Networking upgrade advice

PostApocalypticBard · June 6, 2020

I currently live in a two story, ~3300 sq ft house built in 1998. Our family is a pretty tech oriented one, with numerous smart devices, phones, tablets, laptops, smart tv’s, and 2 high-end gaming desktops. We use Spectrum as our ISP, and currently have their Sagemcom F@st 5260 router providing WiFi to the entire house. The downstairs connection (where the router is located) is usually pretty strong, with rare dips in signal strength/speed. The upstairs however is not so good. There are numerous dead zones, issues with signal strength, speed drops, etc. This is getting quite annoying as we’re have difficulty using the internet on either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz band.

So in light of the issues we’re having, I’ve decided to come up with a plan for improving the state of our networking solution. I am by no means a network expert, and I have little knowledge in the realm of networking and internet stuff. I’m just a 17 year old teaching himself the basics of networking for this project, so any advice/corrections would be welcome.

My first step in all of this would be to get a representative from Spectrum out to my house to possibly diagnose any misconfigurations with the network. I’ve had issues come up claiming to be DNS errors, but I’ve also heard those could be caused by wireless interference or even duplicate IP adresses. I don’t trust myself enough to figure out what the heck is going on, so I’ll have a professional do it for me.

The second step, regardless of what the outcome of the first step is, would be to install Ethernet cabling throughout the house. There’s currently 3 bedrooms with computers in them, one with a smart tv as well, a 4th bedroom that could have a smart tv in the future, a downstairs living room with a smart tv, and an upstairs game room/loft with yet another smart TV with an Xbox attached. All of these devices I would love to have hooked up to an Ethernet connection, but the main goal is to have both mine and my dad’s gaming rigs outfitted with Ethernet as well as the living room smart tv. I plan to use Cat6 cabling to provide Ethernet while also ensuring some degree of future-proofing over Cat5.

The third step would be to add any necessary additional hardware to the house to ensure ease of use. By this I mean installing wireless access points in specific locations, adding network switches if needed, etc. Again, I’m not too knowledgeable on networking, so some advice here would be very helpful. I’ve been looking into the Ubiquiti access points like the AC-Pro and the AC-Lite, but I’m not sure which would be the most cost effective solution.

Sorry for the wall of text, but that should give you all a solid background for what’s going on. Thank you for any advice you can give me!

The_russian · June 6, 2020

That sounds like a great plan and all, but how are you planning to run the Ethernet cables through the walls? That is done when building a house, adding wiring after the fact is very difficult. Getting an AP is a good idea, I use a Ubiquiti AC-Pro and I am happy with it, so I would recommend that if you can figure out a way to get an Ethernet cable upstairs.

Falcon1986 · June 6, 2020

10 minutes ago, PostApocalypticBard said:

My first step in all of this would be to get a representative from Spectrum out to my house to possibly diagnose any misconfigurations with the network. I’ve had issues come up claiming to be DNS errors, but I’ve also heard those could be caused by wireless interference or even duplicate IP adresses. I don’t trust myself enough to figure out what the heck is going on, so I’ll have a professional do it for me.

What specific problems are you having? If your only network device is the ISP gateway, that's a pretty simple network, and could be an issue with the gateway itself. Do you have more than 1 router on the network?

WiFi optimization is a separate thing altogether, but doesn't need a technician.

17 minutes ago, PostApocalypticBard said:

The second step, regardless of what the outcome of the first step is, would be to install Ethernet cabling throughout the house. There’s currently 3 bedrooms with computers in them, one with a smart tv as well, a 4th bedroom that could have a smart tv in the future, a downstairs living room with a smart tv, and an upstairs game room/loft with yet another smart TV with an Xbox attached. All of these devices I would love to have hooked up to an Ethernet connection, but the main goal is to have both mine and my dad’s gaming rigs outfitted with Ethernet as well as the living room smart tv. I plan to use Cat6 cabling to provide Ethernet while also ensuring some degree of future-proofing over Cat5.

A wired network will always be more reliable and faster than a wireless one. Hope you have a plan of how you're going to run the ethernet cables. They'll all need to converge at a single point where they connect to a switch or router.

19 minutes ago, PostApocalypticBard said:

The third step would be to add any necessary additional hardware to the house to ensure ease of use. By this I mean installing wireless access points in specific locations, adding network switches if needed, etc. Again, I’m not too knowledgeable on networking, so some advice here would be very helpful. I’ve been looking into the Ubiquiti access points like the AC-Pro and the AC-Lite, but I’m not sure which would be the most cost effective solution.

Sorry for the wall of text, but that should give you all a solid background for what’s going on. Thank you for any advice you can give me!

Many consumer WiFi equipment do not have antennae that transmit signals well in the vertical direction. So if you have a multi-level home, the best way to increase WiFi coverage on another level is to add a wireless access point at that level.

The UniFi APs are very good. UAP-AC-Lites are perfectly fine if the 867Mbps speed on the 5GHz radio won't limit your client internet connection speed. Here is a quick video comparison.

Donut417 · June 6, 2020

13 hours ago, PostApocalypticBard said:

The second step, regardless of what the outcome of the first step is, would be to install Ethernet cabling throughout the house. There’s currently 3 bedrooms with computers in them, one with a smart tv as well, a 4th bedroom that could have a smart tv in the future, a downstairs living room with a smart tv, and an upstairs game room/loft with yet another smart TV with an Xbox attached. All of these devices I would love to have hooked up to an Ethernet connection, but the main goal is to have both mine and my dad’s gaming rigs outfitted with Ethernet as well as the living room smart tv. I plan to use Cat6 cabling to provide Ethernet while also ensuring some degree of future-proofing over Cat5.

This could be difficult, especially in a 2 story house. If push comes to shove there are alternatives such as power line adapters and Moca adapters. Just keep them in mind when looking to do cable runs. Even Mesh setups shouldn't be too bad. Yeah you might not get full speeds, but in some cases its good enough.

13 hours ago, PostApocalypticBard said:

o I’ll have a professional do it for me

Not sure Id call them professionals. Im pretty sure Im smarter than half the people that works for Comcast. Don't get me wrong some smart people work for the company, but generally not the people they send out to solve customer issues.

Falcon1986 · June 6, 2020

27 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Not sure Id call them professionals. Im pretty sure Im smarter than half the people that works for Comcast. Don't get me wrong some smart people work for the company, but generally not the people they send out to solve customer issues.

I think it's more that their priority is to ensure that the ISP-side of things (i.e. up to the modem) is working. Anything thereafter is the customer's responsibility.