Access Point Upstairs or Downstairs?

mamamia88 · January 4, 2020

I have an older house in the Midwest setup with my modem/router downstairs and everything upstairs wireless. I'm upgrading from 50mbps to 200 Monday and want to optimize my network. Downstairs is where the coax comes in the house. I'm going to reuse the hole directtv used to run a cable outside of the house and get Ethernet upstairs in my bedroom. I have a pfsense box, access point and switch all up and running downstairs. I was considering keeping the router/switch downstairs for my Plex server and Roku Ultra then using the access point upstairs as a switch for everything else that I might want to wire upstairs. But I'm kinda worried about how good WiFi is downstairs though it's not like I'd be doing anything too important on wifi and it already covers most of the house from the unoptimal corner it's shoved in. Should I get some kind of poe access Point and try to shove it as close to possible to center of the house? Should I use the spare router that can act as an AP as a access point for downstairs and try to limit the transmit power? Any advice would be appreciated

VinZie · January 4, 2020

I would do some testing first without an AP if you are satisfied with the connection strength and such. If are aren't satisfied just go buy a AP!

Windows7ge · January 4, 2020

I can't say there's much advise to give here.

If there's dead zones where you can't get a signal or have a poor one move the AP or consider a second one.
If you're worried about people outside your home being within range of your AP you can limit the power down to where it doesn't or barely leaves the home.

Beyond those you kind of have to figure it out for yourself. We don't know your homes layout and what position gives the best coverage except for the usual "Middle of the house" rule of thumb (not ideal for all circumstances).

mamamia88 · January 4, 2020

15 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I can't say there's much advise to give here.

If there's dead zones where you can't get a signal or have a poor one move the AP or consider a second one.

If you're worried about people outside your home being within range of your AP you can limit the power down to where it doesn't or barely leaves the home.

Beyond those you kind of have to figure it out for yourself. We don't know your homes layout and what position gives the best coverage except for the usual "Middle of the house" rule of thumb (not ideal for all circumstances).

Don't care about people outside of house getting a signal. Access point has met 90% of the houses needs. I have another desktop on the far end of the house that has only been able to get like 35mbps though. Adding a pcie wireless card I got on sale soon