More Robust Home Network

Kelvarr

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 19, 2001
Messages
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I currently have a Netgear Nighthawk R6000. While doing an adequate job for most of the house, my signal tends to be a little weak upstairs (Upper floor of a bungalow) and on the far end of the house (garage closed in for living space). The router is in the basement, as that's where the cable feed comes in. I don't have much option for moving it, other than moving it around in the basement.

To get to the end of the house, the signal must go through 2 cinder-block walls and about 10 ft of earth. To get to the upstairs, it has to go through the first floor, then the 2nd. While I get signal, it isn't the strongest.

I am looking to make my wireless a little more robust. I am not sure if that would mean just adding a couple more AP's to the Nighthawk, or whether to upgrade to something like the Ubiquiti system. I do have the means to run physical cable to both the enclosed livable garage, and the upstairs.

Option 1 - Add to Nighthawk
While probably the cheapest option, I wonder if I can retain the same SSID? Or will each AP have a new SSID to connect to?

Option 2 - Upgrade to Ubiquiti
Certainly more expensive, right? Also, as I am just really reading about it, I am not sure what all I would need. I think I would just need 3 AP, and an EdgeRouter. I would prefer to run PoE. Also, I'm nearly positive that everything would be under one SSID (or two, since it would be 2.4GHz and 5GHz), and devices would just float to a new AP.





Any suggestions?
 
Have you tried Powerline Ethernet? You can get decent speeds (100-200mbit/s) and just add a cheap AP with the same SSID for good enough signal? Otherwise do it right with option 2. Highly recommend this Router https://mikrotik.com/product/RB750Gr3 with a few POE injectors for the wifi.
 
I've had really good luck with the Ubiquiti Amplifi. I live in a 3 story townhouse. My previous single AP was located on the middle floor towards the back. The speeds were poor in the 1st floor as a whole and parts of the 3rd floor. I have a 150Mbps connection and with the two backhauled range extenders, my speeds went from ~30Mbps on the 1st floor to 130Mbps. The 3rd floor went from 50Mbps with intermittent signal problems to 150Mbps with no signal issues.

Just as another note, I typically have 25-30 devices connected, occasionally going towards 40. With the old AP, they would drop intermittently but with the Amplifi I haven't had that same issue.

While it is a little bit of an investment, it has solved all of my wifi issues and was just plain simple to setup. I deal with enough commercial grade gear at work and just wanted something simple and plug and play at home.
 
I've had really good luck with the Ubiquiti Amplifi. I live in a 3 story townhouse. My previous single AP was located on the middle floor towards the back. The speeds were poor in the 1st floor as a whole and parts of the 3rd floor. I have a 150Mbps connection and with the two backhauled range extenders, my speeds went from ~30Mbps on the 1st floor to 130Mbps. The 3rd floor went from 50Mbps with intermittent signal problems to 150Mbps with no signal issues.

Just as another note, I typically have 25-30 devices connected, occasionally going towards 40. With the old AP, they would drop intermittently but with the Amplifi I haven't had that same issue.

While it is a little bit of an investment, it has solved all of my wifi issues and was just plain simple to setup. I deal with enough commercial grade gear at work and just wanted something simple and plug and play at home.
That's what I want...something a bit better than consumer, but I don't have to go full commercial. I am not opposed to the price of the AmpliFi (considering the UniFi AP's and everything is that price anyway), as long as it gets me better coverage.

What is the difference between the AmpliFi and UniFi? Just the amount of components? And do all 3 components of the AmpliFi put out signal? Or just the two range extenders?
 
Another option is to invest in a mesh system like the Netgear Orbi.

Drop a base unit wherever your internet termination is (assuming first floor).
Then drop satellite units on the second and third floors, strategically placed (probably BETWEEN the two cinder block walls so it only has to penetrate one of them, max.

Also, are either of those cinder block walls actually filled with anything? (Insulation, concrete, etc)

If not, you could fish vertical ethernet runs up the wall and place dedicated APs on each floor. Could even be the Ubiquiti stuff.
Standard APs for most of the house. And swap in an LR for whichever run has to penetrate both cinder block AND earth.
 
I run Ubiquiti stuff:

ERL-3, AP-AC-LR, AP-AC-Pro. You might be able to get away with 1 AP-AC-Lite and an AP-AC-LR. My APs are at opposite sides of my 2600sqft house. Way over kill since the AP-AC-LR (in the center of the house) covered it all before I added the AC-AP-Pro and rearranged to get coverage in my garage.

I have both APs set to the same SSID and all devices roam between the two APs with no issues. I do run the Unifi controller on an older SFF PC running Ubuntu 16.04 but I've run both APs without the controller after they were configured.
 
Another option is to invest in a mesh system like the Netgear Orbi.

Drop a base unit wherever your internet termination is (assuming first floor).
Then drop satellite units on the second and third floors, strategically placed (probably BETWEEN the two cinder block walls so it only has to penetrate one of them, max.

Also, are either of those cinder block walls actually filled with anything? (Insulation, concrete, etc)

If not, you could fish vertical ethernet runs up the wall and place dedicated APs on each floor. Could even be the Ubiquiti stuff.
Standard APs for most of the house. And swap in an LR for whichever run has to penetrate both cinder block AND earth.

Feed comes into the basement. I don't think the cinderblock walls are filled with anything, but there isn't any way to feed anything up them either (unless you just mean by a raceway up the wall, and not in it)



I run Ubiquiti stuff:

ERL-3, AP-AC-LR, AP-AC-Pro. You might be able to get away with 1 AP-AC-Lite and an AP-AC-LR. My APs are at opposite sides of my 2600sqft house. Way over kill since the AP-AC-LR (in the center of the house) covered it all before I added the AC-AP-Pro and rearranged to get coverage in my garage.

I have both APs set to the same SSID and all devices roam between the two APs with no issues. I do run the Unifi controller on an older SFF PC running Ubuntu 16.04 but I've run both APs without the controller after they were configured.

In my head, I was already thinking about 3 AP's. I wasn't sure what else was needed, but by the looks of yours, just an EdgeRouter Lite? Coverage in the garage would be great if I can get it also. Shouldn't be bad/hard, especially if I get 3 AP's.






Also, a question on current placement. I have a couple options for placement, based on where the feed comes in.

1. I can leave it where it is. Basically hugged right up against an outside wall of the house in the basement. Currently, my Nighthawk is just sitting on a box, horizontally, on the floor. For some reason, I feel that this is not ideal, I feel like the wall may be impeding some.

2. I can move it across the basement, centrally located, on a mid-wall. The problem with this spot is that the main furnace/ac runs are directly overhead. All that metal seems that it would hinder my signal.


All that said, I currently do still get 5GHz on the 2nd floor, but I'm sure the speeds aren't great (I've never officially tested them).
 
Feed comes into the basement. I don't think the cinderblock walls are filled with anything, but there isn't any way to feed anything up them either (unless you just mean by a raceway up the wall, and not in it)


At the very top of the wall (in the attic or among the trusswork), is the top of the wall "open"? If so, you SHOULD be able to fish a cable puller down the entire wall. You can then access it for cable runs by drilling small holes into the wall in the necessary spot(s).
 
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