Help with planning wireless network

plainzwalker

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Dec 10, 2005
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I am trying to weight the options between just putting in a 802.11ac wireless network in our house (4300 sq ft, 3 levels, drywall/wood interior walls) or try and figure out how I can get cat 6 ran to all the locations.

We will have Verizon's 75/75 network, instead of using their router I will be using a pfSense box, and then having one of their red band routers slaved on a different sub-domain to service any FIOS features that require it.

Our network will consist of the following:

2-3 laptops
2-3 tablets
2+ phones
4 game consoles
desktop pc
synology (right now a media server, but will be a backup server later on)
media server
1 apple tv
2 amazon tv
other various small network stuff (usb print server)

We are also looking at using Tivos instead of STBs.

So what I am looking at is 1 802.11ac WAP for the base wifi, and then use repeaters through out the house wherever the signal starts to get weaker. For devices like the desktop and that are wired and don't support the 802.11ac standard I was looking at using "media extenders" or wifi to ethernet bridges.

Does this sound like a feasible option in place of a wired/wireless combo network? I know that wired will always be superior, but it might not be an option for all the areas that I want connected without doing some major work to the house itself. I also thought about ethernet powerline adapters, but because of the different circuits that I know are in the house that would not be a viable option.


Thank you
 
You will be MUCH happier using several wireless N600 (dual band) access points distributed throughout the house. Use POE and tie them back to your pfSense box.

Repeaters are usually disappointing in their performance. If you get a dual band repeater and use the 5Ghz link back to the base, you can get decent reception but using something like the UniFi system from Ubiquiti which has more active management will give you much better roaming between APs.
 
Powerline adapters have come a long way and can go across breakers and even phases, they even have powerline adpaters wih WAP built into them (granted they will have less tx/rx power then a dedicated router configured as a WAP).

The powerline will for sure be better then a repeater ever will be due to the latency and having to cut the bandwidth in half.

Naturally running cat5 or cat6 will be best but powerline is the next best thing.


Just FYI if you are looking at cabling there is almost no benefit for a home user to run cat6 over cat5e. The only benefit 6 offers for a home user is better rf shielding. Cat6 would have been a very good choice had they made 3gbps network hardware but since we went straight from 1 to 10gbps switches and hardware Cat6 has almost no benefit. This is why Cat6 price plummeted not long after it came out. Not to mention terminating the thicker cat6 is more difficult.
 
Solution
I was looking at using UnFi access points when planning on wiring the house anyways. So going with Ethernet powerline adapters would be a good solution even if they will be on different circuits? In the basement is a completely different beaker panel than the other two floors, how would this effect the powerline adapters?

If I did go that route to the N600s what type of throughput would I be looking at? I do a lot of large file transfers across the network as well as media streaming so the network can get a lot of use simultaneously.

Thank you.
 
The synology, media server and pfsense will all be attached to the same switch. It's just all the other devices that I am trying to figure out.

I am using a 200Mbit powerline adapters right now and I am lucky to get 10-12Mbit over them now and that's on the same circuit in a house only 5 years old (albeit it is in Germany). I don't see how powerline adapters would be any better anywhere else. Maybe if there was a money back guarantee I might try them again.
 


They have 500mbps adapters now and they have advanced a good bit over the last few years.
Most get around 70-80 mbps real world speed from the 500mbps adapters.
 
Okay, so with a layout like so:

ONT -> pfSense -> switch -> TP-LINK TL-PA6010 -> TP-LINK TL-PA6010 -> N600 Access points (not sure the brand though)/gigabit switches (for office/entertainment center/other points with multi devices)

This should be almost as good as a wired network theoretically correct? I wonder if I were to buy the powerline adapters from a box store and I am not happy with the performance if they would take them back for a full refund.
 
Okay, after doing some reading I think I will go with either TP-Link TL-PA6010s or ZyXel PLA5205 for the powerline adapters, TP-Link AC1750 Archer C7 for primary WAP, and the only problem is I can't find a powerline WAP that I like. So maybe what I might do is have two of the Archer C7s setup so they will do the whole pass off thing and I would never lose wifi on any of the portable devices like phones and tablets?