Help with wireless router location

[Face2Face]

In the process of having a house built. The house will be three stories and I have the 14" structured wiring panel on the second floor in the laundry room. I was thinking about having an electrical outlet, Cat5e and RG6 wires pulled into the top of the linen closet in the hallway. Would this be a good location for full coverage? Would heat buildup be a concern? This is exactly in the center of the house on the second floor. I would install my cable modem and wireless router on the top shelf in the linen closet. I have a Netgear WNDR3700, but plan on getting a better one before I move in.

 

[azazel1024]

What kind of square footage? Odds are good with 3 stories you will not have decent coverage over the entire house no matter the router or access point you used.

With regular stick frame construction, you are looking at MAYBE fair to excellent wireless coverage in a single story house to around 2000sq-ft in size with most access points. Multiple stories can increase the size of the house, SOME, but not a lot. Downside is if you are directly above/below the router by much and you'll get crappy signal because the signal propogates the best horizontal from the antennas and the signal strength drops the further off the horizontal plane you are.

Also other things like metal duct work can severly curtail the wireless signal.

My suggestion is, if you are having the house being build, think of centrally located, but also have several pulls around the house. Such as bedrooms, office, living rooms, basement, etc. Considering the cost of a house, paying $300-800 for a dozen LAN drops through out the house is pretty good insurance. You can always have the router located centrally and then install an access point or two to extend coverage (where you won't need coax).

If its a resonably large house I'd plan on one access point per floor. Otherwise you'll have scenarios where you have the wireless signal trying to penetrate a floor at a very accute angle killing the signal trying to go all the way across the house and through a wall or two to boot.

In my house, with my basement router at the far end of the house I have about 2 bars of signal strength on that router about 35ft from it, through the floor and 2 walls. ZERO duct work in my house in the walls/floors to possibly block anything (attic AC unit) I mean, its a connection, but its a lot weaker than I'd want. I also have a living room AP which I can connect to (and my devices will at that point) that bumps it up to full bars and a very healthy and fast wireless connection on my main level on the opposite side of the house.

Often times unless its a small house or you don't mind a weak connection (IE email and websurfing and maybe just streaming) you really need more than one wireless access point to cover most homes. Especially a larger house or one with heavier duty construction (plaster and lathe, concrete, metal duct work in the walls, multiple floors, etc).

 

[Face2Face]

What kind of square footage? Odds are good with 3 stories you will not have decent coverage over the entire house no matter the router or access point you used.

With regular stick frame construction, you are looking at MAYBE fair to excellent wireless coverage in a single story house to around 2000sq-ft in size with most access points. Multiple stories can increase the size of the house, SOME, but not a lot. Downside is if you are directly above/below the router by much and you'll get crappy signal because the signal propogates the best horizontal from the antennas and the signal strength drops the further off the horizontal plane you are.

Also other things like metal duct work can severly curtail the wireless signal.

My suggestion is, if you are having the house being build, think of centrally located, but also have several pulls around the house. Such as bedrooms, office, living rooms, basement, etc. Considering the cost of a house, paying $300-800 for a dozen LAN drops through out the house is pretty good insurance. You can always have the router located centrally and then install an access point or two to extend coverage (where you won't need coax).

If its a resonably large house I'd plan on one access point per floor. Otherwise you'll have scenarios where you have the wireless signal trying to penetrate a floor at a very accute angle killing the signal trying to go all the way across the house and through a wall or two to boot.

In my house, with my basement router at the far end of the house I have about 2 bars of signal strength on that router about 35ft from it, through the floor and 2 walls. ZERO duct work in my house in the walls/floors to possibly block anything (attic AC unit) I mean, its a connection, but its a lot weaker than I'd want. I also have a living room AP which I can connect to (and my devices will at that point) that bumps it up to full bars and a very healthy and fast wireless connection on my main level on the opposite side of the house.

Often times unless its a small house or you don't mind a weak connection (IE email and websurfing and maybe just streaming) you really need more than one wireless access point to cover most homes. Especially a larger house or one with heavier duty construction (plaster and lathe, concrete, metal duct work in the walls, multiple floors, etc).

Thank you, great response. The house is a stick built house under 3000sqft and the third floor is a bonus room. The second is the floor where most of the wireless activity will be. I think I will take your advice and add some cat5e runs on all of the floors just to be sure that I am covered, incase I need some access points. For coverage on the 2nd floor, do you think the linen closet would be okay for placement?

 

[azazel1024]

Based on that, yes, it would probably work great. As for cooling, it should be an issue. Worse comes to worse, you could always cut a couple of small holes and add vents top and bottom to the door of the linen closet, but frankly for something only pulling 5-15w, a closed door linen close will likely dissipate heat enough to not cause any problems. A lot better than sticking it in a hot entertainment center or something which some people do.

I'd also consider running the cat5e for things like desktop computers or any laptops you might want to wire up. Its always best to go wired when you can, If nothing else, it off loads the wireless to free up more bandwidth for the devices that cannot be wired.

So I'd deffinitely do a jack in each room where you might think a router/access point might ever go, but also where ever your entertainment centers might be to hook up media players/streamers/game systems or any bedrooms/possible offices if desktops/laptops might ever be in them for you/spouse/kids.

 

[Face2Face]

Based on that, yes, it would probably work great. As for cooling, it should be an issue. Worse comes to worse, you could always cut a couple of small holes and add vents top and bottom to the door of the linen closet, but frankly for something only pulling 5-15w, a closed door linen close will likely dissipate heat enough to not cause any problems. A lot better than sticking it in a hot entertainment center or something which some people do.

I'd also consider running the cat5e for things like desktop computers or any laptops you might want to wire up. Its always best to go wired when you can, If nothing else, it off loads the wireless to free up more bandwidth for the devices that cannot be wired.

So I'd definitely do a jack in each room where you might think a router/access point might ever go, but also where ever your entertainment centers might be to hook up media players/streamers/game systems or any bedrooms/possible offices if desktops/laptops might ever be in them for you/spouse/kids.

Great, thanks for your response. I will have a Cat5e run to every TV in the house, since I will be using wired Roku's. And I will have a switch at each location to for PC's, consoles etc...


EDIT: I think I am going place the cable modem in the 14" panel (may have to go bigger) and install two of these in my house on the ceiling of the 1st and 2nd floor. Should cover everything.

http://www.ubnt.com/unifi#UnifiHardware

 

[azazel1024]

Sounds like a pretty good setup.