Home wiring wire and wireless questions

[slicksilver]

I've been told very lately about this and I still think done carefully fully functional internet access is possible.

My parents are about to finish their home and network cabling apparently hasn't been done. It should have but wasn't. The house has ground plus three floors. Ground has parking and a small room which is the cable management room. Cables like cabletv, telephone wire and cctv wire are currently available to all parts of the house but network cable hasn't been wired. The contractor told me yesterday that network cable can be installed now without issues and given to all the areas in the house.

Question is :

1. What cable should I get for the wiring?
2. Is a rack switch necessary for cable management?
3. What types of wireless routers should I get?

House has been built with concrete and steel. Slab between the floor is 8 inch thick. Walls in rooms and between rooms are 6 inch thick.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Shyatic]

get cat6 for futureproofibg, get the unifi access points for each floor, with drops in the ceiling to mount them (in a central area like a hallway) get a freestanding rack (pretty cheap and you can check Craigslist), and get a good router like a tplink or Asus.

you also need a cat6 patch panel (monoprice), and everything should be labeled and traced.

 

[s44]

everything should be labeled and traced

^^^ most important part

 

[Eug]

Cat6a ideally.

 

[slicksilver]

get cat6 for futureproofibg, get the unifi access points for each floor, with drops in the ceiling to mount them (in a central area like a hallway) get a freestanding rack (pretty cheap and you can check Craigslist), and get a good router like a tplink or Asus.

you also need a cat6 patch panel (monoprice), and everything should be labeled and traced.

Thanks for your reply. One access point per floor? Each one has about 400 feet range. Will it not be an overkill?

LR has 600 feet range. Should I get the LR or AP from Unifi?

Thank you EUG, S44

 

[lexco]

I Cables like cabletv, telephone wire and cctv wire are currently available to all parts of the house but network cable hasn't been wired. The contractor told me yesterday that network cable can be installed now without issues and given to all the areas in the house.

So if it is possible to extend cable from modem to each floors, it is not necessary to have AP in every floor.

One access point per floor? Each one has about 400 feet range. Will it not be an overkill?

LR has 600 feet range. Should I get the LR or AP from Unifi?

If you feel the thickness of the slab can really slow down the wireless signal, I recommend the stronger one to penetrate it.

 

[Eug]

How big is that house? It sounds like an upscale house, and a really big one.

I have a pretty large house, but not a super ginormous one, and it's mostly wood construction, so wireless signal would work better in my house than your parents' cement one. I have a strong WiFi access point - Airport Extreme - with the unit centrally placed, but I still have problems with reception at the outer edges of the range. So much so that 5 GHz is not very useful, and 2.4 GHz gives me better performance than 5 GHz, despite the fact there are several competing 2.4 WiFi networks in the neighbourhood nearby.

However, while I can surf nearly everywhere in the house, I can't watch HD video reliably in all locations, because the transfer rates in those spots often drop well below 5 Mbps. So, right now I'm actually running 4 access points in the house. I have my Airport Extreme still centrally placed, but I have 3 more cheap lower range access points strategically placed in rooms where I sometimes might want to have HD video access.

Unforunately, in my setup, I have had to use different SSIDs for all the access points. Otherwise with this consumer hardware if I made the SSID the same for every access point, I'd have problems where a client might hang onto a distant access point too long. This way I have to manually switch when I move to a different room, but only if I plan on watching HD video in that room. A hassle, but workable on the cheap. (The extra access points only cost me another $40 combined for all three - TP-Link TL-WR720N.)

I was considering a Unifi setup as recommended in this thread, but didn't go that way due to cost at this time. I will reassess in 1-2 years, when 802.11ac Unifi access points should be cheaper and more available, and when I actually have 802.11ac clients. The benefit of Unifi is they have an interesting "Zero Handoff" feature which turns a bunch of separate WiFi access points into one big swarm of access points, which gets seen by the client as just a single access point (not several different access points with or without the same SSID). The access points negotiate amongst themselves in real-time which serves the client, and all of this is invisible to the client. I don't know how well this works in the real world, but in a few months we'll have more reviews.

 

[Mixolydian]

Cat6 and patch panel. You can use whatever switch/router you want.

 

[JackMDS]

Thanks for your reply. One access point per floor? Each one has about 400 feet range. Will it not be an overkill?

There is No WIFI overkill in such environment.

House has been built with concrete and steel. Slab between the floor is 8 inch thick. Walls in rooms and between rooms are 6 inch thick.

Better spend a little now than spending it later on Boxes of tissues to wipe the tears and prescription Zantec.

 

[slicksilver]

Each floor has about 2000 square foot carpet area. Overall 4 bedrooms. BTW I'm located in India.

Think I'll go with Unifi AP LR one each on each floor. I think it should suffice. I'll report back once the installation is done.

Thanks again

 

[Eug]

8000 square feet? Big! Especially big considering the walls and floors are concrete.

I'm thinking 4 Unifi access points may not be enough. What are the dimensions of each floor? What about 2 access points per floor?

 

[slicksilver]

8000 square feet? Big! Especially big considering the walls and floors are concrete.

I'm thinking 4 Unifi access points may not be enough. What are the dimensions of each floor? What about 2 access points per floor?

Its ground plus three floors. The ground floor(stilt) is for parking. The three floors are 2000 each totaling to 6000. I'll have to check with the contractor if 2 outlets per floor can be accommodated per floor now.

 

[marcplante]

Also, if there are spots that you KNOW will be used (entertainment centers, office locations with obvious desk spots), by all means go ahead and drop in a hard line. Wireless is nice, but cables will provide simpler, more reliable service, especially for streaming or other high bandwidth applications.

 

[Shyatic]

Just a tip -- make sure that the contractors add the CAT6 in a conduit, so if you want to upgrade/change/rip out/etc -- you can do it with relative ease. If it's buried in the wall without any conduit you're going to have a huge issue.

The Unifi APs are great -- I've set them up a few times and they just work. The only catch is you will have to have a server to house the software on. You can reassess when they go into the new models but honestly for the price they are excellent, and with my personal use case being tablets and laptops for internet speed (which at this point even G speeds can suffice because my connection isn't faster than the wifi I have), it will be futureproof for at least 3 or 4 years until my internet speeds have significantly picked up.

I'd suggest something like a Dell PowerConnect switch with more ports than you need (because it sucks when you need them later!). The rack would be something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Netshelter-2po...=computer+rack You will need to buy a few shelves for it most likely, as well as rack screws to attach your patch panel and switch at the top, along with a good surge protector as well.

For the Unifi APs, you will need an external power over ethernet adapter (they are included) but make sure you mount these near the patch panel, and not in the ceiling where your APs are. Just have a network cord to the AP, and power it in the rack. That way everything is centralized and simple.

Hope this helps -- I've done a buildout in my own home after I bought it (and it was already built so even tougher!) and I've followed a lot of the same advice. Using non enterprise APs is a pain because they don't hand off from one to another, so the Unifis are actually a huge benefit in terms of simplicity and usability.

 

[Shyatic]

Also, if there are spots that you KNOW will be used (entertainment centers, office locations with obvious desk spots), by all means go ahead and drop in a hard line. Wireless is nice, but cables will provide simpler, more reliable service, especially for streaming or other high bandwidth applications.

I'd go a step further... the cost to have a drop early is next to nothing vs trying to put one there after the fact. Every bedroom should have two drops in an area where a TV *might* go. The kitchen should have a few drops. The living room and family room as well. Garage should have two. Why? Because why the hell not? Want to have a SONOS setup in your garage, and your wifi sucks balls? Then yea, now you have a hard line and you can play your music in your garage. As I said, the cost of drops when you're doing construction is almost nothing, and to add switch ports (which is why i said get a big switch) is also very cheap, so just add as many as possible. It will future proof your house and if it's all done in conduit, you can pull them back and put CAT7 in whenever that comes out

 

[Eug]

Yeah, put CAT6 drops EVERYWHERE, in at least pairs, even if it means spending a few thousand extra now, cuz you can't easily do it later.

BTW, I have almost a couple of dozen WIRED Ethernet devices in my house now. This includes numerous computers of course, but also includes stuff like Airport Express units for audio distribution, NASes, IP cameras, video streaming boxes, Blu-ray (and HD DVD) players, game consoles, WiFi access points, etc. Just a decade ago, I could count on one hand the number of wired devices.

 

[slicksilver]

Mega thanks to you all. Makes my talk with the contractor now much more sensible and practical.

 

[s44]

The Unifi APs are great -- I've set them up a few times and they just work. The only catch is you will have to have a server to house the software on.

Note that you only have to keep the control software running if you want to use certain features like guest wifi sign-in. For most setups you can just set the system up on your laptop/desktop, disconnect, and forget about it.

 

[Eug]

Note that you only have to keep the control software running if you want to use certain features like guest wifi sign-in. For most setups you can just set the system up on your laptop/desktop, disconnect, and forget about it.

How come guest wifi sign-in requires the control software? Do these not support multiple SSIDs with multiple distinct IP ranges without the extra software?

 

[s44]

Sorry, didn't mean just setting up a separate SSID but actually having a captive portal setup.

 

[thekobyring]

Yeah, a cat6 would be a great option for you. If you have other inquiries, just say so.

 

[jaydenkintore]

I have read a blog just now and it showed the differences of cat5 and cat6. In the end, cat6 is far better.