Home Networking...

[Murgatroy]

*Alright, disclaimer, I know my way around a circuit board, and build all of my own machines, but honestly, I haven't messed with much on the scope of networking. For the sake of ease, assume I am a noob, but understand I don't need everything spelled out for me.*

 

I need all new hardware. I will not be renting from the cable company. We have multiple devices that require WiFi access for day to day use, including Netflix/Amazon Prime streaming for extended periods.

 

It is a 2000sq home, two floors and garage will require access as well.

 

We are dumping cable programming and using internet only.

 

Upstairs office will be main connectivity. Three wired desktops.

 

Additional upstairs connectivity needed for wireless.

 

Downstairs will require a repeater with wired access as well as WiFi for the rest of the connected devices.

 

Garage will also require a repeater with wired access.

 

I am thinking I will require one modem/WiFi router and two repeaters with wired access. One repeater will require 2+ ports for Blu-Ray player and XBOX 360.  All other gaming consoles are WiFi enabled. 

 

I am cheap, so I want to do this for under $200. Dream would be to include a Sonos or similar set-up down the road (and I am open to suggestions on that as well.)

 

Thoughts/Opinions?

 

Garage Repeater

 

Living Room repeater

 

I have no idea on the modem, and I am not set on the above repeaters, this is all new for me, so I am open for suggestions/experience.

 

 

 

 

[btq96r]

Why so many wired connections?  That's what could blow up your budget from what I can see.

[rmiddle]

After rereading it twice.  I think you overall layout is fine although I generally prefer to use wired connections for anything that isn't portable so I would recommend you running additional ports.

 

 

Why so many wired connections?  That's what could blow up your budget from what I can see.

 

If he is planing to run a lot of HD streams though his network then wired ports are the best way to support the video needs.

 

Thanks

Robert

[btq96r]

If he is planing to run a lot of HD streams though his network then wired ports are the best way to support the video needs.

 

Thanks

Robert

 

Reading the need for all those drops makes me think he's running server stacks from home.

 

If HD streaming is the need, I'd just stay with wireless and set up a bandwidth cap for each IP address so no one device can suck down too much at a time.  7-10MB per device should be enough for multiple HD streams.

[Murgatroy]

Because I haven't ever built a desktop with WiFi, but they all have integrated LAN ports. Thus four desktops that require wired connections. Three upstairs and one in the garage.

 

Thus I am looking at repeaters that have a wired port on them, not running them off of a drop. Though realistically I could drop to the garage as it is directly beneath the office, however I would prefer to avoid it as I think a third WiFi spot in the garage would ensure no dead spots in the house or backyard.

[btq96r]

Because I haven't ever built a desktop with WiFi, but they all have integrated LAN ports. Thus four desktops that require wired connections. Three upstairs and one in the garage.

 

Thus I am looking at repeaters that have a wired port on them, not running them off of a drop. Though realistically I could drop to the garage as it is directly beneath the office, however I would prefer to avoid it as I think a third WiFi spot in the garage would ensure no dead spots in the house or backyard.

 

Some of these would allow your desktops to get wifi, and at ~$15 a pop, they aren't too bad.

http://www.target.com/p/linksys-n300-usb-wireless-adapter-black-ae1200-4a/-/A-15181364?ref=tgt_adv_XSG10001&AFID=google_pla_df&LNM=15181364&CPNG=Electronics&kpid=15181364&LID=10pgs&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=15181364&kpid=15181364&gclid=CI_Dgr7A_8UCFdgGgQod8AcAVQ

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/belkin-n600-dual-band-wireless-n-usb-adapter/2089176.p?id=1218308702443&skuId=2089176&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=2089176&extensionType=pla:g&s_kwcid=PTC!pla!!!85355560999!g!!55674106159&kpid=2089176&k_clickid=d06c62b5-51da-46ef-82d3-e65e1667a9a9&kpid=2089176&lsft=ref:212,loc:1&ksid=d06c62b5-51da-46ef-82d3-e65e1667a9a9&ksprof_id=401&ksaffcode=pg2644&ksdevice=c

 

Buy as you go along to only get what you need.  You aren't getting anything in bulk, so there wouldn't be much savings for individual purchases unless shipping costs are involved.  Set up the wifi in stages, run tests at different locations to see how strong coverage is and only add repeaters as needed.  Get a good router and you might not need as many repeaters as you think for only 2,000 sq ft.

[analog_kidd]

Be careful of "repeaters". They take a wireless signal and pass along a re-boosted signal. Great for getting Wi-Fi to a place that you can't reach with ethernet cables. However, the signal will bottleneck and only be as strong as the signal it can receive. So if the signal you can get from wherever you place it is weak, you'll just be passing along a weak signal. Also, a repeater can only EITHER transmit or receive at any given moment, it can't do both like a hotspot, switch or router. What that means is you start of with half the bandwidth you think you should have.

 

The better option is to use hotspots that can be wired with ethernet cables. If you can get cables to your hotspots you'd be way better off. If you have an old wireless router laying around, most times you can turn them into a hotspot.

 

A good plan would be to put a gigabit switch in a central location, then run Ethernet cables to each location that requires a wired connection, plus wire your modem/router and each hotspot into the switch, and then use wireless cards for the stuff you don't want to run cables to.

 

I've had mixed results with WiFi cards in PC's. I bought a top of the line wireless modem / router and my work laptop would connect but had horrible reception. My wife's laptop worked just fine with it. I ended up putting a hotspot in that sits right next to the modem just so I could connect with my laptop. I have a home theater PC with one of those USB WiFi adapters (no external antenna) sitting about 15' from the hotspot and it gets mediocre, at best, reception. I also have a Raspberry Pi computer that I'm playing with as a Media center, and it has a similar USB adapter, and it works great. My PC in the office has a PCI WiFi card with 3 external antennas, and it gets pretty good reception, and it is twice as far away and around a few more corners than the HTPC is. From my personal experience, if you are going to do WiFi cards, get ones with antennas for best reception.

 

I'm going to either replace the USB adapter in the HTPC with a PCI card, or just go ahead and wire it in. I ran an Internet speed test, and I'm getting 5mb/s with the current setup. I then strung a cable all the way across the floor to the modem and got 25mb/s. For streaming movies, I want the faster speed. It's so frustrating to see the movie stop every so often to wait for it to buffer.

 

A $200 budget may be cutting it close, but like I said if you can reuse equipment, or get stuff from friends, or buy used from Craigslist, you can save some money. 

 

Good luck

Edited June 8, 2015 by analog_kidd

[Dolomite_supafly]

I would think that if you got a decent wireless router you should be able to use it anywhere in the house. I know my signal is useable to about 300 feet from the router outside of the house. It sits at one end of the house and I get a great signal 50 feet away at the other end of the house. I do see some degradation but it is not so bad, 23MBs at the router and ~19MBs wirelessly 50 feet away. My router is just the one that came with our DSL setup but the Linksys router I ran before worked just as good.

[peejman]

I would think that if you got a decent wireless router you should be able to use it anywhere in the house. I know my signal is useable to about 300 feet from the router outside of the house. It sits at one end of the house and I get a great signal 50 feet away at the other end of the house. I do see some degradation but it is not so bad, 23MBs at the router and ~19MBs wirelessly 50 feet away. My router is just the one that came with our DSL setup but the Linksys router I ran before worked just as good.

 

 

I'd tend to agree with this.  My house is also 2000 sqft (all on one level) and I get decent signal in my driveway and on the back patio.  I think I have a Linksys router as well... I had to buy a new one a couple years ago but don't remember what I bought.

 

I also had to add a wireless card to my PC.  I got an external antenna for it just to ensure high signal strength.  The PC is a good 30 ft from the router, across 2 interior walls. 

[Sam1]

From a recommendation here about 2 years ago, I bought an Asus RT-AC66R.  It's on the top floor on the side of the house and covers (with a minimum of 80% signal strength - measured with an app on my phone) the entire house (2500sq/ft) even down to the opposite side of the house in the movie room in the basement.  I stream HD movies to a device down there on a regular basis with no issues.

 

It also covers 2~ acres outside, so when I'm streaming tunes on the cellphone and mowing the yard, it never breaks up.

 

That model looks like it's only $129 now, I'd have zero issues recommending this to anyone, even though it's an older model.  Hell, the newer ones may even be better.

[mikegideon]

My two cents... My house is wired upstairs, and wireless downstairs. The modem, router, shared printer has always been upstairs. My wired connectoins have always been solid. Wireless bandwidth is not unlimited, and throttles back when there is a bump in the signal. I don't use wifi for anything if there's an available ethernet spigot. My network is easily 10 years old. All the hardware has been upgraded, but same wire.

[CommsNBombs]

Are you totally sold on wireless?

You can do a switch and just run Cat5 cable to all your devices, a lot easier to troubleshoot when something goes down.

With wireless you have your different 802.11x protocols which differ from NIC/Wifi Dongle. Then your broadcast freq of 2.4GHZ and 5.0GHZ...which can be interfered with. Then you take into account how SHF (super high freq) propogates dependant on antenna structure and atmospheric conditions and dBm and amplification and you have a new headache.

Granted...a lot of the newer dual band routers by ACER, ASUS and Linksys have ethernet ports so you can hardwire what you are out of range.

Repeaters do get a little wonky, they are more like relays than retransmitters; you can lose dBm gain and range, plus that is a whole new propogation issue to take up on.

Hard wiring is a lot better...granted, in the Army we dont touch wireless EVER but at home I have an Asus dual band with ethernet running to systems I am not in range of.

Then you have network security to keep in mind. Make sure you go with WPA2. And look up a password hasher to complicate your login.

On Kali Linux I can boot up 10 different programs and bash scripts to force entry/destroy your connection...its an easy skill to acquire...and its good practice you dont need some 17 year old basement dweller metasploiting you and then DDOSing your router with hping3 while he just sidejacked your banking session with Ferrer/Hamster.

You can PM me if need be; I can get super "full retard" with this stuff as I do it everyday on the Greensuit side.

[mikegideon]

You need wireless too. Wireless used to be tweaky to set up, but it's been years since they have simplified it for the average joe. I also have the ASUS router.

[Murgatroy]

I have an old Cisco router that I reflashed to DD-WRT a few years ago, I messed with it for a while, had it in the back of our apartment as a repeater just for giggles. Finding where I put it and reusing it would not be out of the question. I am assuming that it would be preferable to a repeater? It has four ports on it that could be used to wire into the XBOX 360 and the Blu-Ray player in the living room while extending signal downstairs more reliably?

 

I have a few WiFi dongles laying around as well, but I have always prefered a wired signal for my desktops. I suppose that if I had to I could use one of those in the garage. I just didn't really want to, and I have no reason as to why.

 

As to running the Cat5 cables, that is what i really wanted to avoid. But I do understand that it would be the best way to do it. With my work schedule(s) and the fact that I am the only person in my home that can swing a hammer, I would prefer to throw a little money at it, as time is the more valuble commodity. If I were to run Cat5 it would be from one corner upstairs to the opposite corner downstairs (office to living room) and then drop straight down from the office to the garage, so it wouldn't be impossible, just involved.

 

As for the wireless, my family has several tablets, smartphones and laptops in addition to Roku boxes that all require WiFi signal as opposed to a wired connection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is in addition to the wife's request to delete a secondary bathroom door in the hallways and a complete backyard re-landscape with multiple raised garden beds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obviously, any of my hobbies that would be boosted by the aquisition of a home (such as rebuilding my melted 3SGTE in my fancy new garage) are on hold until the woman is happy in our new home.

[CommsNBombs]

Good Copy, Murga.

 

To touch on the smartphones/tablets - I'd definitely go with a dual-band router. The new fancy iPhones/Galaxy S#'s all have decently good NIC's built into them that will pickup 5.0GHZ Wifi freqs and are 802.11G/N capable, I forgot that everyone is on the move all the time now lol.

 

My ASUS Dual-Band RT-AC68R is pretty damn secure out of the box, comes with the ability to setup VPNs/FTP servers if you wanted to host a "share drive" full of movies/photos or shared storage via USB 2.0/3.0. It has 4 ethernet ports (like your's that you had mentioned, I like that setup!) so I hard wire the stuff I don't use all the time so it isn't taking up space on my wifi - notably my printer/scanner, Xbox 360, Kali Linux book and my Xbox One. The antenna position does actually make a difference, SHF freqs are big and "bursty" but will be deflected by steel joists, concrete board and even big ferns (plant matter loves ripping up RF frequncies - even on LOS VHF/UHF bands).

 

As was mentioned earlier, repeaters are only half-duplex - they'll transmit OR receive, not both continuous so you'll see a drop in throughput and overall QoS (quality of service) from it. With a gigabit switch like a simple Cisco Catalyst 3560 8-port you can set bandwith limits on things so a friend/family member doesn't suck up all your bandwith - and I assume since you're using a modem you won't have a lot to play with. I have 100Mbps Fiber from CDE Lightband in Clarksville so I don't really ever suffer from that - but if you're on Sat/Cable obviously you'll have a lot less to work with.

 

With dual-band in mind, you have to make sure your repeaters are also 802.11x (where X is the protocol of your current router) compliant and are dual-band rated...most will just be 2.4 GHZ, so that means all the smart phone users/super computers with dual-band NIC's will have dead space.

 

You can use a booster, which on average can give around 10-15dBm increase of power, but you'll experience what you call "over shooting" if you're too close to it because of the high power, and I am not a doctor - but being around a bunch of high amplified RF radiation isn't too good for anyone, and still - Booster or Repeater it's duplexing/multiplexing ability is going to suck at a low price range. A lot of this will be shooting from the hip, obviously every house is laid out and constructed a different way, and you have the consideration of being able to use it on the outside of your house.

 

In summary...my 2 cents: Dual Band Router (moot point - but make sure it is WPA2/WPS enabled, and mess with your settings so it locks out and changes broadcast channels after about 5-10 times)...Dual Band Repeater in areas you KNOW will be dead space and that you absolutely cannot/will not be able to run Cat5 to.

 

I can launch into a whole other theory/treatise on penetration testing and cyber security but, for the most part, unless you have the aforementioned 17-year-old-basement-dweller-wannabe-Anonymous type living next door you don't have to worry about your wife's Facebook being sidejacked or your wireless coffee maker being DDOS'ed

Edited June 8, 2015 by CommsNBombs

[tnguy]

From a recommendation here about 2 years ago, I bought an Asus RT-AC66R.  It's on the top floor on the side of the house and covers (with a minimum of 80% signal strength - measured with an app on my phone) the entire house (2500sq/ft) even down to the opposite side of the house in the movie room in the basement.  I stream HD movies to a device down there on a regular basis with no issues.

 

It also covers 2~ acres outside, so when I'm streaming tunes on the cellphone and mowing the yard, it never breaks up.

 

That model looks like it's only $129 now, I'd have zero issues recommending this to anyone, even though it's an older model.  Hell, the newer ones may even be better.

 

I have the RT-AC66U and it works pretty well. I threw the Tomato firmware on it as I'm used to it.

[Murgatroy]

What modems do you guys suggest to avoid renting?

[Jonnin]

Why so many wired connections?  That's what could blow up your budget from what I can see.

 

wireless is horribad for gaming or reliable real connections.  Its ok for just messing on the web, but it has spurts of high speed and then lags out, but its never consistent (unless you are a grandmaster network guru with an unlimited budget).   Ive tried it off and on for decades and its yet to deliver playable online gaming.    

[tnguy]

What modems do you guys suggest to avoid renting?

 

 

All of them. Just buy.

[JeffL]

What modems do you guys suggest to avoid renting?

 

Buy a Motorola SurfBoard 6141.

[Lumber_Jack]

Buy a Motorola SurfBoard 6141.

That's what we have

[jhc77]

I bought a Netgear R6300(AC1750) and have been very impressed. Two phones, iPad and a laptop that VPN's without any issues and a hard wired PC. At 2200 square feet I'm pulling 78mbps on my phone downstairs from the router. The laptop is on the 5G band at..well.. it says 780mbps. I can go two houses down and have 3 out of 4 bars on my phone still with this beast. Edited June 9, 2015 by JHC77

[2.ooohhh]

Running a surfboard 6141 with a ubiquity edge router lite. Couldn't be happier. The ubiquity router is similar to tomato or ddwrt in it's advanced capability but some may not like that it requires configuration before use.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[NoBanStan]

You should check out the range the newer AC routers before buying a boatload of gear. Some of them are pricey but they get great range. Plus with beamforming you get directed signal to your devices. Much cleaner, faster and overall more efficient. 

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2082232/revealed-the-best-and-worst-802-11ac-wi-fi-routers-of-2013.html