[ale] Why would a uverse ethernet work but not a switch?

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

I'm temporarily living in an apartment while my house is being
renovated, and we have AT&T Uverse here.  Uverse uses ethernet for the
"remote" TV box, and until a week ago I had installed a switch to allow
me to plug in both the uverse box and my smart tv (the wifi there is
spotty).  See diagram:

[router] - [wall] - [building wiring] - [wall] - [switch] - TV and Uverse

I was gone for a week and when I came back the switch was no longer
syncing to the router, so neither the TV nor Uverse were working.  At
first I thought it was the switch that went bad (there was a power
outage when I was gone), so I ordered a replacement.  However, the
replacement switch also does not work.  What is strange is that if I
plug the uverse box in directly to the wall it works fine.  Moreover, if
I plug the switch directly into the router using a local patch cord it
works there.  So the only time the switch fails is when it uses the
building wiring.

As I said before, I'm in an apartment so don't really have access to the
building wiring.  I can ask the building management, but I suspect they
will foist me off to AT&T.  And if I go to AT&T, I suspect they will say
they don't support switches -- and will ignore me because their Uverse
box works just fine.

SO...  Any ideas where I go from here?  They are only using 4 wires (2
pairs) for the in-wall wiring, but that should be fine even for my
little netgear switch.  At least, it was until a week ago.  I don't
understand why the Uverse box works but a switch wont.

Any ideas?

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant