Optimal Way to Wire Up AT&T U-Verse?

U-Verse newbie here....I'm interested in what is the "Optimal" cabling structure to get the best speed and quality for not only the TV service, but also the computer network side of things. I came from Comcast and had 5 Set-Top Boxes (STB) and 1 cable card on the TV side and a Gigabit wired/Wireless N network on the computer side. Everything worked flawlessly before the U-Verse install.



Current setup with the way the install tech wired me up....
I'm having some services issues/problems with losing the internet service, wireless STB connectivity and other STB connectivity to the DVR....like picture freezing during playback or just dropping the ON Demand channel and going back to the menu. The problems come and go and I'm trying to decide if the entire system was marginally installed. When the tech came out to do the install we had to make some concessions as to how the equipment was laid out based on my existing wiring or lack thereof.



Background:

U-Verse layout as it is now. Copper lines from the street to COAX (RG6 not Quad Shielf) at the NID (I guess that's what it is called) on the outside of the house. The COAX runs to the RG on the second story of the home...the RG feeds the STB/DVR over Ethernet with HDMI output to the TV in that room. There is also a U-Verse Wireless Access Point pluged into the RG Ethernet that supplies two wireless STB in adjacent rooms also on the second story. The install tech ran a new AT&T supplied RG6 from the NID 100 feet to an AT&T splitter that feeds 3 more STBs (1st floor) over my existing coax. I'm assuming he also installed the "Diplexor" in the NID to feed the new run of COAX to the 3 downstairs STBs.



Since it was installed this way, how does that compare to an optimal solution? I'm willing to do some new RG6 Quad wiring to all areas that the STBs reside in to a "Home" run location to locate the RG and DVR/STB centrally. Would this be better? I'm guess I'm trying to get all the STBs serviced over the RG6 network to free up traffic on the Ethernet side...I guess this is basically the same way as my Comcast install. Right now, any of the STBs accessing the DVR are tying up Ethernet traffic on the non-Gigabit switch in the RG. That hardly seems optimal. From reading the above posts, it seems as though running all the STBs off of Ethernet is the way to go.



Right now for the internet side of things, I have turned off the wireless in the RG and connected my DIR655 Gigabit Router (DHCP off) LAN to LAN on the RG and letting the RG do the DHCP and routing. All my wired Ethernet (pre-existing) is wired to the DIR655 and getting IP addresses through the RG.



With the setup I have now, both TV and computer network, I'm having these issues come and go. Soliciting all opinions here on which way to go. If things are already optimal then I guess the alternative is to just go back to Comcast.


Current Setup:



Proposed Setup:




Thanks ahead for your input and replies.



Jeff

Thanks for the reply Harley Dude.

This may be the start of a good discussion. I had an AT&T tech tell me that my proposed solution would be ideal because it would definately separate the IPTV traffic between STBs and the DVR to one switch and not back feed on the RG6 running to the diplexor. He also said it would be wise to change the main feed from the NID to the RG to Cat5e in place of the RG6 cable. He said that you can better the bit error rate (BER) on the twisted pair of the Cat5e versus the RG6. That all sounds logical to me.

I agree that most install techs want to work with the existing cables in the home as much as possible but that may not always be the "optimal" solution for new construction or someone wanting the best possible performance.

Right now things are working and the signal levels are good so I haven't changed anything yet. I am going to keep the Uverse for now and do some rewiring this summer in order to have the flexibility to make changes if and when I need to. I will go ahead and install both Cat5e and Quad RG6 to a new home run location while installing other LAN lines and then I should be ready for anything.

Thanks for the input.