Home Networking

[PhotoNic69]

Who here has experience of home networks? i.e. Ethernet runs, Access Points, Mesh, Beamforming etc?

When we first had Broadband we had one modem/router into the loft extension and it just about covered the whole house. I added a powerline extender to run to my PC downstairs and that was it. Then as mroe devices I added a cheap TP-Link router as an Access Point next to the downstairs PC.

Now roll on about 10 years and we have fast fiber to the property. 650Mbps. The router they supplied, Heights (?) never heard of, the interface is shite and the coverage is dismal. It has WiFi 7 so its super fast when you are in the same room but move a bit further and it drops off massively. I knew before we got it that it would be in the bottom front corner of the house so knew I'd need an AP for the loft and thought whilst at it then the same for the original downstairs AP so WiFi can reach the garden.
After getting it all set up my daughter found the new Wifi was rubbish in her room whereas before it was pretty good. So, another of the same router bought and wired to her room. She now has excellent coverage.

So, Bigger, Better, Stronger, Faster actually means its all a bit shite and now we have 4x Routers in our house with 3 acting as Mesh AP's. I also have an 8 Port 2.5GB switch; a 5 Port 1GB switch and have hard wired in the TV, DVD player, Music Streamer, NAS, Printer, 2nd NAS and an Ethernet port in my son's room. Also had to create a separate Guest wifi that is solely 2.4Ghz as some older wifi cams and smart things can't connect to the Dual Band wifi.

I know nothing about Networking, no idea what an IPv4 or 6 is; Subnet Mask? Default Gateway? No idea.
At least I can now terminate Cat 6 cable with RJ45 plugs fairly consistently.

None of this has been Plug & Play at all. I thought it was meant to be seamless nowdays?

 

[wiggydiggy]

Have you heard of Powerline Extenders? https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-powerline-extenders

Basically it uses your homes electrical circuits as a wired network, one will plug in next to your router and then plug another in wherever you wish you create a new wired connector. The best ones will also act as a wifi access point (note not an extender - they create a new wi fi network based on your home network) and have a pass through so you don't lose an electrical socket.

I have used them in the past (current house is smaller so wi-fi good everywhere) to extend the network into a home office with multiple devices and another bedroom with multiple devices.

Honestly I understand about 75% of your setup, but it sounds over complicated and I'd be tempted to buy one pair of these adaptors and test it in an unimportant room, they could make things a lot simpler. (Plus get them from amazon to start with and send them back if you don't like them/don't work!)

 

[fossyant]

No super fast full fibre here yet. Main gaming PC's upstairs, and the main TV/media pc are cat5 to the router. I also have 3 wifi discs for a mesh system, mainly taking wifi out to garden, garage and shed office. Fairly simple setup. The discs are opposite end of lounge from router (next to back garden), second disc upstairs and a third in the garage to relay signal there and to the shed. There are a couple of switches - one by the TV as the Xbox, PC, TV and wifi disc are hardwired. Another in the garage for the CCTV and wifi disk.

 

[PhotoNic69]

Have you heard of Powerline Extenders? https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-powerline-extenders

Basically it uses your homes electrical circuits as a wired network, one will plug in next to your router and then plug another in wherever you wish you create a new wired connector.

Thanks for the suggestions but have used these in the past. They weren't ideal as the Loft is on a different ring circuit to the rest of the house. It worked but it was slow and prone to interference.

 

[Dan Lotus]

Thanks for the suggestions but have used these in the past. They weren't ideal as the Loft is on a different ring circuit to the rest of the house. It worked but it was slow and prone to interference.

I didn't have success with these either, I definitely think it's one of those 'your mileage may vary' things.

I've done similar to you, with great success, two routers connected via ethernet cable and set up as access points, for both wireless and wired connections as required - rock solid reliability.

I think a lot of the issues with wireless, is down to the obstructions and wall thickness/material.
Ours is a 30s house, and I'm suspecting modern houses likely use different material/thickness for internal walls.

Personally for me, once the access points are setup, I can basically forget about them and they just do their job.

Even last week, the main fibre router had issues, and had to be replaced - I had to reconfigure the WLAN, and as it's been a few years since I configured the access points, I wasn't sure if I would need to do some reconfig on them, but it all just kicked back in - I did recreate the same WLAN name with the same password etc, though I appreciate that wouldn't affect the access points as such, but was delighted all wireless devices just reconnected with no manual intervention required.

 

[Dadam]

I'm not up on the latest stuff like Wifi 7 but having a quick read it seems unnecessary for most domestic users. No matter how fast your wifi is, you'll not get more than your broadband service of 650Mbps which will of course be shared across all the devices using it any moment. The main benefit of the speed will be shunting data internally, e.g to and from your NAS.

The super low latency seems like only pro gamers or folks who like to do a lot of VR or cloud gaming would benefit.

The higher frequency bands used for the max performance will drop off more with distance and walls anyway.

For most households a Wifi 6/6E mesh setup with an AP on each floor should be more than sufficient. I bought a 3 AP Asus Zenwifi setup during Covid when daughter was having to join online school classes and getting stressed out about dropping connections. She needn't have been, lots of her classmates didn't bother logging on at all! But anyway it solved the issues and it's been pretty rock solid. I didn't bother wiring the units together, the wireless backhaul has been fine.

You really shouldn't need to know about all the technical networking aspects unless setting up servers or local network gaming.

 

[kynikos]

Sounds like the supplied router is the problem (it often is). Buy a decent mesh setup from Linksys/Asus/TP-Link/Netgear etc. and swap out for your existing kit.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

I think solutions for home networking depend very much on the home. eg My property is very Wi-Fi blocking (nature of the construction) and Wi-Fi hardly travels between rooms, So need a lot of Wi-Fi Access Points and had the opportunity to Cat 6 cable the house during some renovations. In contrast my brother (similar sized property but different construction) manages fine with just one Wi-Fi/Router device and it covers the entire house fine.

A year back I upgraded most of my Wi-Fi Access Points to Wi-Fi 6 and despite not having Full Fibre that made a big improvement on download speeds over the internet.

But also upgrading can cause weird effects eg two of my older Wi-Fi Access Points became "black holes" for iPhone because iPhone wanted a different level of Wi-Fi encryption so I had the choice of lowering the Wi-Fi encryption across the entire network or upgrading the two problem Access Points. (Issue cause by having WPA3 Access Points on the network elsewhere from the Access Point in use).

 

[si_c]

Wifi performance as noted depends very much on home construction. That being said there are a couple of general things that can be done to improve service throughout the house.

Position your WiFi access point as centrally as possible - keeping it in the corner of the house where service usually comes in means that bedrooms on the opposite side for example will have very poor performance.

Spending the time to do proper cable runs can make a huge difference - ethernet cables into each room means that devices which are bandwidth or latency dependent will get much improved service. If you can't run ethernet, modern (within the last couple of years) powerline devices are much better than a decade ago. They work better across ring circuits and the connection speeds are better. Removing devices from your wifi will also help performance more broadly - static internet connected devices will benefit from a network cable if possible - TV, Sky Box, Games consoles, PCs etc.

Consider a good quality access point using PoE (power over ethernet), which you can fix to a ceiling somewhere - it's just one cable run. I have two, one in the hallway downstairs and one in on the landing. The garage has a Powerline extender which also provides Wifi.

Also keep in mind how consumer gear works - if you have multiple access points (Mesh, Extenders etc) around the house with the same SSID then when a device connects to a particular access point, it will try to hold onto that connection even when a closer AP of the same name with better signal is available. They don't handoff to a closer one particularly well like they would with a cellular connection. This isn't the case with managed enterprise kit as they work slightly differently.

So if you move around the house a lot you may find that connection is really inconsistent and frustrating. Mesh networks can help with this, but they still rely on the connecting device to respect the roaming protocols, which isn't necessarily a given.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

Consider a good quality access point using PoE (power over ethernet), which you can fix to a ceiling somewhere - it's just one cable run. I have two, one in the hallway downstairs and one in on the landing.

Main reason many of my Access Points are PoE is as/so I have one central UPS and when power goes that UPS can keep enough Access Points running together with switches and router.

I also have a couple of outdoor Access Points to provide coverage for when I'm in the garden (sitting outside in summer). PoE makes that a lot easier.

For me this is important as I don't have landline phone and don't have mobile (4G/5G/GSM) coverage so depend on Wi-Fi Calling so depend on in house/garden network to keep phone service during power cuts.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

They don't handoff to a closer one particularly well like they would with a cellular connection. This isn't the case with managed enterprise kit as they work slightly differently.

So if you move around the house a lot you may find that connection is really inconsistent and frustrating. Mesh networks can help with this, but they still rely on the connecting device to respect the roaming protocols, which isn't necessarily a given.

I used to have different Access Points from different manufacturers. Now down to 3 different models of Access Point all from the same manufacturer. In all configurations those Access Points are on the network and not part of any MESH system. They all have the same SSID and password and never had any problem with handoff between them.

Only "handoff" issue has been more Access Point choice by a device where some devices seemed to chose a 2.4 outdoor Access Point over a 5 in room Access Point. enabled all APs to run both 2.4 and 5 and enabled band steering and that resolved the issue - only most Garmin devices still don't support 5 GHz - at least my latest model Edge 1050 only supports 2.4 and not 5 which is beyond disappointing.

 

[si_c]

I used to have different Access Points from different manufacturers. Now down to 3 different models of Access Point all from the same manufacturer. In all configurations those Access Points are on the network and not part of any MESH system. They all have the same SSID and password and never had any problem with handoff between them.

Only "handoff" issue has been more Access Point choice by a device where some devices seemed to chose a 2.4 outdoor Access Point over a 5 in room Access Point. enabled all APs to run both 2.4 and 5 and enabled band steering and that resolved the issue - only most Garmin devices still don't support 5 GHz - at least my latest model Edge 1050 only supports 2.4 and not 5 which is beyond disappointing.

You're probably running enterprise type kit though, so handoff will be better albeit device dependent. I run two WiFi networks - 2.4GHz and 5GHz independent. The 2.4 is for all IoT things and any visitors, 5GHz is for my kit. They run on different vlans and are isolated at my router - a Pfsense box running into my Virgin Cable Modem, which is set to modem only mode.