Question WiFi speed

[Ralston18]

And I will say the non-technical part:

Someone needs to address and resolve the dog's chewing problem.

Not an uncommon problem. However, it will likely take some amount of time and effort by everyone in the family to correct.

Start by talking with your vet.

No matter what technical solutions are applied all will be for nought if the dog continues damaging things. Or your options are limited by that possibility.

No chewing, faster network, everyone happier. Including the dog.

 

[BFG-9000]

I just wanted to point out that an actual 50Mbps is a perfectly reasonable speed for any single-antenna device attached via 2.4GHz there. Given that your AC1200 devices are just 802.11N on 2.4GHz (as Broadcom-proprietary extensions TurboQAM for 256-QAM and NitroQAM for 1024-QAM don't apply both because yours are AC1200 and Atheros-based), at 20MHz wide the maximum theoretical speed would be 72.2Mbps with short guard interval and 65Mbps with long, just like it's been since 2009 .

On 5GHz, the maximum theoretical speed for one antenna stream at 80MHz wide is 433Mbps within ~10' of the router, and since you are using 5GHz for the backhaul too, expect this should be halved (as there's no separate 5GHz radio for the backhaul in those Nest things so they would operate in repeater mode, plus wifi is half-duplex). And nothing wifi ever works at the theoretical speeds.

You have to hide the power cords for those MESH devices anyway so why would ethernet cables be any different? It's not like those devices plug directly into the wall. Note though only the first-gen devices from 2016 had ethernet ports for use as APs--the 2nd gen AC1200 Nest from 2019 omitted those. But it would be a shame to wire them up to ethernet or MOCA only to find it's still 50Mbps because all of your devices are 2.4GHz-only.

I don't know why they still make so many new devices one-antenna 2.4GHz-only.

 

[gta1216]

I got the GoCoax MA2500D adapters. I connected the wall, moca adapter, and modem with coax and 3-way splitter. The moca adapter is connected to the router with Ethernet cable. Is this correct?

Since I didn't order enough coax cable, I cannot connect the other moca adapter to the other room to connect my other router. I have 2 locations without coax outlet so I'd assume those routers are connected via WiFi, but there's no WiFi anywhere.

 

[gta1216]

So basically with my mesh router, there's no point in getting the moca adapters? I don't mind swapping out the routers but I think some of my devices only support 2.4GHz but I could be wrong.

I don't have to hide the mesh routers power cord since the devices are hidden out of sight. If I ran Ethernet from the basement, the only way is run it along the baseboard.

 

[BFG-9000]

With ethernet (and hopefully MOCA) the speed of your 5GHz devices could approximately double, while the 2.4GHz-only devices should stay exactly the same. FWIW, Nest wifi users report the LAN connection of the first puck (that's the one connected to the modem on the WAN port) delivers ~900Mbps, while under optimal conditions the LAN ports of the other pucks in MESH backhaul mode are limited to <400Mbps actual (which is what would get halved when also using 5GHz for wifi). Wiring them in AP mode should make all of them see 900Mbps.

Even the AC2200 model Google Nests are still Wifi-4/N on 2.4GHz so would not improve things on single-stream 2.4GHz--they merely add one antenna for 2.4GHz and two for 5GHz in case you have the rare 3-stream or 4-stream clients to connect to them, which is unlikely. The latest AXE5400 Pro model does have faster 2.4GHz... but only if your 2.4GHz devices are Wifi-6/AX.

To convert a puck into AP mode, you go into the app under Advanced Network settings, Your Wifi Point and select Bridge Mode. It will then even work with other brand routers in case you wish to change to a different gateway router in the future (then you could repurpose all three pucks as APs). If you need more ethernet ports, then a switch can be wired to any of the LAN ports. That may be needed especially on the gateway, given you'd need a pair of MOCA devices for each AP so you would need to attach two of them to the gateway, one for each AP.

Alternating layers of copper and aluminum foil tapes on ethernet or coax cables can help prevent chewing, as with saliva the different metals will generate a mild electric shock, much less than chewing through a mains-voltage power cable would produce! But yes it would be best to remove the baseboard molding to put the wire behind it, or at least shield the cable with conduit or irrigation tubing clamped to the wall. For the cost of new MOCA devices and routers, you might even be able to pay an alarm installer to run the wires inside your walls.