Replace entire large home network?

[wassy]

Hi all,
I posted this in the Uniquiti forums but Should have posted here. I recently got att Uverse 1 gigabit service (ftth).
I am wanting to replace my homes network infrastructure To get full usage and best results with gigabit. Here are my details.

DETAILS
5200 square foot 1 level home
Just got ATT Uverse gigabit internet, FTTH. Their Pace 5268 gateway in dmz mode. Dhcp and wifi disabled. Connected to:
Current system is an apple AirPort Extreme (current model) with 2 matching AirPort extremes as AP's (wired). Honestly, it works well. I have about 15 static assignments as dhcp reservations and maybe 8-12 port forwards. I've tried all the highest end consumer routers/wifi and the AE's still perform best and solid. This is the router used for routing and 1 wifi base. Wired to:
48 port quiet HP switch
HP V1810-48G
Large crestron system, non-vlanned, all wired except for internal crestron mesh wifi for remotes and lighting
Lots of other wired devices and only real wifi is for sporadic laptop use, all day cell phone use (2-4 any given time). That's it. All streaming devices, AV equipment, crestron, iMac and even MacBook when at desk all cat 5e.
With that, strong and wide wifi coverage is important to me because if I can make it better, I will. That's me. I'm generally good for the most part with my 3 AE's in an almost triangle setup unequal distances. I have some weak spots but nothing that bogs down or gets rejects. Outside walking dog, I have held some signal for 1/2 my walk, probably 300-500 feet in either direct but I'm in infinite waiting land about 50 feet out. I'd like to be a tad stronger there but nothing I need heavy artillery for. Lol. It's basically just for me and convenience.
Above all that, it is most important that I have too notch wired speeds. Can't complain much now but again, if I can improve I will. I was referred to ubiquity from my research so I'm gonna try to give it a whirl with your help. If possible.

Currently getting the following approximate speeds:

Wired: 950+/- down/ 800-900 up (Speedtest)
Wireless: iPhone 7 : 350-400 down, same up.

Can I do better on wifi speeds?

THE DILEMMA

first and foremost, it's got to all be fanless or stupid quiet. No wavering here.
I'm thinking a ubnt router (unifi or erl?), an 8 port wall mounted, Poe switch compatible with the unifi AP PRO or lite if recommended and perhaps even future proof for 1-3 years until the next wave but upgradeable if needed. Also how hard will it be to program the router and other items without the use of professional programmer? I'm used to the GUI's on higher end consumer routers and of course apples easy GUI. Don't want to get in over my head.

Bottom line, given the above infrastructure and wants, I'm just trying to make the best possible setup to get the most of my new gigabit service. Low latency, wide throughout (we have had issues on streaming from Apple TV and even DTV on demand. Too many in fact. And these are all wired devices!). No firewalls on.
Appreciate the help and direction. Once I narrow it down, it's off to the races.

So is ubiquiti the right course for me? I'm. It looking for super cheap but also not doing Cisco blades. Lol. I'm happy to spend the money (reasonable) if I can gain. Was reconsidering consumer level new netgear x9000 or Asus 3100 but don't see proper AP's and have had issue with airports attached to prior models of those.

 

[System Error Message]

depends whether or not you plan to use QoS. If you dont plant to use QoS even the ERL is sufficient. However do note that ubiquiti edgerouters are ubiquiti's weakest product. Honestly if you're going to be relying on hardware NAT i see no reason to consider the ERL over your ISP given router unless it is unreliable or doesnt have a feature you need. I'd usually recommend pfsense for the features but price/performance you cant beat the mikrotik CCR as it doesnt need hardware acceleration for multi gigabit performance even though it has it. x86 hardware is usually fast so wont have issues for that so pfsense is a good consideration.

ubiquiti have got good switches, however you can also get other brands semi managed switches too that have poe. Netgear, zyxel, hp, dell, cisco, juniper all have good switches. With a POE switch make sure you take into account total watts (switch + line losses (the longer the ethernet cable the more loss) + APs). You definitely need semi managed and you will want to stick to a brand that makes good hardware.

Getting everything fanless, its going to be difficult with POE as it the more electricity you use the more heat is dissipated. While a singular unit may not need a fan, stuffing a bunch of them together can get things hot and you need to remember that POE switches have power circuits in them and power circuits hate heat.

With the ERL the moment you start using QoS speed will drop to 100Mb/s. With the ERPRO its around 200Mb/s with QoS. Ubiquiti edgerouters arent your speed/price king, almost every consumer router has that same advantage too you know but because they use more recent platforms and a more complex architecture (such as ARM) they are capable of better speeds doing QoS than the ERL/ERPRO.

Its a good thing you posted here, had you gone with ERL and started using QoS you would've cried i guess. Ubiquiti markets their routers weaknesses exclusively rather than it's strengths.

 

[wassy]

depends whether or not you plan to use QoS. If you dont plant to use QoS even the ERL is sufficient. However do note that ubiquiti edgerouters are ubiquiti's weakest product. Honestly if you're going to be relying on hardware NAT i see no reason to consider the ERL over your ISP given router unless it is unreliable or doesnt have a feature you need. I'd usually recommend pfsense for the features but price/performance you cant beat the mikrotik CCR as it doesnt need hardware acceleration for multi gigabit performance even though it has it. x86 hardware is usually fast so wont have issues for that so pfsense is a good consideration.

ubiquiti have got good switches, however you can also get other brands semi managed switches too that have poe. Netgear, zyxel, hp, dell, cisco, juniper all have good switches. With a POE switch make sure you take into account total watts (switch + line losses (the longer the ethernet cable the more loss) + APs). You definitely need semi managed and you will want to stick to a brand that makes good hardware.

Getting everything fanless, its going to be difficult with POE as it the more electricity you use the more heat is dissipated. While a singular unit may not need a fan, stuffing a bunch of them together can get things hot and you need to remember that POE switches have power circuits in them and power circuits hate heat.

With the ERL the moment you start using QoS speed will drop to 100Mb/s. With the ERPRO its around 200Mb/s with QoS. Ubiquiti edgerouters arent your speed/price king, almost every consumer router has that same advantage too you know but because they use more recent platforms and a more complex architecture (such as ARM) they are capable of better speeds doing QoS than the ERL/ERPRO.

Its a good thing you posted here, had you gone with ERL and started using QoS you would've cried i guess. Ubiquiti markets their routers weaknesses exclusively rather than it's strengths.

Interesting reply and thank you. If I go ubiquiti I was going to do unifi I think so the AP's, switches and router are all managed in 1 place. Interesting that you say consumer router will be as fast. Is this true for wired as well? Again, my ultimate
Objective is gigabit speed, wired for sure and as close to gigabit wireless as possible. Almost sounds like I might be wasting time and effort with a ubiquiti type system. Looking at netgear x10 or
Asus 3100, looks great but no AP's to match. I do not use QOS, but maybe I should start? I also probably should vlan off the crestron system but tried once before and nearly F'd the whole network up. Literally. I'm not a cli guy, gave zero understanding if line item programming etc. GUI is my best bet. Doesn't have to be basic. I'm reasonably able to figure most out. Vlan- no. Lol. I would love to get 5ghz wifi all around but also plan on keeping AP's (wired) above ceiling on top of drywall in attic. The apples work fine for that but. It getting 5ghz I don't think.

I have a r7000 laying around I could revert too but I went apple so everything matched and worked seamless. It is working but with them exiting, want more robust. So confused

 

[wassy]

The linksys ea5400 also doesn't look bad. Right up there with x10.

 

[System Error Message]

if you dont use QoS than ubiquiti with it's hardware acceleration will keep up just like with any consumer router. The hardware acceleration on both the edgerouters and consumer routers are capable of gigabit, its only if you have to use a feature that isnt supported by hardware acceleration such as QoS.

I wouldnt recommend linksys right now, they are subpar compared to tp link in reliability and not as good as netgear/asus. If you dont need QoS go with the edgerouter. If you want gaming features (such as auto QoS for gaming) asus is doing well there.

The r7000 is very robust and reliable, whether you use it as a router or just an AP you should use it rather than leaving it idle.

 

[sfx2000]

Just as an FYI...

>> 5200 square foot 1 level home

Not going to cover that with a single AP and have decent WiFi...

My standing rule of thumb is 1 AP for every 2500 sq ft, so depending on layout of the home, you're looking at perhaps 2 AP's, maybe three...

 

[wassy]

Just as an FYI...

>> 5200 square foot 1 level home

Not going to cover that with a single AP and have decent WiFi...

My standing rule of thumb is 1 AP for every 2500 sq ft, so depending on layout of the home, you're looking at perhaps 2 AP's, maybe three...

Thanks buddy. I have no intention of using 1. My plan was a wired router, 3-4 AP's all wired.

The linksys, netgear, ubiquiti etc will be solely routing. If it's an netgear x10, Asus or any consumer with built in wifi I will use that as the router and AP for the area that router is placed.

 

[wassy]

I had just assumed by reading till I pass out that the wired only routers, being cheap, are also more powerful. For me, power isn't in options but rather raw speed. If I couple fastest router with fastest wifi setup, I'm happy. I'm not gonna do this to go from 800mb to 850mg. Lol. Stable and strong is my goal. My current setup works well. Speeds are good. Can I do better and can I penetrate 5ghz throughout house? That would make a huge difference.

When I have caching and loading issues with streaming tv on ATV, DirecTV in demand etc all connected cat 5e, not wifi, something is wrong somewhere. It improved upgrading to current gen ATV but still persists on both. To me that's a routing, wired issue.

Unifi made sense being single managed but I'm ok with separate apps if needed.

Edge products, as I read, seem to be a more difficult learning curve than unifi. Which AP's would I use? See why unifi made sense?

Was gonna try the x10 when it was $375 but still with the apple airport extremes as AP's I knew there would be problems there. Even wired.

 

[sfx2000]

I used to recommend and refer folks to Airport Extreme AC's - because as AP's, they're fast, stable and relatively cheap if one finds them in the Apple Refurb Store ($129USD) - but in light of recent events, e.g. reports that Apple has moved the Airport engineering team to other projects...

Go with a single vendor on the AP's - and having some centralized management is a huge plus - which consumer Router/AP's generally do not have (Airports do, that's why they were on the recommended list).

The Airports are ok as routers, but they really excel as dedicated AP's - and at the price point, being able to bind two SSID's to 2 VLAN's is a huge plus - normally, this capability cost a lot more (this isn't documented in Apple's stuff, but it's there - VLAN 1003 is bound to the 'guest' SSID in Airports, and yes, it's dual-banded as well)

Check out Engenius - lot's of folks miss them, but they do good stuff with their AP's - also the Linksys dedicated AC1750 class, which reviewed well on the main site - and they also do some level of central management.

 

[sfx2000]

For me, power isn't in options but rather raw speed. If I couple fastest router with fastest wifi setup, I'm happy.

Agreed - focus on security, stability and coverage... when that's covered, performance is a given...

 

[wassy]

Looked at the linksys stuff. Much more expensive then ubiquiti.

I could keep the Apple setup but 1, little to no support anymore, 3, if I can do better and get 5ghz and zero wired throuput loss I'd prefer that.

I often was told to vlan my home automation (crestron). Never had much of an issue except the crestron itself but what would vlan do for me? Crestron is all internal traffic. Unless I access from my phone but I don't see it bogging me down. Maybe it is

 

[sfx2000]

I often was told to vlan my home automation (crestron). Never had much of an issue except the crestron itself but what would vlan do for me? Crestron is all internal traffic. Unless I access from my phone but I don't see it bogging me down. Maybe it is

Like some other topics - VLAN's are one...

Nice thing is that the Aiprorts have that option...

For me, the VLAN option is mainly built around trusted vs. untrusted - the trusted side is stuff I own and manage, the untrusted side is stuff I don't own - e.g. my work PC is one, the other is my TV Provider which wants to do some IP traffic on my LAN, so it's gets shunted off to the untrusted VLAN...

Nice thing is that the SSID/VLAN bindings, it's works quite nicely across both the wired side and the wireless side...

That's why I suggest certain AP's, most enterprise level AP's can do this, and some BHR's might do this on the WAN/LAN side, but generally, this is outside of the scope of most consumer Router/AP's...

And this is also why I do run a business class Router/Gateway/Firewall on my LAN, as I can map this out in the tables there...

But I'm not a regular kind of user here...

 

[wassy]

I appreciate the responses and time you guys have given me. Hope to hear from some there and their ideas as well. Like to get a concensus.

 

[System Error Message]

linksys isnt that great right now with their products. They've had issues in terms of stability and recently security as well.

 

[KenZ71]

Just my comments from the peanut gallery - VLANs sound interesting but if not done right your screwed i.e. can't get access.

So, if the Crestor stuff is working don't break what is not broken. I need to live by the more as my family often says my tweaks make things worse not way better like I hope.

 

[msheffer]

I'd suggest pfsense for the router (either purchased device or installed on a PC/server) and Cisco Meraki for the APs.

I've been running both of these and they are rock solid.

As for the L2 switch, I have a used Nortel 5520-48 and a 5510-48 in a stack. The 5520 is PoE.

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[Cake]

+1 more vote for pfsense/opnsense
Qotom J1900 is fanless, does gigabit. Ubiquity PicoStation M2-HP access points (1 watt) cheap! (But no AC)

 

[msheffer]

+1 more vote for pfsense/opnsense
Qotom J1900 is fanless, does gigabit. Ubiquity PicoStation M2-HP access points (1 watt) cheap! (But no AC)

I have a friend from work that has installed some Ubiquity APs and they work well. I know the Meraki APs aren't cheap but I have had 0% issues with coverage or anything else.

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[wassy]

Seems to me despite the more difficult configuration that the Unifi system would fit my bill. I do not run QOS although maybe I should. I also do not run vlans as my first couple attempts locked me out of my network completely. I went ahead and ordered 5 uap-AC-hd which are their newest wave 2 AP's from their beta store. Just added the USG router and 16 port 150w switch solely for POE to my amazon cart but came back here for a little more research.

From all I read it seems for my purposes the system would work well. Once I decide to do enterprise firewall stuff then the PFsense, microtik and others may come in to play. I like the fact that all of the devices are managed under one pane of glass. Not necessary but nicer.

My networking guys and my crestron guys strongly urge me to go with ruckus, it's controller and a pakedge router. Much much more expensive. Much.

 

[msheffer]

Seems to me despite the more difficult configuration that the Unifi system would fit my bill. I do not run QOS although maybe I should. I also do not run vlans as my first couple attempts locked me out of my network completely. I went ahead and ordered 5 uap-AC-hd which are their newest wave 2 AP's from their beta store. Just added the USG router and 16 port 150w switch solely for POE to my amazon cart but came back here for a little more research.

From all I read it seems for my purposes the system would work well. Once I decide to do enterprise firewall stuff then the PFsense, microtik and others may come in to play. I like the fact that all of the devices are managed under one pane of glass. Not necessary but nicer.

My networking guys and my crestron guys strongly urge me to go with ruckus, it's controller and a pakedge router. Much much more expensive. Much.

If you're running a business then don't skimp. If you do you'll be replacing stuff sooner then you'd expect.

I'd second the Ruckus or even Meru or Cisco Meraki.

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