Large House without ethernet options

[Ronster10822]

I moved into a house about 6 months ago and its a slightly weird situation. The house is a house that used to be some ones home and my girlfriends boss built onto it and made her dream house out of it. Only problem is ISP dropped a new dedicated coax and buried it into the basement without any way to find the junction box. So I figured I'd use a Mesh Wi-Fi system more specifically the Linksys AX5300. It "works" but not ideally. I pay for 1.2GB which I also was using my own supplied modem(also tried ISP's) and best I could get was 100 D 20 Up. So I figured add another box and that'll solve the issue. Bought another AX5300 module for another $100 and I ended up with 200 D 40 Up. They're technically only spaced about 20-30ft from each other in a direct line. The one coming into our side of the house is sitting in a window approximately 25 ft and one wall between. I tested a theory out. Ran a ethernet cable from the 2nd (middle) mesh to the 3rd (my house)mesh router. Speeds went up to 750 D and 100 Up. But of course running a ethernet cable out a window across from one house to the other didn't please the boss lady. I'm trying to figure out a better/best method without spending thousands of $'s. Also I tried getting the ISP to run coax to our side of the house they stated that they couldn't because they couldn't find where it came into the house even though its pretty obvious. IPS's kind of suck around here. Also ISP is the only option we have. Personally I'm just looking to have a better than crappy Wi-Fi connection. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. 

[seanondemand]

How old is this house? There's no cables running through the walls at all, or option to run cables upwards from the basement? I've got a similar situation where my coax is in the basement, and I bought a big-ass drill bit and measured to a wall in the upper level, drilled upwards from the basement into the space between the sheetrock/studs, and downwards from the attic, and ran cat6 to access points that way (and cat6 to other easier to access spots for the media centre/office). 

 

I only say this because it sounds like from your experimentation that you don't have a whole ton of choice other than to run wires. You could probably pay an electrician to do it too, get some quotes - my father-in-law got it done at his place for 400 bucks, which is worth it IMO for the future.

[Ronster10822]

12 minutes ago, seanondemand said:

How old is this house? There's no cables running through the walls at all, or option to run cables upwards from the basement? I've got a similar situation where my coax is in the basement, and I bought a big-ass drill bit and measured to a wall in the upper level, drilled upwards from the basement into the space between the sheetrock/studs, and downwards from the attic, and ran cat6 to access points that way (and cat6 to other easier to access spots for the media centre/office). 

 

I only say this because it sounds like from your experimentation that you don't have a whole ton of choice other than to run wires. You could probably pay an electrician to do it too, get some quotes - my father-in-law got it done at his place for 400 bucks, which is worth it IMO for the future.

The "old house" was built in 2015ish so not really old. The problem is the "new house" they built on has its own foundation and isn't really connected other than a breeze way. The other problem is the only part where I truly care to have decent connection is all the way upstairs. I thought the ISP coming out would solve the issue since you know they are the only company that's ever serviced the house and they'd just be able to run another coax. The electrician sounds probably the best option. I would try and splice the coax but by the time I bought tools and all the connections and coax to do it (properly to make everyone happy) I'd be looking at 300+ and still wouldn't have a good way to attach the cable to the backside of the house. I just didn't know if anyone had any additional methods what might work. 

[thrasher_565]

wifi is always slower unless you got a hi end wifi routor and then it probly only good for a small range and not too many walls. i no j2c uses wireless for his shop. if you can run any cable it might as well be Ethernet unless you need cable too?

[TheGreatestGazoo]

In my current home which was built in 2006, every room had a regular phone jack with the RJ11 port. I removed a port plate and was extremely pleasantly surprised that every port had Cat5E going to it. Then it was as simple as replacing the RJ11 port wall plates with RJ45 port wall plates, terminating the other ends into a switch and plugging one port into my internet modem. Then I strategically placed a couple of Unifi Access Points in to spare rooms or other switched to get strong Wifi upstairs and downstairs.

 

Other options may be looking to see if you can use MOCA to utilize those Coax cables you can't find to send data. Additionally, there are tone devices you can get to help trace those hidden wires - Home Depot has one made by Klein but you can get cheaper ones from Amazon and AliExpress. Lastly, there are also powerline kits that MAY get you better speed depending on how the power lines are routed. I haven't had good luck with those powerline kits though - usually getting around 50D/50U on a kit that was rated for 2000 but was enough to get data to and from the Vista 20p alarm panel in my crawlspace so I could ditch my monthly alarm company fee and self monitor with Envisalink.

 

200D/40U isn't terrible though. More than enough for watching Netflix and general internet usage.

[Donut417]

12 hours ago, Ronster10822 said:

I pay for 1.2GB which I also was using my own

You're not going to get Gigabit speeds over WiFi. Well maybe with WiFi 6E, but even that is asking a lot. If you need Gigabit then you need Ethernet. Outside of that some ways that might help you get better coverage/signal to areas is make sure the router is in a high up place, same with the satellite units. By having them higher up they seem to spread the signal better. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

12 hours ago, Donut417 said:

You're not going to get Gigabit speeds over WiFi. Well maybe with WiFi 6E, but even that is asking a lot. If you need Gigabit then you need Ethernet. Outside of that some ways that might help you get better coverage/signal to areas is make sure the router is in a high up place, same with the satellite units. By having them higher up they seem to spread the signal better. 

It can be done, but not consistently.  I can get up to 1.4Gbit down max on 5Ghz in the same room as the AP with a 160Mhz channel width, on a good day.  I've only achieved that with an Intel AX210 though.  Upload speeds are usually an order of magnitude or more slower.  Bear in mind, the AP is on the ceiling above me for the least obstructions.

Most devices top out at 80Mhz so you might hit 900Mbit but its not uncommon for it to be much lower, as you need zero interference.  I can't even identify what causes it be slower, it just varies from day to day, its not other WiFi networks.

I'm currently topping out at 800Mbit on a Samsung Galaxy S10.  One cinder block wall will easily halve that, if you have metal in that wall then who knows.  There's such a wide variety of building materials, its impossible to guess.

WiFi 7 will help, but the bold claims they are making in testing seem unrealistic, they always test with insane amounts of MIMO which consumer devices do not have.  Not to mention initially nobody will HAVE a WiFi 7 client, Apple only just added Wifi 6e with the new Mac Minis, the older M1/M2 are WiFi 6 I believe.  I'd expect WiFi 7 adapters are a year or two away and if history repeats, second generation will perform slightly better than first.

 

We'll never live in the Star Trek world of perfect wireless, without an AP in every room, as that's just how radio waves work.  Plus the more bandwidth you want, the less scope there is for whole-home coverage as you wont have enough spectrum for none-overlapping channels.