Time to redo a home network.

[IHateMyJob2004]

I am getting cable TV via Comcast again (3 year cord cutter) and at the same time I am upgrading my internet speed to 75 Mbps from 25 Mbps.

Cable TV has a nice benefit these days. I can use my android device to watch TV. Better yet, I can tie it into a Chromecast. I just bought a Chromecast to tinker with. In a few days I'll have cable TV and I can see how good waching TV via Chromcast is.

I might move up to a second Chromcast. So worse case is that I'll probably be using Chromcast to watch TV on two devices and playing some online PS4 or Netlix.


I have a 2400 sqft colonial. My neighbors are far enough away that I don't think much about interference from them. I do get a weak signal from their homes on occasion. My current router is a Linksys e1000. I think it is time for this thing to make it's exit. It is currently in the center of my house and that's where the replacement will go.

Areas of concern (areas not immediate to router location):
A) MBR where 1 Chromcast will be located. I don't think I need any special hardware up there. I hope the new router can service this location.

B) basement where I exercise. I want to use the Chromecast to watch TV down there. For some reason, I get a horrible signal down there. I can always move hte Chromecast to a location physically "under" the kitchen and run a long HDMI cable though. so not much issue

C) Home entertainment center. This has a smart TV, Chromecast, PS4, Blu Ray Player. A future receiver. It's alot of crap on wifi. I want to hardware it to a new toy at this location. I want it to be a switch, not a hub. I think what I want is an extender but I specifically want a switch. Preferably an 8 or 10 port device. I can always do a "good extender". Then attach a cheap 10 port switch onto the extenders's ethernet port.

So what should my strategy be? I'm thinking tri band router and an extender for the entertainment center I'm looking to spend about $250. But this is a one time shot so I just want it done right. My strategy is probably going to be a tri-band router upgrade. Then see what happens and then consider an extender. to reduce the number of devices on wifi.

Thoughts? Just do dual band?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

There's nothing wrong with using a beefier access point / router. But remember, that's only half the battle - your client devices have to be able to punch a signal back through to the WAP.

Consider running wires where possible. Air vents are convenient access points to the basement, where cabling can be stapled to exposed joists.

Extenders/repeaters have caused me nothing but trouble - I'd take a pass and run a wire if I were you. Same with PowerLine networking, although some people get it to work reliably. Voodoo.

I'd probably dive a cable down into the basement from the router, stick a 5-port switch down there, and run two other wires - one to the Chromecast in the basement, and the other over and up to the entertainment room (where I'd stick another switch.)

"Wait!" I hear you say, "the Chromecast doesn't have Ethernet!" Oh it doesn't?

 

[Kaido]

So what should my strategy be? I'm thinking tri band router and an extender for the entertainment center I'm looking to spend about $250. But this is a one time shot so I just want it done right. My strategy is probably going to be a tri-band router upgrade. Then see what happens and then consider an extender. to reduce the number of devices on wifi.

I just went 100% wireless at my house, with excellent results:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2463439

I use a combination of a wireless router ($222) & wireless range extender ($116). I pull down 60 megs on the main router & 50 megs on the range extender (1/6 speed loss, much better than the 50% loss on the units I've tried before!). Very happy with the Archer C3200 & RE450 setup (been in use for a month now).

Downside is the price ($338 together, which is outside of your stated budget). Upshot is the reliability & ease of setup. The range extender (which connects wirelessly via a simple WPS push-button sync) does have an Ethernet port if you want to wire up devices to it. However, it's worked so well, I haven't had to do that - in fact, I just cut my last Ethernet line last weekend & haven't looked back. I have houseguests at the moment & currently have just shy of 30 devices connected wirelessly: smartphones, tablets, home entertainment devices (consoles & media players), computers, smarthome gadgets (wifi thermostat, security cameras, etc.), and so on. At night, there are typically three streams going on (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube, etc.). Zero issues.

My suggestion would be to pick up the wireless router first, and then if you see a need for a signal booster, save up & get the wireless range extender later on. This is the only setup that I have ever personally used that has a range extender which connects wirelessly & actually works as advertised. All you have to do to connect the range extender is plug it into power, log into the main router & turn on WPS, and then press the big round button on the front of the extender to sync it. Couldn't be easier!

 

[sdifox]

Three wap>Two wap> one wap. Just run hardwire to each floor and stick a wap on tge end.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Hardwire to the entertainment center would be very difficult due to layout of the house. Otherwise I'd agree. I have thought about doing something that could get me very close though.

Maybe I'll have to look into hard wiring some of the house.

Here's probably the best plan:
1) Upgrade the router
If that is not enough, I'll consider hard wiring and/or range extenders.

I want to improve my home entertainment center (go to a 5.2.4 setup) soon. I have the speakers. Just need a new receiver. But to run wires, I might need to add some moldings. If i do that I might be able to get a wire very close to the location of the router. Long story.

Bottom line I think I'll get the router upgrade first.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Kaiso recommended a Tp link router but m locl best Buy does not stock it.

They do have the NETGEAR - Nighthawk X6 AC3200 for $30 more.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear...lack/7201035.p?id=1219257124935&skuId=7201035

Does anyone have that? If so is it good?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Kaiso recommended a Tp link router but m locl best Buy does not stock it.

They do have the NETGEAR - Nighthawk X6 AC3200 for $30 more.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear...lack/7201035.p?id=1219257124935&skuId=7201035

Does anyone have that? If so is it good?

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/rankers/router/ranking/AC3200/rev8/6

Apparently it's the best one.

I don't think you're likely to see much of an improvement with a 6-band vs. a 3-band though, except if fairly open areas. So you could probably save a few bucks.

 

[JackMDS]

In almost all cases Extenders are useless because they cut the transmission of the signal as it in their receiving into half.

Solution see here - http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2464900

The expensive Wireless Routers (above $250) would make a limited impact only in a large totaly open space with High demand for Streaming Bandwidth, otherwise they are a waste of money.

 

[Kaido]

In almost all cases Extenders are useless because they cut the transmission of the signal as it in their receiving into half.

Solution see here - http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2464900

The expensive Wireless Routers (above $250) would make a limited impact only in a large totaly open space with High demand for Streaming Bandwidth, otherwise they are a waste of money.

I think my top picks, in order, would be:

1. PFsense + wired WAP's
2. Dell Aruba (PoE mesh-style with a virtual controller)
3. Ubiquti's gear
4. TP-Link 3200 + RE450 WAP (100% wireless)

In my current crib, wiring everything would be a huge pain, so I went with #4 - totally wireless. Doing a killer job before. I don't have much requirement for PC to PC wireless transfer, and the effect on my Internet connection is limited (1/6th loss - 60 megs @ router, 50 megs @ extender), so I can't complain too much. This setup is a far cry better than anything else I've used that is similar in the past!

 

[boomhower]

I am a fan of acces points. Put your router a switch at your AV gear and run AP to where they are needed, typically one each floor. I'm a fan of Ubiquiti. Cheap and very very good.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

What band does a laptop connect to on a tri band? . Dies the router decide based on qos? How does this work technically speaking?

BTW, i bought tge net gear x6

 

[dave_the_nerd]

What band does a laptop connect to on a tri band? . Dies the router decide based on qos? How does this work technically speaking?

It communicates on as many bands as it can at once.

If you have a 3-band card in your laptop (typical for high end stuff) and a 6-band router, you get aggregate bandwidth equivalent to three bands (at something like 450Mbps max per band, which is a single 802.11ac channel. Wifi-N, if you'll recall, was 150Mbps per channel, and tri-band Wireless-N routers typically advertised their 450Mbps speeds. Or even 600 for the quads.)

More active bands will also sometimes smooth out errors and give you a more reliable connection.

A lot of cheap devices (I am assuming the Chromecast is one, but I honestly have no idea) use single-band wifi cards. Which leaves a lot of bands sitting idle on your WAP.

QoS is something completely different, and actually doesn't really have anything to do with WiFi. (It's just traffic prioritization in and out of the router, e.g. "make XBox Live more important that Netflix, and Netflix more important than BitTorrent." Although it can be a lot more complex than that when you get down to the nitty gritty of implementation.)

The WAP will also split up its antennae for mixed-mode networks, depending on client load. (So, maybe, 3x 2.4GHz 802.11n channels, and 3x 5GHz 802.11ac channels, depending on which clients it detects and how many.) The details of what it will do in which circumstances are probably not documented anywhere publicly accessible. 2.4GHz is generally much longer range, but slower.

 

[VirtualLarry]

the effect on my Internet connection is limited (1/6th loss - 60 megs @ router, 50 megs @ extender), so I can't complain too much.

have you considered that the range extender may in fact be cutting your bandwith in half after all? the only thing is, that would be your WLAN bandwidth, not your internet bandwidth.

So, say you get 100Mbit/s WLAN bandwidth, if your RE cuts that 50%, that's 50Mbit/s. If your internet connection is 60Mbit/sec, then it might appear that your are only losing 10%, when you might actually be losing 50%.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Virtual,

Thanks. I think everything in my house is single band. So what I'vebeen doing when setting up varius devices is try to split up the devices logically.

For example:
1) PS4 - 5 GHz 1
2) Roku 3 - 5 GHz 2
3) Chromecast - 2.4 GHz

I also have my primary laptop on one of these channels but forget which. Point is, video games get a channel, and the streaming devices get split up on other channels. My wifes phone and laptop are the only devices that could actually recognize all 3 channels. One of them only recognized one of the two 5 GHz bands which I found odd.

I guess I am a bit confused about how to best configure things. I told my laptop about 2 of the 3 bands that the router has. But it is only connected to one of them at any time. And because of this, the router doesn't know that it can connect on other bands if needed so there is no way for real time switching between bands to occur. So the only way to get all the power out of wireless is to have tri band client cards where it actually connects to the router with 3 bands? What would this look like when configuring a laptop?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Virtual,

Thanks. I think everything in my house is single band. So what I'vebeen doing when setting up varius devices is try to split up the devices logically.

For example:
1) PS4 - 5 GHz 1
2) Roku 3 - 5 GHz 2
3) Chromecast - 2.4 GHz

I also have my primary laptop on one of these channels but forget which. Point is, video games get a channel, and the streaming devices get split up on other channels. My wifes phone and laptop are the only devices that could actually recognize all 3 channels. One of them only recognized one of the two 5 GHz bands which I found odd.

I guess I am a bit confused about how to best configure things. I told my laptop about 2 of the 3 bands that the router has. But it is only connected to one of them at any time. And because of this, the router doesn't know that it can connect on other bands if needed so there is no way for real time switching between bands to occur. So the only way to get all the power out of wireless is to have tri band client cards where it actually connects to the router with 3 bands? What would this look like when configuring a laptop?

It's all automatic - create one mixed mode SSID/network and leave it alone. The WAP will give as many clients as many channels as possible, you don't have to do anything. (All you would accomplish trying to control it is divide your potential wifi bandwidth into penny packets that don't do anybody any good.)

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

How do I create a mixed mode network? I don't think I have any clients that can work with dual band or tri band.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

How do I create a mixed mode network? I don't think I have any clients that can work with dual band or tri band.

Mixed mode means it works with both 2.4GHz/5GHz.

I'd be surprised if you didn't have some clients that were at least 2x2 (dual band.) But it doesn't matter what clients support. Leave the defaults alone (they're default for a reason) and the router will handle assigning as many channels as it can to as many clients as it can.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Mixed mode means it works with both 2.4GHz/5GHz.

I'd be surprised if you didn't have some clients that were at least 2x2 (dual band.) But it doesn't matter what clients support. Leave the defaults alone (they're default for a reason) and the router will handle assigning as many channels as it can to as many clients as it can.

So i need to provide credentials on a per channel basis and hope that things work?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

So i need to provide credentials on a per channel basis and hope that things work?

At this point, meaning no disrespect, I'm honestly not sure that whatever it is you're talking about when you say "channels" is what I'm talking about when I say "channels".

If you're providing a client credentials, it should be for a particular SSID, what most people would think of as a "Wi-Fi network."

A router hosting a single Wi-Fi network, can operate multiple channels and parallel for additional bandwidth. You will occasionally see wireless cards or routers listed as 2X2, or 3X3. This refers to the number of channels which can be used simultaneously to carry traffic for the same Wi-Fi network. Using, for example, wireless-n, which broadcasts 150 Mb per second per channel, a 3 x 3 router can transfer 450 Mb per second. The numbers are correspondingly higher for AC. A wireless access point, or a wireless card, is limited to a number of channels equal to the number of antennae. So it's usually pretty easy to look at a picture of a router, with its antenna sticking up behind it, and figure out how many channels it supports.

When you have clients that are "mixed mode", meaning that you have a mix of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz clients, the router has to decide which of the channels to operate at which frequency. It will do this based on the number of clients connected to it, and their respective frequencies.