[SOLVED] Best option for wifi coverage in house

[shobuddy]

My modem & router are currently in the basement of a two story house. The router feeds ethernet ports on the 1st and 2nd floors. Given this setup, what is the best option to get wifi coverage throughout the house? I would like to leverage the ethernet ports for wifi coverage which should give a stronger signal and bandwidth vs using a mesh system. I've read and heard a little bit about access points. Would APs be the best option, given the scenario?

 

[Wrecker75]

No huge knowledge of mesh or APs, but I'd suggest just getting a cheap stand alone router for the basement and move the WiFi router to the 1st floor (maybe even the second since the basement has wire) as near the middle of the house as you can get and coverage should be decent unless the house is HUGE, you have other electrical interference or brick walls.

 

[bill001g]

Mesh is mostly just fancy marketing they call everything mesh. They would call a washing machine that had wifi mesh.

It is mostly just a more advanced repeater.

Enterprise installs still used the standard AP connected via ethernet. You do not need actual AP most routers can run as AP. It is mostly a matter of costs which you choose.

Mesh tries to claim seamless roaming but that is a outright lie since the end client controls where it connects and you will always take small outages when it changes. Almost nobody needs roaming anyway. You can buy ubiquiti AP and their free controller will force a disconnect when it thinks there is a better signal but it is hit and miss. The so called mesh device are doing the same thing and it only sorta works.

It is simpler for the human running the end device to know when a better signal is available and just stop and start the wifi client to force a reconnect.

 

[shobuddy]

No huge knowledge of mesh or APs, but I'd suggest just getting a cheap stand alone router for the basement and move the WiFi router to the 1st floor (maybe even the second since the basement has wire) as near the middle of the house as you can get and coverage should be decent unless the house is HUGE, you have other electrical interference or brick walls.

The issue is that the ethernet feeds on the upper levels all come from the router in the basement. I'm using a fios quantum modem and router in one device. My basement is unfinished. As of now my coverage is still ok throughout the house, however, as we are going to be finishing the basement, I expect this will weaken the signal. What you are suggesting would create two networks, right?

 

[shobuddy]

Mesh is mostly just fancy marketing they call everything mesh. They would call a washing machine that had wifi mesh.

It is mostly just a more advanced repeater.

Enterprise installs still used the standard AP connected via ethernet. You do not need actual AP most routers can run as AP. It is mostly a matter of costs which you choose.

Mesh tries to claim seamless roaming but that is a outright lie since the end client controls where it connects and you will always take small outages when it changes. Almost nobody needs roaming anyway. You can buy ubiquiti AP and their free controller will force a disconnect when it thinks there is a better signal but it is hit and miss. The so called mesh device are doing the same thing and it only sorta works.

It is simpler for the human running the end device to know when a better signal is available and just stop and start the wifi client to force a reconnect.

Agreed, never been a fan of mesh. I prefer to have the signal broadcast devices hardwired, hence the AP thought. I'll try playing around with using a modem as an AP.

 

[bill001g]

No it is all one network. Just think of a AP as remote radios you can add to your router.

 

[shobuddy]

No it is all one network. Just think of a AP as remote radios you can add to your router.

So the wifi router on the 1st floor would essentially be an AP?

 

[Wrecker75]

If you aren't having any issues as it sits now, I don't really see a layer of sheet rock and maybe some insulation causing a problem. If it turns out to be an issue, you can connect any decent wifi router to a line on one of the upper floors and use that to cover the house for wifi it will still connect to other devices on the network through the router in the basement so if you are using something like a printer or storage over the the network the wireless devices would still have access. There would just be 2 wireless networks and you could even disable the wifi on the one in the basement. At least to the best of my knowledge.

 

[bill001g]

So the wifi router on the 1st floor would essentially be an AP?

That is the key to making it work is to run the router as a AP. Actually using the "router" part of the device will create 2 ip networks making file shares complex. Most routers have a AP function now days but you can run any router as a AP by cabling to lan port rather than wan, make sure lan ip does not conflict and disable dhcp