have their dial-up if they prefer. If someone had 2 voice lines and a third for internet and wanted to stay with 56k rather than go with 900k+, just don't connect that apartment.
Yes, apartment owners do love to install their own, private CATV systems in lieu of the local franchise system. Sometimes it's owned, operated, and maintained by the property. Sometimes it's owned by the property and maintained by a private contractor. Sometimes, it's owned, operated, and maintained by a private contractor. Sometimes, the service is included in the rent and sometimes the tenent must subscribe. Many install a distributed satellite system and offer a basic package to their tenants. If they want to upgrade their package, they can. Regardless of the type of system for delivery of video content any given property has, the residents are stuck with it. Their only alternative is to put up their own dish.
Many also have their own switch and provide phone service to their tenants, as many have their own network for internet access. Sure, the owners would rather the tenants use their network (usually a better service at similar or better pricing than dial-up, and, like you said, the owners get a piece of that), but there's no clause in any lease that could say that a tenent couldn't subscribe to a dial-up service provider if they wanted to. How can a property tell a resident who they can and cannot call on the telephone?
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