7000 sq ft house - wifi and no cat5

[robr]

No. MoCA is providing Ethernet, not TV/cable signal.

I realize that, but TV is carried on the same coax, I wasn't certain if you needed to strip out the MoCA stuff before connecting it to a TV or if the TV would just ignore the higher bandwidth data.

 

[thiggins]

No, you do not need to "strip out" MoCA. It operates at different frequencies than cable systems. It will collide with satellite TV.

 

[worthmining]

I need to set up the network for a 7000 sq ft home. It was built in the 60s and the only structured wiring is for phones. Typically I use a Cisco 5505 router and Cisco 121s with PoE for WAPs (and an L2 or L3 switch if they want a guest wireless). Won't work here obviously. I hate using wireless repeaters as I haven't found reliability to be all that great, but the cost of running cat5 would be fairly substantial.

Any recommendations?

My house is 8000 sq ft, last night I tested both linksys EA4500 and RT-N66U. With linksys my samsung android has problem to pick up signal at the edge of backyard (the same spot has no 3G signal either), while RT-N66U has strong signal all over the backyard as well as driveway. The router is placed sort at the middle of the house. Speed test result shows almost no difference either 2.4ghz or 5ghz, at one bar or full bar on smartphone, can go alll the way to 20+mb from internet when cable throughput is at good rate.

This is life changing event, it totally changed how I look at wifi routers. Linksys router though is still a solid product, it has not improved the coverage from the old 610N bought 3 years ago. I was able to enjoy it for 3 years, never fail never down and I have streaming, TV, computer, file backup, mobile devices all kind abuse 24x7 yet it's going strong, until recently I switched from iphone to samsung android, which is famous for its pathetic wifi connection. But Asus saves the day. Now the only question is, how reliable will Asus router be?

My advice, unless you have a mansion size of several acres, the best way to wire a house is not via powerline AV, bridge or entender/repeater, or cat5 etc., simply buy RT-N66U and skip the rest. Don't know other routers, Linksys might be ok for an apartment or condo house, but not even come close to what RT-N66U can deliver.

Linksys's firmware does have more features than Asus, however the difference is mostly tolerable as the function are all there just not as intuitive.

 

[tipstir]

Good testing there you've done. EA4500 could be better if CiSCO would push the TX Power a bit more than limit and force you too buy RE1000 for it. The ASUS kinda does that out of the box. Both companies are not perfect either ASUS firmware is limited. One our members here seems to have improve on ASUS firmware to make it better than what you get out of the box experience. Other than that is DD-WRT on certain WiFi Routers. Might not be everyone cup of tea to use, but some find it a way to save them a lot on buying more expensive WiFi Routers.

Next time you test your ASUS check the RX on it for errors. If none they your set. EA4500 has a fast CPU, double the RAM, better HD and DLNA support.

In my test EA4500 can't reach too far, which limits it. Even with the E4200V1 with DD-WRT can only push that about 10% more. Again nothing is perfect.

 

[worthmining]

Good testing there you've done. EA4500 could be better if CiSCO would push the TX Power a bit more than limit and force you too buy RE1000 for it. The ASUS kinda does that out of the box. Both companies are not perfect either ASUS firmware is limited. One our members here seems to have improve on ASUS firmware to make it better than what you get out of the box experience. Other than that is DD-WRT on certain WiFi Routers. Might not be everyone cup of tea to use, but some find it a way to save them a lot on buying more expensive WiFi Routers.

Next time you test your ASUS check the RX on it for errors. If none they your set. EA4500 has a fast CPU, double the RAM, better HD and DLNA support.

In my test EA4500 can't reach too far, which limits it. Even with the E4200V1 with DD-WRT can only push that about 10% more. Again nothing is perfect.

Where can I find the rx checkbox (still wondering around Asus' admin UI)?

However, at the end of 1st day RT-N66U started to underpeform quite a bit. Signal on android is bare minimum with less than 1mb speed, youtube on desktop (both on far side of the house where android used to get nothing from linksys but desktop was perfectly fine) started to lag rather frequently if set 480 or HD. This was while two more youtube playing in the house and all mobiles are online. I played around the channels a bit and that didn't help, it's on channel 6 while all my neighbors are on 1. So decided to reboot then the router gives the top spped again. This could have something to do with that I made numerous changes to the router during the 1st day, but just a guess. Anyway, now it is the 2nd day, everything seems to be ok except youtube sessions from family have reported lags once a while. So I might take my excitement back and hold on this router for more observation. The firmware is on 3.0.0.3.112 out of box.

A wired problem is on the network map screen client shows only two devices while I'm connecting quite a few more that two. Hitting refresh doesn't change anything.

 

[worthmining]

Good testing there you've done. EA4500 could be better if CiSCO would push the TX Power a bit more than limit and force you too buy RE1000 for it. The ASUS kinda does that out of the box. Both companies are not perfect either ASUS firmware is limited. One our members here seems to have improve on ASUS firmware to make it better than what you get out of the box experience. Other than that is DD-WRT on certain WiFi Routers. Might not be everyone cup of tea to use, but some find it a way to save them a lot on buying more expensive WiFi Routers.

Next time you test your ASUS check the RX on it for errors. If none they your set. EA4500 has a fast CPU, double the RAM, better HD and DLNA support.

In my test EA4500 can't reach too far, which limits it. Even with the E4200V1 with DD-WRT can only push that about 10% more. Again nothing is perfect.

In your experience can EA4500 + RE1000 effectively bring the same coverage as RT-N66U? It is said the repeater can cut throughput in half (I testified that with rampled repeater, not good), will RE1000 be the same?

I have a feeling the RT-N66U is overloaded with the number of activity in my house, albeit by no measure it's outrageous. I haven't turned on streaming yet, the admin page already have trouble to load and WAN (i have ping going to google.com) is intermittent as we speak.

[update]: So I rebooted the 2nd time in two days just minutes ago, it clearly helped. Now the intermittent WAN is gone and client shows all devices fine and fast page load. Seems the router requires a daily reboot, or everytime changed setting it needs a reboot.

Another observation, in running inSSIDer (for 2.4G only), this router shows the lowest RSSI among neighbors which includes old netgear G router as well as belkin has a max rate 300 while this router has a max rate 216. Not sure what these mean.

 

[worthmining]

It's clear now, when both connected in in coverage, the RT-N66U bandwidth for concurrent connection throughput is jammed with multiple streaming, web surfing, while linksys EA4500 handles well. I've tried latest beta 162 firmware but no improvement.

Looks like I'll have to consider linksys and find another solution for the coverage, possibly the RE1000.

 

[Daybreak]

Howdy,
You need to setup the router properly first.
the wifi 2.4ghz is showing 216 becuase you do not have the channel set wide. Since the asus router is newer than the older routers, they came up with some bright idea about friendly neighbor settings and only using 20mhz bandwidth. Use your inssider and look at the what clear 2 channels are for using 40mhz bandwidth. Wifi 2.4 = n only, 40mhz wide, channel x, secondary being upper or lower, now you have 450.

Client listing, takes some time to build up. Unless, you have all items off. start router, then turn each of your items on, then look at your client listing.

RE1000 ? are you refering to Amped Wireless RE1000?

RT-N66U, do you have a good internet connection? Are you using the whole bandwidth? Do you have QOS turned on? Do you have any static IP's assigned? Is the wifi 2.4/5 both setup with WPA2-personal, AES ?
do you have any older wifi devices? are you using both the 2.4 and 5 bands? Do you have your media items using the 5ghz band? internet surfing items connected via 2.4ghz? Have you installed the latest firmware 3003.162 and cleared the nvram area? Have you setup the router from the default configuration and not used a saved configuration?

 

[worthmining]

Howdy,
You need to setup the router properly first.
the wifi 2.4ghz is showing 216 becuase you do not have the channel set wide. Since the asus router is newer than the older routers, they came up with some bright idea about friendly neighbor settings and only using 20mhz bandwidth. Use your inssider and look at the what clear 2 channels are for using 40mhz bandwidth. Wifi 2.4 = n only, 40mhz wide, channel x, secondary being upper or lower, now you have 450.

The outperformed linksys EA4500 is also on 2.4ghz 20mhz only and showing 216 rssi, so this alone must not be the problem. however I'll try your tip, love to have 450.

Client listing, takes some time to build up. Unless, you have all items off. start router, then turn each of your items on, then look at your client listing.

RE1000 ? are you refering to Amped Wireless RE1000?

linksys extender/repeater RE1000. but lately I learnt about repeater loose half throughput, this idea is out. I actually tried amed re1000 too, it is literally half throughput, besides I don't want to keep two ssid and swap back and forth depending on where it is in the house.

RT-N66U, do you have a good internet connection? Are you using the whole bandwidth? Do you have QOS turned on? Do you have any static IP's assigned? Is the wifi 2.4/5 both setup with WPA2-personal, AES ?
do you have any older wifi devices? are you using both the 2.4 and 5 bands? Do you have your media items using the 5ghz band? internet surfing items connected via 2.4ghz? Have you installed the latest firmware 3003.162 and cleared the nvram area? Have you setup the router from the default configuration and not used a saved configuration?

The internet gives full up to 30 mb downlink when I speedtest it without other activity, this is tested on the far end of my house where my nexus doesn't have a stable signal with linksys routers (PC are fine with coverage with either asus or linksys). RT-N66U when only one device is streaming it's awesome.

No, I haven't touched QoS in RT-N66U. two static IP, one printer on its ethernet port, one windows server on wireless where the wifi cam monitor is playing (not HD but streaming all day long). Most wireless IP are dhcp but reserved. WPA2/AES on all.
Using both 2.4 and 5 bands. My mediacenter and DVD/TV are on 5 bands, everything else on 2.4. I use the same setting in both asus and linksys so I can quickly plug and switch for testing. 162 is loaded too. but I didn't clear the nvram, perhaps I should.

 

[tipstir]

In your experience can EA4500 + RE1000 effectively bring the same coverage as RT-N66U? It is said the repeater can cut throughput in half (I testified that with rampled repeater, not good), will RE1000 be the same?

I have a feeling the RT-N66U is overloaded with the number of activity in my house, albeit by no measure it's outrageous. I haven't turned on streaming yet, the admin page already have trouble to load and WAN (i have ping going to google.com) is intermittent as we speak.

[update]: So I rebooted the 2nd time in two days just minutes ago, it clearly helped. Now the intermittent WAN is gone and client shows all devices fine and fast page load. Seems the router requires a daily reboot, or everytime changed setting it needs a reboot.

Another observation, in running inSSIDer (for 2.4G only), this router shows the lowest RSSI among neighbors which includes old netgear G router as well as belkin has a max rate 300 while this router has a max rate 216. Not sure what these mean.

RE1000 10/100 that tends to overheat and go duff. You have to unplug and wait for it to cool down before you can use it again.