THEGURUOFNOTHING

Well, it really pisses off the neighbors cat when it's hair starts falling out. No, turning up the TX power won't "hurt" anything but your existing reception. Making it "louder" won't make it any "better". It only makes the signal noisier and far less reliable. The ONLY reliable way to get a decent signal is with more coverage and that means more hardware.

Ditto on CAT5e. I realize CAT6 is not much more expensive but for day to day operation in a home, there are few reasons as to why to go to CAT6. And future proofing is a weak excuse because most computers are not built to handle more than what a gig adapter will do anyways.

To "get the most" out of your wifi, you need to be using the latest technology gear. New stuff is the fastest and designed for higher throughput. But there is no magical tweak to take existing gear and make it go faster however. So if you can't wire it, it just gonna be replacing equipment. Dump the Ford and buy the Porsche.

We're glad it's working well for you!  

Being as you are in the US, (can't speak for other countries as I am in the US myself), I agree with the shielded cable idea. CAT6 is plenty enough for a basic build-out in a commercial space. One thing to note is that if you plan to run cables in the overhead above drop ceilings, code will require you to have "plenum" rated cable. That is cable that if caught on fire, won't drip sticky burny shit all over people below and add more toxic smoke to the environment while doing so. Being as you are in Cali... bet your ass any inspector will catch that for the sweet sweet fine money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenum_cable <--This is a good read BTW.
 
Run each cable in individual conduits". Mwahahahahahahaha... let's get a little real here. I get it for houses.. it's called "smurf tube" here in the states because it's typically colored blue (though sometimes orange, which farts in the face of the naming convention). But VERY few installations in commercial environments use it. IF the walls are framed with steel and the wiring has to be run through framing members, that stuff will be installed to keep the wires from chafing and shorting out. But if the drops are put through the top plates and dropped straight down to the jacks... not tubed. No reason for it. I would suggest watching a few video's of Bridge Cable's channel - Link below as an example. You're clearly installing in a commercial environment and they are commercial installers. 
 
As far as getting wire from Amazon... I don't know what to tell you outside of that I have installed many thousands of feet of cable that I purchased from Amazon. Like EVERY purchase from EVERYWHERE... buyer beware. But you don't buy cables with manufacturer names like Pungwha and Tootsal. You buy name brands. There are "less expensive" cables that work well and won't leave you hanging. VIVO and Dripstone are two I buy a LOT of. However, there are other more expensive brands if you really want to spend more money on a box that has lots of certification symbols printed on it. Fast CAT and trueCable are a couple of those.  If you are doing 320 foot runs without any kind of switching gear in the middle... buy the high end certified cable just for the piece of mind. But I have done plenty of 250-275 foot runs with VIVO cable and not had any issues at all.
 
Spend your money on GOOD quality switches and your problems will be far less as wiring is not the biggest headache in the process. Wire your camera systems as their own network (don't plug camera feed wires into the same switches that runs your data) and use POE switches for that network. Won't need to have power at every camera location and the installs are way cleaner, though POE switches are more expensive. DON'T CHEAP OUT on POE gear. You will absolutely get what you pay for.
 
Tools is subjective but I don't buy cheap crap because its my livelihood and I want it to work every single time I pull it out. I prefer Klein tools for this. I own a Klein Tools VDV226-110 Ratcheting Modular Cable Crimper... that i bought on Amazon. Sorry. You want pass-through ice cubes (the connectors) and honestly, I use Cable Matters pass-through RJ45 ice cubes. Decently priced and I have had no issues with them personally. Yep... Amazon. You WILL need to add a decent quality punch down tool and you can't live without a cable tester as it's nearly impossible to track down a wiring issue (that you inevitably caused and didn't catch it) without one. I bought mine from Lowe's and it's dumb as rain but works great. You can buy smarter ones that do all sorts of testing and tracing functions but really not that necessary.
 
Label the shit out of your runs at both ends. I personally use a Dymo Industrial "RHINO" label printer. WHY? Because you can get shrink tube that you can print run numbers on that shrink to the wire and are pretty damned tough. They will print up to 3/4" wide tape, shrink tube of all sorts of sizes and are just generally great for industrial labeling. A tad pricey but if you are anally retentive and OCD about this kind of stuff like I am... it's a worthwhile buy. But when you label your drops, put one 6 inches from the end and one a foot from the end... You'll figure put why that is important when you do the install ( I won't spoil it now:-)
 
There is lots of topology suggestions but this could go on for PAGES if I did so. Good wiring standards is a hot topic around these parts. One suggestion I will definitely throw in there... if you have to run ONE wire... pull TWO. If you think there may be 2 computers in a space, pull 4 wires. Though just "tossing in a 5 port switch" is a valid answer, it's a lazy one and adds complexity that makes troubleshooting harder. If you lose a drop for some reason.. it happens even with top tier cable... you want an easy spare. Can't do that without a spare drop. Cable is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things so wire for contingencies. I pulled 4 wires between two node cabinets thinking I'd NEVER need more than one or two. All four have been utilized at this point and I am wishing I had pulled a couple extra because these are underground runs... in conduit, so I could pull it all and add more but what a PITA.
 
Oh yeah... and since you DIDN'T ask... if you are going to go with some WiFi ('cuz why not?) Use Ubiquiti AP-Lite pucks. Definitely more expensive than consumer grade shit but it's price vs quality value is incredible. It's also POE powered and has GUI based management that tells way more of a story about your network than any POS consumer grade wifi router ever could. It's also a MESH environment which is pretty important in today's WiFi intensive world.
 
That's my 2 cents. i have a massive network in my home and property and I I installed it and can forget about it.
 

There are laws in place about use of public internet such as this but nobody is going to prison over it. They accept the responsibility of users that can access their signal, regardless of how far away they are from the establishment. Mind you everything you do over it is tracked so a VPN is kinda important. If you can reach it with a directional antenna, you can do two way comms. It may not be super fast or dependable but it doesn't require high power antennas on both ends. Ask me how I know. But ALSO... if the establishment isn't open 24 hours, they may have it lock down after hours to prevent this kind of thing. Ask me how I know. In addition, some places have put daily data caps or speed throttling on their access... also to prevent this kind of thing... and if they see the same MAC's logged with lots of data, they may black list it. Yes, lots of ways around all of that but at some point, your conscience needs to kick in and tell you... buy your own effing internet plan and stop being a sponge because "you know others are doing it". My suggestion is to work out the issues with your ISP.

I TLDR'd most of the comments in this thread because they seem to be pretty much the same...Don't blame us, it's them... It's gonna be huge, but maybe bigger than they said... my dick is bigger than yours, no it's not....UGH.
First of all, I want to say that anybody that thinks that rushing to the grocery store to buy toilet paper and water is a doofus. Its a respiratory virus, not a G.I. virus. If you don't eat, you won't need the toilet paper. And buying it by the pallet load just makes you an a-hole because everyone knows you are profit-mongering waiting for the shelves to be empty so you can hock it on Ebay or Gumtree (depending on your country) for $20 a roll. I get the water thing if your tap water is crap to begin with and you have to drink bottled water. You might get some sort of sick and need to hydrate. But most of the water scroungers are just being stupid. I get buying some cold symptom remedies but by the dozens? Get real. Again... your profit-mongering. Problem is, these idiots will scramble to get bog roll and not food. THEN, they will venture out when they probably shouldn't.. like after lots are sick, and go to buy food and pick up the illness they were trying to avoid and not have enough food in the house to survive, let alone shit. I have food. I always have food for a couple months if needed. I also have laundry soap and socks, which I will probably need because some dipshit created scarcity in the TP market and when I run out of my month and a half supply of toilet paper, my socks are in jeopardy. But I will stay quietly in my home watching the panic ensue over an "eminent pandemic" that is NOT gonna kill most of the worlds population. Oh yeah... and WASH YOUR DAMNED HANDS! Even the non-antibacterial soap and water is better than hand sanitizer. If you need hand sanitizer at the level a couple posters listed, you are totally clueless as to the functionality and benefits of the product. It is NOT better than hand washing and it is NOT a replacement for the same. Stay away from people as much as possible and you will be way better off. Not because they are sick but because you are just not right and nobody needs your paranoia around. Your fears and lack of preparedness are what makes situations like this unbearable.
 
Oh... on another note, I did get to witness a funny one at Walmart... there was a lady there with her presumably 7 year old daughter that was dressed in white high heeled dress shoes and PAJAMAS of all things push 2 overloaded carts up to the register while I was standing at the CS counter. She made some comment that she had forgotten her wallet with her food stamps card and she had to wait for her boyfriend to bring it. She told the clerk that she was buying a months supply of food for her household. In the cart was probably 8 cases of Coke, easily 2 dozen pudding cups, 3 large tubs of cheese balls, who knows how many frozen pies, 7 or 8 cases of hot pockets, top ramen by the skid load, and other miscellaneous diabetic inducing junk food items. And we think coronavirus is gonna kill people. F' me dead!
 
I fear for our society. As you were...

The FUCK they're not! https://www.ebay.com/itm/Charmin-Essentials-Toilet-Paper-Ultra-Strong-Soft-Toilet-Paper-16-120/264663277443?hash=item3d9f291f83:m:mTGdSMLhltoLDE8yLkS1fjA
Just go to ebay and type toilet paper. $10 a roll? Are you kidding me? TOTAL a-hole! If you are rushing out and scrounging up everything you can get your hands on, you are either so incredibly unprepared for even tomorrow's bowel movement OR you are profiteering. And in that vein, you have zero shits to give about others that might be in a need situation because you are forcing scarcity with your actions, preventing others from having even the slightest of chances to get some for themselves. I honestly hope these ass-hats are stuck with garages full of toilet paper that they can't sell even at a discount. I don't care how bad it might get but I seriously doubt it will get worse than in China and even they are not destitute! They still have water treatment plants functioning and toilet paper is still being manufactured. Food is still available for the most part (even though they have freaked out and caused scarcity as well) and people are not dying and being carted off like in Monty Python movies. I am not saying buying for an extended period is wrong. I am saying causing scarcity for profit is. And you can't tell me that anyone of these fuckers on ebay has been selling TP there prior to this situation. Not one of them. And a few thousand cases is not going to bloom overnight to hundreds of thousands of cases with tens of thousands of deaths in the same period. Just because one person 10 miles from you gets sick doesn't mean the grim reaper is driving his mercedes down your road looking to bone you in the jiggly bits. Paranoia and fear is the absolute worst thing that you can work towards in this. Calm the hell down and get a grip. Wash your hands. Stop going out in public just to go. If you don't HAVE to go out, stay the hell home and stop intaking more fear from the internet.

(bangs head on the desk over and over). For that budget, you will be writing a list and selecting 2 things. You just can't get power efficient, quiet, powerful, allows LOTS of memory and dirt ass cheap in the same package. Unless you are friends with a computer builder that is gonna chip in on your project. Pretty much anything in the commercial realm is going to be noisy as hell. Or VERY expensive, even used. Workstation grade boxes are good, but they still are expensive to get computing power and ram space. Power consumption is relative to age and power. Faster systems are going to use more power. $800 to $1000... more options. For a couple thousand and used parts you can build something that kinda makes all those work. For 3000 you could check all those boxes and have a serious box.

Lighter is not always better but BananaSplit is right... If it's heavy, you won't be picking it up with snow on the ground. I can stand my Wing up by myself without issue... on solid ground. Thw wheels have to be able to stay put while you lift or you are chasing it all over until they do. If the bike is super light, it will want to slide out from under you. If it is too heavy, the inertia will work against you as well. Snow is just a bad idea.

It doesn't have to be crazy fast. I have an older Dell that is dual core and has no GPU that will do dual 1080 streams. It's pushing it pretty hard but it's stable. If you've built gaming systems, this is not a big deal. Unless you are pushing 4k streams that are forced to transcode, it doesn't take much.

As with all things tech, give it a year or two before you upgrade everything. Wifi 6 will be fast but first adoption is always a horrible idea unless you like torching cash. Let the new technology fester for a bit so they can work all the bugs out.

I have Engenius long range Wifi dishes and they are solid kit. It is a good brand and most of their gear is commercial grade like Ubiquiti. I don't know that i would jump into ax gear yet though since it is still so new.

I have Engenius long range Wifi dishes and they are solid kit. It is a good brand and most of their gear is commercial grade like Ubiquiti. I don't know that i would jump into ax gear yet though since it is still so new.