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Looking for Wifi6 and possible mesh

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blaken

New Around Here
Hey guys I would appreciate any advice you can give on upgrading my network. I will start with the stat dump and then move onto the interesting bits below.

House: 2900 sq. ft 2 story with finished basement. Standard wood studs and drywall.
Internet: 1GB fiber tested at 926 Mbps Down and 861 Mbps Up
Current Router: Netgear R7900P

Devices/Location
Finished Basement (all wired)
Custom Unraid NAS/Plex server: Wired with Dual Intel i210-AT
Samsung TV
Denon Receiver
XBox
Steam Link

Main Floor (all wireless)
PC1 (the one I care about the most): Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200
An old roku that needs replaced.
DirecTV box

2nd Floor (all wireless)
PC2: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200
PC3: ASUS PCE-AC56 Dual-Band 2x2 AC1300

Roaming Wi-Fi
3 laptops
3 Tablets
1 Oculus Quest 1
1 Oculus Quest 2
4 phones

Ok on to the interesting bits. I moved into house a couple of years ago that for some reason even though it was built in 2008 its wired for RJ11. I thought for sure when I pulled the jacks RJ45 would be waiting for me and no it was not. There is no good way for me to pull cable from where my fiber enters the house to the main floor so I am stuck with a wireless router in my basement. I was at least able to run a cable to the center of the basement and that's where my current Wi-Fi router sits.

Here are my goals
The fastest possible WiFi connection to PC1. Not only for internet but this is the PC that transfers new movies and photo dumps to the NAS. Last Christmas after buying a bunch of new movies I got so fed up with the speed I ran a cable across my house.
PC2 and PC3 are currently only connecting over 2.4Ghz on the 2nd floor and I would like to get them to 5Ghz if possible. I know I would need to change out the adapter on PC3 for AX which I am ok with because it kind of sucks anyway.
My wife likes to work on the porch in the summer and I like to listen to music. Our current router just makes it to the porch but Wi-Fi drops off about 50 feet from the house and I would like that to stretch to 100ft if possible.
It would be nice if the router supported link aggregation but it's not a deal breaker.
The number of ports isn't a huge concern for the wired devices, I have a gigabit switch and everything but the NAS can sit on the switch.
 
:( No way to run a cable from the basement anywhere? ie follow a pipe, up into a closet ? if you have a studded wall with the bottom above the basement you can drill a hole through through the bottom of the wall ..
there is some minor sheet rock work after but it could get you the wired connection for a switch, computer, or backhaul on the upper floor.
 
The fiber comes into the house at the worst possible place. It's in a 10x10 utility room in the basement. So HVAC, water, water heater, gas etc. It's also the only room in the entire basement that isn't finished. Above that room is the main floor bathroom and kitchen. If I drill up through the studs I will either end up next to the toilet or inside the sink cabinet. I have tried working my way through a return air duct but after spending a few days I gave up. The joists in the celling run perpendicular to where the cable needs to go so I can't even snake the cable to the other side of the basement. The only reason I can even get the router to the middle of the basement is because the guy ran 1 (ONE!) CAT5e through a divider wall which I didn't even know about until a few months ago. It wasn't terminated on one end correctly so my guess is he though it was bad and just tried to hide it. Luckily I can get 1Gbs through it.

The guy who owned the house right before me finished the basement and made some very odd choices. He didn't run any network cables because he liked google mesh and instead of running speaker wire to where rear speakers would be in the main room he ran outlets to power Sonos speakers.

Side note just to complain a little more, there were hdmi cables in the main living room wall from above the fireplace to the side. Someone cut one end off so they could shove them into the wall because of decorating decisions.
 
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