Wireless as viable alternative to wired?

[croon]

Long time reader, first time poster.

I have a few different thoughts and questions, and they span both wireless buying advice, wired routing and "general", so I was unsure where to post, but I hope you'll be forgiving.

I live in a 3 room apartment with my girlfriend, and we're trying to get rid of as many cables as possible. The house is old and the walls are concrete, and there are no ethernet running through the walls, and I doubt we'll take that plunge. If it was drywall, sure.

I currently have an Asus RT-N16 running tomato, and the router part has been solid through both the original firmware and current tomato. The pass-through is well enough for the 100/100 fiber I currently have, with no plans of upgrading for at least a few years, at which point we might have moved.

I've only recently managed to get the wireless stable though, the key being bluetooth coexistance, but various other settings being tried.
It is however, not fast enough for me to want to pull the cable out of my desktop.

My question is basically if anyone of you guys have similar experience and have managed to go completely wireless with good results?

I use my desktop mainly for work and for games, my home server handles the rest and will stay wired regardless.
What I need is low latency and fast negotiations, stable wireless, and preferably fast throughput, though the last part is mainly for downloading a new game on Steam or pulling something off MSDN.

I have tried ethernet over power outlets, and between two rooms and gigabit connections I got 16/12Mbps with some DLink devices I can't remember the name of, though they were rated at "up to 600Mbps".

My options are currently running cable ducts outside the walls, which would still require drilling between doors, and long cables with long ducts - OR - wireless depending on what I get here.
If the latter, I could go either with a Routerboard/edgerouter and an AP on top of that, or stick with my RT-N16 for the router, and get another superior AP, again, if it's viable.

Sorry for the long rant.

 

[Dreamslacker]

You would still probably want to have wired. An alternative to actually punching holes in walls would be to skirt the floor (or the floor skirting if you have that) with flat cables. The gap below the (non-sliding) door would suffice for getting the cable into the room(s).

You can get proper RJ45 couplers that would snap into a regular 110-type faceplate if you want a more robust installation using a wall mounted base and faceplate (removes the risk of damaging the flat run if you insert & remove the cable frequently).

Some manufacturers like Philips actually have such a solution (it was originally meant to run under rugs and carpets) where there is an adhesive base you install and you simply clip the cable in place.
Link to product page: http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?slg=en&scy=sg&ctn=SWN1891/97

It's great if you're in a rental unit or don't want to pay to remove raceways and seal off holes when you move. Just tear the base off the wall(s).

 

[croon]

Ah, that's actually a great idea. I suppose it would still look a bit awkward over the doorsill or around the door frame, because the doors are pretty tight, but I think it could work.

Thanks!

Still open for suggestions though, if we can't manage that solution properly.

 

[stevech]

I can't think of a case where one should use Wireless/WiFi instead of wired, if it is practical to use wired. WiFi can never get close to wire speeds and reliability, it goes without saying. Its purpose is to enable mobility.

I too use that flat CAT5.

One place here where I couldn't do cat5, due to the way the walls are placed, I've used MoCA for several years with wired LAN reliability and 70Mbps is good enough for its purpose.