Four Gaming Desktops and Exactly Four LAN Ports: Adding a Room Without Losing the Wired Connection (Occom Gigabit, Sydney)

Share house · SydneyOccom gigabitNetcomm router4 gaming desktops~100 → ~900 Mbps wiredBedroom router added

Four guys sharing a house, all with gaming desktops, and a router with exactly four LAN ports. The maths works right up until somebody's room is too far away for the WiFi to be usable and he wants a cable too. What made this visit worth writing up is the second thing he mentioned almost in passing: on a gigabit plan, his downloads never went above about 100 Mbps.

Two problems, reported as one job

Four housemates, all with gaming desktops. The main router had four LAN ports, which was exactly enough — until it was not.
The student who called was in the room furthest from the router. The wireless there was poor enough that even short videos stuttered, and he wanted a wired port at his desk.
Separately, he mentioned that downloading games never exceeded about 100 Mbps.
Setup: gigabit plan, provider Occom, main router Netcomm, Sydney. Handled as an on-site visit.

Problem one · running out of ports

Ways to get more ports · and what each one gives you

	Add a switch	Bigger router	Router in the room
Extra wired ports	Yes	Yes	Yes
Helps distant WiFi	No	No, if it stays in the same spot	Yes — the signal starts in the room
Suits this house	Ports only, room still had bad WiFi	Ports only, same problem	Both needs at once

There is more than one way to add ports, and the right one depends on the house rather than on the spec sheet.

A switch adds ports and nothing else. If the room also has weak WiFi, it solves half the problem.
A router with more ports has the same limitation while it stays in the same place.
Because this room needed wireless as well as a cable, adding a router in the bedroom was the better fit — it provides the wired port and puts the WiFi source in the room.
We also changed the network name and password for his room's network while we were there.

Problem two · a gigabit plan capped at about 100 Mbps

Why a gigabit plan was delivering about 100 Mbps

Occom gigabit service

1000

→

Netcomm router

→

The failing hardware in the path

~100

Bottleneck

→

Gaming desktop

~100

If you are paying for a gigabit plan and the real-world experience tops out at about 100 Mbps, something in the chain is wrong — that gap is too large to be normal overhead. A wired connection is only as fast as the weakest component along it, and on this job the weak component was found with test gear and replaced on the spot.

Wired speed on the desktops · before vs after

Before

~100 Mbps

After

~900 Mbps

9×faster on the same gigabit plan — the plan never changed.

How the visit ran

Walk the layout: wall ports, router ports, room positions

Options mapped to the actual house

Agree the approach with him

Router in his bedroom

Run a cable from the new router to his desktop

Wired port + close-range WiFi

Set the network name and password for his room

Room network confirmed working

Then chase the 100 Mbps ceiling on the wired desktops

Two desktops affected

Locate the fault with test gear and replace the hardware

~900 Mbps on site

What to check if this sounds like your house

If your plan is gigabit and your real-world experience is about 100 Mbps, treat it as a fault rather than as normal. That gap is not overhead.
It needs someone or something to test the path, because the failing component is usually not the one that looks suspicious.
For ports, decide first whether the room also needs better wireless. That single question usually picks the solution for you.
Test after the change, on the machine that had the problem, not on a phone standing next to the router.

Result

Both requests were resolved in one visit. A router was added in his bedroom, giving him a wired port to his desktop plus close-range WiFi with his own network name and password. For the second problem, test gear located the failing component in the wired path; after it was replaced, both gaming desktops tested at around 900 Mbps on site — roughly nine times what they had been getting on the same Occom gigabit plan.

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