Ideal Setup for Modem/router combo to PoE switch to 3 APs

[lovemachine239]

Hello there,

I live in a housing co-op that has recently had very unreliable internet. It can't seem to cope with the number of users we have (13 total, which means many more devices).

The setup that we have is as follows:
A wireless router/modem combo, provided by our ISP. This router has four Ethernet ports on the back.

Via a single cat5 Ethernet cable, the router is connected to a 100mbps Netgear switch that has 3 PoE ports, and 5 regular Ethernet ports.

The switch then uses its 3 PoE ports to connect three OM2P-HS 300 wireless access points.

Recently, the wireless network has been cutting out. I think there are two reasons, one is the way in which the router/modem are stacked on top of each other which might be causing them to overheat. This is a simple fix, just need to get a shelf installed.

The second reason is that there is one single cat5 Ethernet cable that connects the switch to the router. Theoretically, this means that the maximum simultaneous bandwidth from each AP would be limited to ~33mbps. I imagine a major improvement could be made by connecting 3 Ethernet ports from the router to three Ethernet ports on the switch and assigning each AP to one of these cables. Is this possible? If so, how would I go about doing it?

Any other suggestions or recommendations for the best set-up given the current hardware, would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading and helping me out 😀

Brandon

 

[thx1138v2]

Heat, which you can cure, and the number of devices, which you can't cure, being served by one modem/router are the problems.

Each switch only has one incoming line some you can't feed the switch with multiple ethernet lines. Having multiple switches might help but not much. The data still has to come through the single modem/router.

You can only pump so much data though a single modem. Actually you might cure the devices per modem by getting the ISP to drop a second line and modem/router if you can talk everyone into it. Better yet, get two extra lines and have each AP on its own modem/router and each AP using a different frequency band.

But you might still have radio channel problems. Scroll about half down this first link to get to the wireless interference discussion.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/802-eleventy-what-a-deep-dive-into-why-wi-fi-kind-of-sucks/
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/179344-how-to-boost-your-wifi-speed-by-choosing-the-right-channel

 

[USAFRet]

I imagine a major improvement could be made by connecting 3 Ethernet ports from the router to three Ethernet ports on the switch and assigning each AP to one of these cables. Is this possible?

Not even a little bit.
You entire network will fail, horribly.

1. What is the overall bandwidth coming into the house?

2. You need a 10/100/1000 switch.

 

[lovemachine239]

Hey guys thanks for the responses.

I think the major issue is wireless interference. Thanks for sending those links @thx1138v2. Our APs only broadcast on 2.4GHz, and most of the channels within that band in this neighborhood are very busy. I think a long term solution would be to upgrade to APs that broadcast on the 5GHz band as well. In the meantime I think I will try and get a 10/100/1000 switch and mess with the radio channel settings in the APs.

Thanks everyone.