Questions On Preparing My Home for Gigabit Internet

[MarkDRogersJr]

Hi guys,

 

This is my first thread to the forum, I'd like to say I've been a fan of this community and the youtube channel for several months now and I have learned so much being here and absorbing all the knowledge and information that is put out.

I'm an avid gamer, HD Netflix binge watcher, a student, and sometimes I work at home.

 

The company I work for is up and coming with consumer Gig internet within the next year or so in my area and I've generated a few questions for anyone here to help guide me in upgrading my network the maximize reliability, speeds, and reduce latency where possible, so I can get the most out of the 'holy crap'ness that is forthcoming. 

 

My current set-up is generic American "High End" Cable 50mbps Down/5mbps Up. I run a Motolola SB6241 Modem into a Netgear R7000 'Nighthawk' router that runs dual wifi and two LAN connections to two Netgear GS308-100PAS gig switches I use on either end of the house, all tied together with CAT 6A (overkill, I know). Combined, my router and switches take traffic from roughly 20 devices, not at once 95% of the time, but I do run my bandwidth into the ground as multiple bandwidth intensive programs run at the same time a lot (multiple video streams and gaming sessions at the same time, file transfers and downloads, etc etc). 

 

Of course when the new internet comes in, the Surfboard is gone, as it will be fiber to end-user. So I'm attempting to gauge just how serious I want my future network to be. Here are my questions (with statements):

 

I was planning on getting rid of the router as well, switching to a small business grade router with up to 16 ports (or-so) and power-over-ethernet to wire the whole house instead, and running a Access Point for wifi over the POE somewhere at the center of the home for maximum coverage. Would this be ideal? Or should I consider just sticking with consumer routers and wire that instead? Managing all the bandwidth and connections at the same time, I am not too sure if I am close to hitting my router's capacity or not, honestly. Is there even one a normal consumer like me could hit?

 

Pricing isn't exactly a variable, as this is still early stages of planning, but if the consumer grade is substantially cheaper (and so far based on pricing I've found, it could be), then I might just stick with the consumer grade router (and maybe upgrade to a newer one, with AC Wave 2) and network my home as needed off the usual four ports it gives me. Of course, I can expand with switches directly off the Router, but that leads to my next question: as I divide the network amongst switches, do I, over time, degrade the performance I would obtain from QoS? Since unmanaged switches just simply connect A-B, they don't manage the traffic that passes through them like a managed switch or router does (right; or am I wrong on this?). Should I consider a managed switch, as I do have higher priority traffic on some devices than others that I would like to route as such. 

 

Thanks for any help guys!

[Electronics Wizardy]

The router won't be your limite speed wirse. Id probably stick with the nighthawk as its one of the fastest wifi acess points and enterprise ones aren't any faster for your use. 

 

Make sure you have gig around the house and wireless ac and your fine.

[MarkDRogersJr]

(I'm piggybacking this since it's relevant and can continue on from what I posted earlier regarding potentially upgrading: )

 

Well it looks like this is turning into a "what router should I upgrade to" thread now, because I've been having network issues all day after a series of power outages and brownouts. I went to make sure my network was good and while my modem was fine, my router refused access. I figured it was just a error, and after attempting to connect to the admin control panel via wifi and direct connection (the original was through a switch), I wasn't able to get in. I decided since I had a backup configuration, I would just factory reset. 

 

It had me jump through the Netgear Genie hoops on routerlogin.net and I was able to set back up the password, update firmware, etc, but as I attempted to login to the router's control panel to restore my backup, I was greeted with the same '192.168.1.1 refused to connect' screen. I cleared cookies out, I power cycled the router, double checked firewall settings, verified my network and gateway IP, and was able to ping and go beyond the router (like here to post this, as well my surfboard at 192.168.100.1) but just couldn't get into the UI. 'routerlogin.net' was also refusing to connect as well. 

 

I dug into the error and saw that potentially IPv6 and the Genie app could cause problems (an issue from 2013). I decided to troubleshoot further by disabling IPv6, renewing my IP, and installing genie to see if it could connect at all, through the app or the Browser UI. Nothing worked. I'm not sure what is wrong with it honestly. 

 

So... What router should I be upgrading to? Or should I be considering the same model? Or any tips on getting this router fixed instead? 

[dlink377]

How familiar you with router?

 

You can look into Ubiquity Router, such as EdgeRouter series. I personally haven't tried any Ubiquiti Router, but from what I read, EdgeRouter Lite is quite capable pushing 1Gbps internet speed without any problem on few clients simultaneously.

 

Then you just keep your Netgear router as Wireless AP mode. If you want to buy Wifi Access Point, Ubiquiti also has the great product for relatively cheap, I personally highly recommend this kind of access point.

 

Myself, I use Mikrotik device, as I am far more familiar with it. However, I don't really recommend it, since this router is not for new user, some basic network knowledge is required, and relatively long learning time is required.

[MarkDRogersJr]

I'm 'alright' when it comes to routers depending if you're looking at the broad spectrum of home, business and enterprises classes. I'm good with routers that have GUI interfaces, I understand some terminology, I've done some command line routers as well.

 

I'm always learning from my college and my work so I'm not afraid to jump into new systems I haven't touched before. 

 

I'll have to look into Ubiquity. I appreciate the point in their direction.

[dlink377]

Yes, seems Ubiquiti for more suitable for the task. It is quite cheap for enterprise grade system, and the performance is amazing compared to Mikrotik devices. It even has very good GUI, and much easier to setup. I believe you can easily set it up without problem, since you has the basic knowledge of router already.

 

I probably want to play around with Ubiquiti router, the entry level one is just $50, and what I heard beat the shit of Mikrotik router in performance area.