3 Story house with plaster walls

[zacster]

(Short Version): I'm looking for a plug and play wifi system that'll reach all corners of my old 3 story 4000sqft house without problems.

(Long Version):
I'm looking to get reliable wifi into all corners of my 3 story house. I currently have a TP Link Archer C7 as my router, with Optimum 200mbps service, and an extender on the second floor in the hallway facing a big open stair. The router itself is on the first floor in the center with a wall between it and the stairs.

The first floor is fine and the wifi reaches out to the front porch and rear decks. The second floor though the wifi is spotty even with the extender. I get speeds of around 40-50mbps when I test, but you can see it goes up and down while it's testing. My wife is currently working from home on the second floor in a spot that I knew beforehand was iffy. Her VPN drops constantly and Zoom calls freeze. The 5G on the extender works best there.

The third floor is even worse. My daughters have been complaining about it for years. Of course they mostly watch movies up there, facetime, all the usual stuff that people in their 20s do. The one thing that none of us do though is play games, except that I use Zwift, a cycling app based on game tech. I don't have issues as I do it on the first floor. The other big use is hi-res music streaming. It doesn't seem to have a problem either. There is a basement too, the clothes dryer has wifi, and I sometimes stream music down there. Not a problem so far but light use.

We mostly use macs as computers, with iPhones and iPads. My wife is on windows though. Also, I use an Echo with about 20 smart home devices, a Firestick that is located with the router, and a bunch of Raspberry PIs that are DLNA/Airplay endpoints. Our new appliances also connect, although I still don't see the point of it. When I checked the router there were close to 30 devices connected, all of them I recognized as mine. Come to think of it, even my bike computer connects, as does the bike trainer.

What would be a good upgrade that'll last me a few years? I'm looking for something out of the box, I don't want to become the network guy at home. There is no ethernet nor coax running anywhere either. I was thinking one of the 3 piece mesh systems, but are they worth buying now or is something better going to come along as soon as I click 'buy'? Which one? Netgear, TP Link, Eero, Nest? They seem expensive too given I thought the Archer was expensive when I bought it. I just want something that'll accomodate the next upgrade or devices, whatever that will be, without yet another purchase. When I bought the Archer all I had were a bunch of laptops and phones, now I have an entirely connected house.

 

[Callinc]

Reading your situation and seeing how may devices you are connecting to one WiFi router my best advice would be to call en electrician. Get them to wire up the third floor where your wife works. Get her on a dedicated hard wire connection and then put up another access point up there that’s got a wired back haul.

I’m going to assume that’s not readily possible or cost effective for you so we can look at option 2. Definitely buy a purpose built mesh system. You’ll want 3 total WiFi access points and have them have a dedicated wireless back haul radio. I can’t go into brands as they aren’t my forte but a quick google should yield plenty of reviews.

Reason the wireless mesh is less ideal is because a wireless bride cuts your speeds roughly in half.

Check this out for some additional info

https://dongknows.com/mesh-wi-fi-system-explained/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Trip]

First off, do you have any pre-existing Cat5 (or higher) or TV coaxial cable in the house? If yes, you definitely want to use it to make a hard-wired backbone, even just a partial one, for uplinking as many wireless nodes as you can to the main base unit. If there's no category cabling but there is coaxial, you can use MoCa adapters to re-purpose the TV coax into ethernet (for clarity on how that works, see this explainer by Actionec).

If you can hard-wire wireless nodes, then your options on a product are much more broad, as most will work "well enough" via wired backhaul (data transport), as opposed to not working as well if the node-to-node interconnects were all-wireless. You'd just want to make sure the product you chose had hard-wired ethernet ports on all remote units and supported wired backhaul. A wired uplink would also allow you to potentially use a lower-cost dual-band (2 radios: one 5Ghz, one 2.4Ghz) product instead of a tri-band (3-radio: two 5Ghz, one 2.4Ghz) product, as the need for that third radio would be likely be much lower.

If you have zero ability to wire and you must go all-wireless between nodes, I'll save you the hassle of comparing products right now; you want Eero Pro tri-band straight away (not regular dual-band Eero, nor the Beacons). In layman's terms, the type and level of traffic smoothing and real-time radio adjustment required to keep things "just working" is unique in the space. There are products out there with beefier 4x4 and 8x8 radios for backhaul (Orbi tri-band, Amplifi Alien, etc.), and they may be a better fit when physical interference is greater and/or one desires higher static backhaul throughput, but those instances are much less common for the average Joe who just needs something that will "always keep internet fast". I could get more technical as to why that is, but suffice it to say, that's the deal for now.

Hope some of that helps. Happy to get into more guidance depending on how you address the wiring issue and/or any other items.

 

[zacster]

Callinc, thanks for the link to DongKnows. All the googling and that site never showed up.

There is no Cat5 or 6 wiring in the house, at the point where we had more than one computer and something faster than DSL, we went straight to wifi. The house itself is from 1904. We do have a coax cable that was run through for TV. The cable from the pole goes to a splitter outside the house, one line in, 2 lines out at -3.5db. One line goes to the cable box and modem through another splitter, and the other goes up to our second floor and with an F connector extended up to our third floor. Is that suitable for MoCa? I looked at the Actionec site and didn't see how the cable needed to be run. If the outside connector needed to be changed that would be easy enough. Extending the cable from the second floor to the router would be a little more difficult but still doable since it goes through the basement.

I just checked, there are actually two coax lines that go from the router area to the outside. One is from the roof antenna that was cut outside, the other goes to the splitter. I could splice the second floor wire onto the cut cable if that helps. I would then have a dedicated line going upstairs that isn't connected to the cable company.

But MoCa does sound like it would be the way to go if the cable is sufficient. I didn't check prices though. That could still be a factor.

More details: Arris TM1602 cable modem, Docsis 3.0, Samsung STB if it matters.

 

[CaptainSTX]

MOCA simply allows you to use coax instead of Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable.

How you hook up MOCA is that you put one adapter near your modem is, connect the adapter to the COAX and also using a Ethernet cable connect it a LAN jack on the router.

At the other of the COAX you connect the other adapter and then into the LAN jack you plug a computer or in your case an AP. You can have multiple end points as long as there is continuity between both ends of the COAX it should work, BUT

If your router was provided by your ISP it also maybe using MOCA

If your splitters are old and only pass 900Mhz you need to replace them with splitters that will pass MOCA frequencies.

If you have an amp installed somewhere on the COAX it must be two way and capable of passing MOCA.

If you have multiple splitters the signal may not be strong enough.

If you have old coax and it is in poor condition, has crimp on fittings you may have problems.

IN your case MOCA is worth a try just be sure you have the option to return the adapters if you can't make it work.

If by chance you don't use the the coax runs in your home for CATV then an even simpler and less expensive solution would be DECA.

Put together a diagram and posters probably can help you design your setup.

 

[zacster]

Let me answer:

Router is my own, a TP Link Archer C7 AC1750
Splitters are probably 10-15 years old
No amp as far as I know, just straight cable. The cable runs outside the house and is visible.
There is a splitter outside the house to run to the two separate boxes, but one box was returned to the cable company, and a second splitter for the modem and the cable box.
The coax is a mix, but mostly old at this point. Don't know about the fittings.

And as I said, there is a second lead to the area with the router. This leads outside but is cut, but this is within a foot or two of the current splitter. I could easily disconnect the upstairs cable from the cable company and connect it to the cut cable. It would then be dedicated.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Let me answer:

I could easily disconnect the upstairs cable from the cable company and connect it to the cut cable. It would then be dedicated.

If you have a dedicated coax run I would suggest you consider the DirectTV DECA adapters. I have never tried them but you should read through the descriptions and tech specs to be sure if they meet your needs. If you are not in USA you may need to dig and find a similar product but at US$26.77 hard to beat this product price wise.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AYMGPIO/?tag=snbforums-20

If the cable outside has been cut off with no fitting at the cut end you probably should cut at least a foot off to eliminate any problems from water ingress. Even if it has a fitting cut the old one off and replace it.

Use compression fittings no mickey mouse screw on or crimp fittings. If you have to splice the cable use a barrel fitting and heat shrink tubing to weather proof the splice.

One thing I should have mentioned I believe these devices are limited to 100 Mbps. If you need higher speeds than that you will have to look at another device or MOCA.

 

[zacster]

I checked the cable. One run, from the router to the outside, is Belden 9116 RG6, the rest up to the second floor is Belden 9104 RG59. From the second to third floor is PPC 3180662 RG6.

I looked at the DECA adapters and they will only support 100mbps. They are cheap though and maybe as an interim solution it'll be worth a try. That would still be faster than what we get now, assuming the cables are good. FWIW, the cable box that was attached to it worked fine.

One question with MoCa. Can these be daisy chained? Can I run from the cable out port to the input on the next adapter? Or do I need a splitter?

 

[CaptainSTX]

One question with MoCa. Can these be daisy chained? Can I run from the cable out port to the input on the next adapter? Or do I need a splitter?

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to hook up multiple devices then hook an Ethernet switch to the far end adapter or re-purpose a router as an AP and use both its WiFi and LAN ports.

I'm not sure if you can have a single sender on a DECA setup with multiple end points like. You certainly install another pair of these inexpensive DECA adapters and feed it with an Ethernet connection from an Ethernet switch.

 

[zacster]

Sorry, the daisy chain question was for "real" MoCa, not the DECA hardware. I just read the documentation and probably not, the TV out jack filters out the ethernet frequencies and leaves just the TV. I would need another splitter. I want to put an access point on each floor, not just connect multiple devices to one AP. The cable is one run from 1st floor to the 2nd joined with a connector in a closet up to the third floor.

Really though, for the price the DECA would be a decent stopgap until the next great thing comes along. The tools needed to strip the cable and attach the connector cost more than the DECA, especially since I don't need any more 5v wallwarts. My iFi iPower 5v that I bought for my DAC sits unused because ultimately it muddied the sound, and I think it cost more than the whole setup I'm looking at now, tools included.

 

[zacster]

I decided which way to go with this and the answer is to do nothing! I went around the house with my iPhone and tested speed in all the corners on all floors and it is only very specific spots that have a problem. And you know what? My wife's corner "office" in our bedroom is one of them. She's going to move. The room is 22'x18', so really a big room and she just thought that corner was out of the way and by a window, but it doesn't have to be there. The other side has decent signal from the main router. The other potential problem area is on the third floor at my daughter's room, and I'm thinking I'll just move the extender up there since the hallway gets 170mbps out of 200 off the main router. That leaves just one device, a very old iPad that doesn't get good speed no matter where it is. Of course that one is mine.

I'm thinking if I move my router to be on the other side of the wall to the open stairs, the signal will travel a lot further. I'll give that a try later, when everyone stops working.

I don't understand myself how a family of three really needs even the speed that we have. We aren't doing anything real-time except for Zoom, and only now because of C-19. We get spoiled with being able to watch all the video we can simultaneously, but that doesn't happen very often. I've read some threads where people complain they can't get 400/400 across their house and all I think is why? What difference will it make? I can understand in an office but not at home, even a home office.

Sometimes the answer is easy. But don't anyone touch my music server!

 

[coxhaus]

I run a Cisco small business network at my house. It is a pleasure to use. I have a layer 3 switch with wired back haul Cisco WAP581 AC wave2 APs. They work great with my Apple devices and Windows devices. I have not seen any slow downs even with C-19 around. My wife Zooms and FaceTime's every day. We have an AppleTV 4K that I use too much now that we are home all the time.

These are not plug and play devices but they are not too hard to install. The Cisco router has real simple wizards for setup and as well as the Cisco wireless WAP581 APs. The layer 3 is a little harder but not like Cisco PRO command line IOS. The Cisco small business switches have GUI interfaces for setups. I have done a couple of examples on this site. Cisco supports their equipment for many years so you are not stuck upgrading all the time. My switch is the oldest which is many years old and I just put a new firmware on it in February. I should a have a large flat home about 3200 square feet. There are no basements in Texas.