Hey, I didn't really want to hijack the other thread similar to this as I feel my question is a little different. I am just sorting out my new house which is a 3 story town house. WiFi is OK but no great in terms of coverage. My main issue is that my PC is in the home office on the top floor and the other big thing needing internet is the TV on the bottom floor. Everything else is just mobiles and tablets really. I have the money to put in some higher end stuff, whether it is needed or not is another question but I like my hardware. Currently, I am thinking of using these: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asu...ystem-white-6x-antennas-mu-mimo-tri-band-25gb I am thinking I will put the router on the top floor in my office so as to wire my PCs connection (work is a priority) and the other one of these somewhere so that my TV gets a good signal but I have never done anything like this before and my networking knowledge isn't where it once was if I am honest. So I am wondering, does one of these replace my current router or do I need to connect it to my existing one? If that is the case I will replace the homehub thing with a WiFi 6 capable router like this: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asu...mu-mimo-dual-band-24plus5ghz-1148plus4804mbps unless there are better recommendations out there (I am sure they are, but ease fo use is good for me and I am hoping using the same manufacturer helps with this). Expensive I know, but I won't buy anything else for many, many years so may as well do it now while I can. Thanks guys.
Most of these routers don't have modems, so you would wire them into your existing modem I've just tried to resolve my wifi issues in house with some cheap Huawei ax3 wifi routers, these link up mesh style and have managed to get wifi over 3 floors quite nicely and through some solid walls. These are good devices but not really ideal for how I am using them but like you I don't care about ultimate speed elsewhere just for my computers, the rest is for phone/ipad etc, the reason they are not ideal for a multi satelitte mesh is because they don't have a dedicated backhaul, so you share mesh/repeater traffic with the wifi traffic for all your devices, if I knew wifi mesh would work at the start then something tri band like the XT8 or Orbi would have been my choice. Of course the ideal way would be to wire to the APs and create mesh that way, especially for the AX3s but not convenient for me, but if you have just moved in, now is the time to do that, or at least cable between floors. Powerline is a great option, this was what I was using previously but around 40 devices it wasn't coping to well and its latency was going up, I now use this as a separate network just for Sky as the Sky hardware wants to create its own wifi mesh which seems nice but the performance is just not there to supply good fibre boradband around the house and I had frequent TV drop outs, they won't work over none sky wifi, as the moment you enbale their wifi they create a dedicated mesh bypassing your own setup....aaargh, disabling their wifi and going wired with powerline solves this, powerline also works superbly over 30odd metres to get out to my garage.
To be honest, if you just want internet into the office on the top floor and you're satisfied with the wifi performance on the middle floors, just have someone run you a terminated ethernet cable externally up the wall from the lounge to the office. I had it done last year for a shade over £100, including the ethernet sockets mounted to the walls in both rooms. This way, if you put a dumb switch in the office, you could stick in an access point in the office which is hardwired to the router downstairs, increasing coverage.
I have a phone line in the office but not the front room, which is the kitchen right now until I swap them a few weeks. There will be a bit of work going on including moving a door, switching the kitchen to the downstairs snug and the living room from the first floor to the now kitchen. New floors down stairs and likely need carpets on the other floors. Tiling in the bathroom, new floor in bathroom and on suite, landscaping the garden. Moving a door and a boiler, getting a carpenter to build.in an entertainment system and moving good now how many plugs and sockets and at least 2 radiators. Considering all that, depending on cost it may be worth running some cat 6 around the place.
It's always going to be a much better experience with a cabled up solution and then you can distribute your access points suitably around the property. I'm in an older, solid brick interior walled 4 bed, 2 storey so this house forced my hand into hard wiring APs in upstairs. 2x APs is still enough though, with one in the front left room downstairs and the other in the rear right room upstairs, so opposite corners of the property and it's enough to get great wifi speeds throughout and outdoors now.
Seems like hard wiring APs in is the best idea then, so this is where my thinking is so far: 1. Router in my upstairs office - this will give me sufficient WiFi in my bedroom and the guest bedroom/childrens playroom and will will let me hardwire my PC and laptop 2. On the first floor is the children's bedrooms. I have 2 children in each of the 2 bedrooms, with the older 2 needing decent, reliable connections for school stuff, so what would the advice be here? Wiring in connections would likely be 2 much considering they are on the other side of the house to the office and the wife would stand having visible wire and she doesn't want power lines either.The other children should be OK with the wifi from the router in my office or whatever comes from the older children's room. 3. Ground floor. The wife will be calling her mother in Brazil a lot from the kitchen so would need a strong reliable wifi signal here. Living room will also need a strong reliable signal as we watch a lot of films. Ideally, I would like a wired connection to the TV, I attached a picture of how the living room will look. I am thinking about get a point wired to the wall at the rear right right of the lowest shelf and then running a wire to the TV. Just wondering the best way to do this and currently there is nothing there at all. I will be having a lot of wring done in this room as I move sockets and switches as it is so if there is a good option which would go with the then now is the time. Wifi here is useful to as this is where people will be sitting on their phone etc too. My biggest issue is that I haven't kept up with the tech. I want to make sure we are WiFi 6 compatible as I don't want to spend out or lose out going forward. Wife says power lines are a hard no, and she doesn't want to see any wires.
There's plenty of WiFi 6 equipment on the market already, so just double check when you settle on a brand/solution for your home. You can get in-wall solutions too, that replace plug sockets and broadcast WiFi, so that may solve the middle floor attenuation whilst satisfying the wife's instructions. If you're moving walls and lifting carpets/flooring, then that's the time to do it and do it right. Plan carefully where you need APs or ethernet access and install it whilst you're remodelling and save further headaches down the road. I ran my cabling externally around the outside of the property under the guttering to hide it, as is fairly common in the UK, with satellite dish feeds and telephony, so doesn't look out of place. YMMV!!
