Hi guys,
I hope this is in the right spot. I am looking for some general advice on how to set up my home network wireless. I am looking to upgrade or build upon my current solution, without totally overdoing it, as I have done in the past. I know there are lots of new solutions like Mesh networking, but I feel in the last few years I have got so far behind the new tech in the wireless sector I can't even get ahead.
I live in a 2 storey house built within three last 10 years, so I am fortunate enough to have cat 5e cabling to at least a few rooms in the house, which I have reterminated from RJ-11 to cat 5e. The locations of these are in non ideal spots as they are on outside walls and for the most part are in the same corners of the house leaving the far corners with lackluster 5Ghz coverage. Another challenge I have found is the house has 10' ceilings, along with fire break/sound proof insulation between floors. As well the basement is made of insulated concrete forms and is very radio quiet for anything outside of the basement (which is excellent, as there is no pesky neighbor Wi-Fi networks in my way).
Now I know that video streaming over Wi-Fi is less than ideal, which is why my theatre room in the basement is serviced by Cat 6 cables. As well my main floor office is hardwired over Cat 5e. I stream content off of an UnRAID server using Plex to Chromecasts, and an HTPC in the theatre room. Currently I have an Asus AC66U as the router and the basement wireless AP. This router has treated me great for last few years.
Now the main floor is the beginning of my stupid network choice. I bought a Dlink DIR-890L.... operating in AP mode. I have the second 5Ghz network disabled. I feel I wasted a lot of money that I could have better utilized than this overkill, overpriced piece of equipment. As of now I have no AP on the second floor. Both access points run the same SSIDs, on different channels of course. This all works good, but I'm not sure if the handoff is efficient, and to be honest I don't know the best way to optimize TX strength to get the best experience here.
What I would like to do is fish wires up roughly the middle of house and have some POE dual band access points to get the best coverage to the edges of the home. This should be no problem, I am not new to fishing wires and I have a nice clear path to do so. But in the locations I'd like to install them aren't near mains power. I'd also like to put an outdoor AP in the backyard, where I have mains, or can do POE (if I run out a cat 6 cable). I'm not sure if doing some kind of wireless back haul for this AP would work to save running a cable to the backyard?
I'm not sure at this point if I should tear out what I have and move to a Ubiquiti solution? What about all of this new mesh networking? Is there other systems I'm not even sure of? If I went for a Ubiquiti system do I need their switch or router to get the best experience?
I have had plans for a while to hand routing off to a pfsense box. As of late I have been having trouble with so many open connections on my network from things like P2P, and of course all the connections from all of these always connected devices.
Have away, give me your best advice, what would you do?
Thanks!
I hope this is in the right spot. I am looking for some general advice on how to set up my home network wireless. I am looking to upgrade or build upon my current solution, without totally overdoing it, as I have done in the past. I know there are lots of new solutions like Mesh networking, but I feel in the last few years I have got so far behind the new tech in the wireless sector I can't even get ahead.
I live in a 2 storey house built within three last 10 years, so I am fortunate enough to have cat 5e cabling to at least a few rooms in the house, which I have reterminated from RJ-11 to cat 5e. The locations of these are in non ideal spots as they are on outside walls and for the most part are in the same corners of the house leaving the far corners with lackluster 5Ghz coverage. Another challenge I have found is the house has 10' ceilings, along with fire break/sound proof insulation between floors. As well the basement is made of insulated concrete forms and is very radio quiet for anything outside of the basement (which is excellent, as there is no pesky neighbor Wi-Fi networks in my way).
Now I know that video streaming over Wi-Fi is less than ideal, which is why my theatre room in the basement is serviced by Cat 6 cables. As well my main floor office is hardwired over Cat 5e. I stream content off of an UnRAID server using Plex to Chromecasts, and an HTPC in the theatre room. Currently I have an Asus AC66U as the router and the basement wireless AP. This router has treated me great for last few years.
Now the main floor is the beginning of my stupid network choice. I bought a Dlink DIR-890L.... operating in AP mode. I have the second 5Ghz network disabled. I feel I wasted a lot of money that I could have better utilized than this overkill, overpriced piece of equipment. As of now I have no AP on the second floor. Both access points run the same SSIDs, on different channels of course. This all works good, but I'm not sure if the handoff is efficient, and to be honest I don't know the best way to optimize TX strength to get the best experience here.
What I would like to do is fish wires up roughly the middle of house and have some POE dual band access points to get the best coverage to the edges of the home. This should be no problem, I am not new to fishing wires and I have a nice clear path to do so. But in the locations I'd like to install them aren't near mains power. I'd also like to put an outdoor AP in the backyard, where I have mains, or can do POE (if I run out a cat 6 cable). I'm not sure if doing some kind of wireless back haul for this AP would work to save running a cable to the backyard?
I'm not sure at this point if I should tear out what I have and move to a Ubiquiti solution? What about all of this new mesh networking? Is there other systems I'm not even sure of? If I went for a Ubiquiti system do I need their switch or router to get the best experience?
I have had plans for a while to hand routing off to a pfsense box. As of late I have been having trouble with so many open connections on my network from things like P2P, and of course all the connections from all of these always connected devices.
Have away, give me your best advice, what would you do?
Thanks!
