What is best set-up and best location for modem & router

[wally_7777]

Can someone please help me figure out an appropriate set-up. I’m moving to a new house with new provider, etc, and will wire the house for Ethernet which I haven’t done before. Currently I'm at old house just on Wi-Fi, with a few things plugged into the Fios modem/router/combo. I'm not tech savvy, but have been reading up trying to figure this out.

I am planning on purchasing the following equipment:
• Modem: ARRIS / Motorola SurfBoard SB6141
• Router: Netgear Wireless Router - N600 Dual Band Gigabit
• Switch(es): TBD

What I do not know is:
1. Where would be the best place to set up the router. Considerations are in red on pics (family room or media room closet) - my concern here is getting good wifi signal in important areas
2. Best configuration in terms of adding a switch – in both places I’m considering the router I wanted 3-4 ethernet ports (I only need a couple right now at each spot…3-4 was just leaving room for growth). Since the router has 4 ports I assume I can just use one of those for the switch which will cable the rest of the house, and the remaining 3 can be left available for that particular room without doing anything else, right? Or is that a bad idea.

Why I do not know where to put the modem/router:
-From a setup standpoint, the media closet upstairs makes some sense – equipment is out of sight, and I think Ethernet is easily run to three nearby locations.
- But, my main thing is I want a good wi-fi signal in a few places in particular: Family room and downstairs bedroom (most important two places), patio, kitchen area, upstairs game room. I worry having the router in the upstairs media closet will result in a poor signal most of those places. It has to go through a couple walls just to get to the rest of the house. Seems to me based on this router should be in family room’s entertainment center.
Both potential spots are on the edge of the house – unfortunately there really isn’t an available location in the middle. I have a feeling a wireless internet extender will be needed…we will see.


On pic linked below left side is downstairs while upstairs is on right

http://tinypic.com/r/a1ms2d/8

Legend for pics:
Red ovals: Potential Modem/Router locations, and places where Ethernet ports are needed
Yellow ovals: Places I wanted to add Ethernet connections
Blue clouds: Where wi-fi will primarily be used and important

 

[wally_7777]

I failed to mention...as I think about setup part of me wondered whether modem & router should be downstairs in family room, but run Ethernet to media room where a switch would be located that would supply ports/Ethernet cabling to media room, gameroom/landing, and bedroom office. All of those are on that side of the house, and that way I could have router downstairs in area I'm most concerned with wifi, but wouldn't have a lot of Ethernet cables running out of entertainment center. I don't want to complicate this, but since I'm setting this up from scratch would like to do this in sensible way.

 

[DerekVGH]

Two things to keep in mind: 1) Wired is always better than wireless in terms of reliability, and 2) your wireless AP (in this case, router) should be located as centrally as possible to provide the best coverage.

I would choose a location for the switch, like the media closet, and run all your network lines to that point. Run network cable to any locations you plan to have fixed devices, such as desktop PCs, printers, televisions, etc. I recommend running twice as many lines as you think you need, as cable is cheap and it's easy to run when the walls are open. Run two lines to the location where your router/wireless AP will be located - one for the incoming signal from the cable modem and one for the outgoing signal to your switch. If you plan on having more that a few Ethernet lines, I would terminate them to a patch panel in the media closet and patch them to the switch as needed.

For the router, ideally I would locate it on the wall between the kitchen and bath by the stairwell, kitchen side, as high up as possible. If there are cabinets on that wall it could rest on top of them. That would likely give you the best coverage of the house. No matter where you locate it, though, make sure you have an outlet nearby to provide power.

 

[bill001g]

You have a little more flexibility than most since you can have ethernet installed anywhere. I would run 2 drops to every room since the wire itself is not the major costs.

The design most houses work on is there in a central closet someplace that has all the cable connections coming to it. It also tends to have coax and or telephone lines run to the outside of the house. They also tend to have a couple of electrical outlets.

Normally you would place your modem/router at this location and connect it to a switch to distribute to the house. In most cases this is a very poor location for wireless. You can either just buy a router without wireless , turn off the radios, or just ignore it since devices will always choose the strongest signals. The way you then get wireless to the house is to use AP or a router running as a AP. You could put one in every room if you like.

Since you are early on you may want to consider having a ethernet jack placed in the ceiling of some of the rooms. This will allow you to mound a AP on the ceiling which tends to be the optimum location. These are most times powered over the ethernet cable so you do not need a power outlet...you do need a power injector or PoE switch in the central closet though to provide power.

 

[wally_7777]

Two things to keep in mind: 1) Wired is always better than wireless in terms of reliability, and 2) your wireless AP (in this case, router) should be located as centrally as possible to provide the best coverage.

I would choose a location for the switch, like the media closet, and run all your network lines to that point. Run network cable to any locations you plan to have fixed devices, such as desktop PCs, printers, televisions, etc. I recommend running twice as many lines as you think you need, as cable is cheap and it's easy to run when the walls are open. Run two lines to the location where your router/wireless AP will be located - one for the incoming signal from the cable modem and one for the outgoing signal to your switch. If you plan on having more that a few Ethernet lines, I would terminate them to a patch panel in the media closet and patch them to the switch as needed.

For the router, ideally I would locate it on the wall between the kitchen and bath by the stairwell, kitchen side, as high up as possible. If there are cabinets on that wall it could rest on top of them. That would likely give you the best coverage of the house. No matter where you locate it, though, make sure you have an outlet nearby to provide power.

First, thank you for your response. I am not in the house yet and won't have access again for a couple of weeks, but I do not think there is a kitchen location or other central where I could put the router (it would need to be discrete in kitchen and I don't think I have that + power source). With this is mind, it sounds like the living room may be best spot for the router (although I've started to consider the game room area - it's upstairs but opens to the area below...I'd think the signal should be decent downstairs with just the bedroom a concern).

Here is a new pic of potential set-up based on your comments and my (correct or incorrect) takeaways of what I could do. With that in mind, I have a few more questions:
1. Are there issues with this setup:
a. - I'd be running networking cable probably 60' from the modem, and 60' back to the switch - any issue there?
b. as currently structured I wouldn't need to run any networking cable (besides what is being run from modem to router) for living area. I'd take advantage of the extra three ports on the router for all networking needs at the entertainment center area. Additionally I can add another switch here if I needed more ports in the future, correct?
c. Now that I look at this pic again, besides keeping it out of site, is there a good reason to keep the modem in the media closet and not right next to router? That would mean only a couple feet of networking cable to the router instead of 60 or so.
d. If there is no issue with this - would you set up a wall plate with jacks in the living room (one for input from modem, one for output to switch), or do something different (just run cable straight to/from without wall plate/jacks)?

2. Seeing as I'd be running 6 lines out of the media room closet (more than I currently need right now), does this still warrant using a patch panel? As you can tell I'm not tech savvy so the fewer items for me to deal; with/ troubleshoot now or in the future the better. Wasn't sure if 6 was few enough that it wasn't warranted until I grew network more.

 

[wally_7777]

You have a little more flexibility than most since you can have ethernet installed anywhere. I would run 2 drops to every room since the wire itself is not the major costs.

The design most houses work on is there in a central closet someplace that has all the cable connections coming to it. It also tends to have coax and or telephone lines run to the outside of the house. They also tend to have a couple of electrical outlets.

Normally you would place your modem/router at this location and connect it to a switch to distribute to the house. In most cases this is a very poor location for wireless. You can either just buy a router without wireless , turn off the radios, or just ignore it since devices will always choose the strongest signals. The way you then get wireless to the house is to use AP or a router running as a AP. You could put one in every room if you like.

Since you are early on you may want to consider having a ethernet jack placed in the ceiling of some of the rooms. This will allow you to mound a AP on the ceiling which tends to be the optimum location. These are most times powered over the ethernet cable so you do not need a power outlet...you do need a power injector or PoE switch in the central closet though to provide power.

You're saying have a router in the closet (maybe media closet in my case if that is where I store equipment) but I wouldn't use that for Wifi signal? Instead just use it for the routing function and install one (or more) routers for wifi in another area(s) of the house for the wireless connections?

 

[bill001g]

Yes that is the more normal install because most people do not have the option you put in your new diagram.

If you have 2 cable from the closet to the living room you can use 1 to connect wan-modem and the other to connect lan back to switch. It would save 1 piece of equipment. You would of course need 2 UPS if you were going to try to avoid outages due to power.

 

[gbb0330]

I personally don't like wireless routers.
I would go with a simple wired router and wireless access points. Like those:
https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/
if you are dealing with a large house you may want to consider 2 access points.

In general when dealing with wireless the following guidelines apply:

the access point needs to be in the middle of the area where you want coverage.
The access point needs to be as high up as possible.
The access point needs to be as far away as possible from large metal objects like refrigerators and AC units. Metal and reinforced concrete can interfere with wireless signals.

 

[wally_7777]

I personally don't like wireless routers.
I would go with a simple wired router and wireless access points. Like those:
https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/
if you are dealing with a large house you may want to consider 2 access points.

In general when dealing with wireless the following guidelines apply:

the access point needs to be in the middle of the area where you want coverage.
The access point needs to be as high up as possible.
The access point needs to be as far away as possible from large metal objects like refrigerators and AC units. Metal and reinforced concrete can interfere with wireless signals.

Those look pretty good. I'm now thinking Unify APs may be the way to go, with a wired router. They seem an easy way to make sure I get coverage throughout he house...hopefully more equipment won't mean more issues.

Can you tell me - is there an advantage to a wired router vs just buying a router with wireless and turning the wireless access off? Cost maybe? Ease of not having to login to remove wireless connectivity? Originally I was planning on Netgear Wireless Router - N600 Dual Band Gigabit. Digging around I found routers like TP-LINK TL-R600VPN and Cisco-Linksys BEFSR4. Cost is not much different so I wondered if flexibility of having wireless option in case I need it later with original Netgear choice is the way to go.

 

[gbb0330]

I personally don't like wireless routers.
I would go with a simple wired router and wireless access points. Like those:
https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/
if you are dealing with a large house you may want to consider 2 access points.

In general when dealing with wireless the following guidelines apply:

the access point needs to be in the middle of the area where you want coverage.
The access point needs to be as high up as possible.
The access point needs to be as far away as possible from large metal objects like refrigerators and AC units. Metal and reinforced concrete can interfere with wireless signals.

Those look pretty good. I'm now thinking Unify APs may be the way to go, with a wired router. They seem an easy way to make sure I get coverage throughout he house...hopefully more equipment won't mean more issues.

Can you tell me - is there an advantage to a wired router vs just buying a router with wireless and turning the wireless access off? Cost maybe? Ease of not having to login to remove wireless connectivity? Originally I was planning on Netgear Wireless Router - N600 Dual Band Gigabit. Digging around I found routers like TP-LINK TL-R600VPN and Cisco-Linksys BEFSR4. Cost is not much different so I wondered if flexibility of having wireless option in case I need it later with original Netgear choice is the way to go.

some wireless routers don't event have to option to turn off the wireless.
wired routers usually have more advanced networking features, wireless routers in general are jack of all trades - master of none. when it come's to simple home networking it really doesn't matter - wireless router will do just fine.