Networking for a new home

[deepakvrao]

Hi Guys,

A friend is building a new home. 3 floors, and each floor is about 1500 sq feet. As it is in the construction phase, he is free to do whatever concealed cabling is needed now. He has asked me for suggestions and I have no clue so posting it here.

Would it be best to go with ethernet cabling and a wired AP at each flow? Or, get the mesh system? Some reviews I have read say that the mesh routers limit speeds to 100mbps? Any other suggestions?

 

[belictony]

Hi Guys,

A friend is building a new home. 3 floors, and each floor is about 1500 sq feet. As it is in the construction phase, he is free to do whatever concealed cabling is needed now. He has asked me for suggestions and I have no clue so posting it here.

Would it be best to go with ethernet cabling and a wired AP at each flow? Or, get the mesh system? Some reviews I have read say that the mesh routers limit speeds to 100mbps? Any other suggestions?

ethernet cabling is better. Use mesh router for each floor. As each floor is around 1500 sq.ft, one AC1200 model router per floor would be sufficient. Mesh routers are not limited to 100mbps. It depends on the chipset and coverage.

I have 2 deco m4 running on mesh mode and each of them provide 250mbps speed which is the ISP provided speed. Running a cat 5e or 6 ethernet cable would be sufficient for next 5-10 years.

 

[ishanjain28]

1. Always ethernet cable. Buy a 300M or so spool of good quality STP ethernet cable now, Install it in the conduits and preferably have at least 1 ethernet port in each room. (imo, don't go with cat5e. Not that much price difference between the two and changing it later will be a giant PITA.)

2. Omada/Ubiquiti/ruckus/aruba make good quality wifi APs. (listed from low to high price). Buy Wifi APs separately and later buy a router/switch to run everything.

 

[deepakvrao]

1. Always ethernet cable. Buy a 300M or so spool of good quality STP ethernet cable now, Install it in the conduits and preferably have at least 1 ethernet port in each room. (imo, don't go with cat5e. Not that much price difference between the two and changing it later will be a giant PITA.)

2. Omada/Ubiquiti/ruckus/aruba make good quality wifi APs. (listed from low to high price). Buy Wifi APs separately and later buy a router/switch to run everything.

With separate APs, wont each have its own separate SSID?

 

[jinx]

With separate APs, wont each have its own separate SSID?

All APs can have same SSID and password, client devices will roam automatically based on signal strength. Might need a controller for smooth handoff (atleast for omada)

 

[ishanjain28]

With separate APs, wont each have its own separate SSID?

They all can have the same SSID. All 4 vendors have centralized solutions to control all settings from one place.
If your friend is a network enthusiast, He can also create multiple SSIDs. So, One can be for personal network and another for guest/iot etc.

Most APs from the 4 listed companies also support 802.11 k/v/r for fast roaming. So, Most modern devices will stay connected to the AP with the best signal at any location.

 

[babhishek]

where can i get a ruckus in india for a decent amount?

 

[superczar]

where can i get a ruckus in india for a decent amount?

Ruckus is geared towards enterprise usage and focused on high density setups with a lot of focus on ease of deployment and lower cost of managing change ..
Ubnt/Omada are far lower in cost upfront and cost of managing change is irrelevant for a home user setup


Both will give you pretty much seamless real world 600-900 mbps links across your entire house at a significantly lower cost than ruckus/aruba

Ruckus and Aruba will also involve a license fee for the controller software - again, non issue in corporate setup but not something you will want to do at home.

Hi Guys,

A friend is building a new home. 3 floors, and each floor is about 1500 sq feet. As it is in the construction phase, he is free to do whatever concealed cabling is needed now. He has asked me for suggestions and I have no clue so posting it here.

Would it be best to go with ethernet cabling and a wired AP at each flow? Or, get the mesh system? Some reviews I have read say that the mesh routers limit speeds to 100mbps? Any other suggestions?

Omada or ubiquiti as @ishanjain28 mentioned.
The key with distributed AP setups (SDN) is to try ensure one is available at every place in the household where at least 1 is in Line of sight / near line of sight .
Both will also need a controller software running on an always on machine (or a dedicated hardware unit )
The controller software will take care of managing SSID (single if you want or more) and roaming

 

[deepakvrao]

Ruckus is geared towards enterprise usage and focused on high density setups with a lot of focus on ease of deployment and lower cost of managing change ..
Ubnt/Omada are far lower in cost upfront and cost of managing change is irrelevant for a home user setup


Both will give you pretty much seamless real world 600-900 mbps links across your entire house at a significantly lower cost than ruckus/aruba

Ruckus and Aruba will also involve a license fee for the controller software - again, non issue in corporate setup but not something you will want to do at home.



Omada or ubiquiti as @ishanjain28 mentioned.
The key with distributed AP setups (SDN) is to try ensure one is available at every place in the household where at least 1 is in Line of sight / near line of sight .
Both will also need a controller software running on an always on machine (or a dedicated hardware unit )
The controller software will take care of managing SSID (single if you want or more) and roaming

Sorry but a newb here. In what way would these be better than 'mesh' routers connected with an ethernet cable?

 

[superczar]

Sorry but a newb here. In what way would these be better than 'mesh' routers connected with an ethernet cable?

The sdn controller runs on an independent machine which has enough and more headroom to manage roaming (in particular) , stats collection and other network management tasks very effectively.

Mesh routers otoh are effectively using a single low power onboard soc to manage the core job of wan-lan routing and radio control in addition to the above.

In real life, I have seen very noticeable improvements in roaming performance after switching from Orbi Triband (which was good) to Omada (which is seriously excellent)-
although the latter was more involved and expensive to setup

 

[lockhrt999]

One more thing, ethernet should run through their own conduit. Don't run it along with other electrical cables, that could fry the network devices.
And you can place the AP/mesh node above false ceiling.
Another thing, as he's doing the whole electrical rework, I'd suggest giving ethernet connection to the TVs too.

 

[gwrench2000]

Yes, use a wired backbone to maintain greater compatablity for future. Wire has been around since very long. You can get away by using the cheaper non-STP (sheilded) CAT6 cable, if you take care to run the ethernet cable well away from electric wires and in a dedicated conduict. This often works out quite cheaper than STP and you have that luxury when in the construction stage.

Suggest to wire each floor seperately with a small network rack on each floor. The wiring from a particular floor goes into the giabit switch which is in the rack of that floor. The racks/switches from each floor then connect to a central switch which also has the ISP ONT/Modem/Router/Firewall attached to it. If you only use managed switches the flexiblity of the network configuration will be greatest. I have configured such homes for large Hindu Joint Family with great degree of privacy for each floor as an example. (Possible with managed switches). Managed switch such as this https://www.flipkart.com/tp-link-tl...SWF2HTSE6BEDHDY&lid=LSTNSWF2HTSE6BEDHDYRQIKFI is quite sufficent and inexpensive.

Now regarding wireless as @ishanjain28 said and i quote ""Omada/Ubiquiti/ruckus/aruba make good quality wifi APs. (listed from low to high price)"". You can run the omada controller on an inexpensive Raspberry Pi, along with Omada equipment for a cheaper setup, albeit with good performance. With a centrally managed setup (with controller) from the big 4 above, you will get an easy to manage network at a decent price.

For the cheapest possible wifi setup, but requiring better skills. We can use an inexpensive router such as https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09MKG4ZCM...colid=UCCHEHSTGZQK&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it in all locations after it has been flashed with a custom OpenWRT firmware image which has the wifi configuration with credentials and fast-roaming enabled burned to ROM and thus identical on all routers. This works great for clients cause they can simply reset the router if they bungled up configuration while tinkering with router, and it would reset to a (working) configuration. Custom firmware allows striping out the dhcp server so it cannot be enabled accidently causing network problems and untold greif to support person.

A lot of people also use an IP based CCTV setup for home security. This also uses the CAT6 cable often with PoE (power is supplied via same ethernet cable). This should be considerd when designing the home network.

You can buy maybe a dozen MI routers for the cost of a set of big-brand mesh routers. Mesh is a good to have but not necessary with a wired infrastructure.

There are also opensource mesh solutions using OpenWRT which can work seamlessly with or without a wired back bone https://libremesh.org/. If you have one of the supported routers. Entire cities could be provisioned with mesh wifi using technology like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freifunk

 

[belictony]

Yes, use a wired backbone to maintain greater compatablity for future. Wire has been around since very long. You can get away by using the cheaper non-STP (sheilded) CAT6 cable, if you take care to run the ethernet cable well away from electric wires and in a dedicated conduict. This often works out quite cheaper than STP and you have that luxury when in the construction stage.

Suggest to wire each floor seperately with a small network rack on each floor. The wiring from a particular floor goes into the giabit switch which is in the rack of that floor. The racks/switches from each floor then connect to a central switch which also has the ISP ONT/Modem/Router/Firewall attached to it. If you only use managed switches the flexiblity of the network configuration will be greatest. I have configured such homes for large Hindu Joint Family with great degree of privacy for each floor as an example. (Possible with managed switches). Managed switch such as this https://www.flipkart.com/tp-link-tl...SWF2HTSE6BEDHDY&lid=LSTNSWF2HTSE6BEDHDYRQIKFI is quite sufficent and inexpensive.

Now regarding wireless as @ishanjain28 said and i quote ""Omada/Ubiquiti/ruckus/aruba make good quality wifi APs. (listed from low to high price)"". You can run the omada controller on an inexpensive Raspberry Pi, along with Omada equipment for a cheaper setup, albeit with good performance. With a centrally managed setup (with controller) from the big 4 above, you will get an easy to manage network at a decent price.

For the cheapest possible wifi setup, but requiring better skills. We can use an inexpensive router such as https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09MKG4ZCM...colid=UCCHEHSTGZQK&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it in all locations after it has been flashed with a custom OpenWRT firmware image which has the wifi configuration with credentials and fast-roaming enabled burned to ROM and thus identical on all routers. This works great for clients cause they can simply reset the router if they bungled up configuration while tinkering with router, and it would reset to a (working) configuration. Custom firmware allows striping out the dhcp server so it cannot be enabled accidently causing network problems and untold greif to support person.

You can buy maybe a dozen MI routers for the cost of a set of big-brand mesh routers. Mesh is a good to have but not necessary with a wired infrastructure.

There are also opensource mesh solutions using OpenWRT which can work seamlessly with or without a wired back bone https://libremesh.org/. If you have one of the supported routers. Entire cities could be provisioned with mesh wifi using technology like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freifunk

Appreciate the detailed overview for the infrastructure. For people with network knowledge, its going to be a cake walk. For normal consumers, a mesh router is a headache free solution for multi story home. There is also the question of troubleshooting this complex setup which is not doable for end consumers.

 

[gwrench2000]

Appreciate the detailed overview for the infrastructure. For people with network knowledge, its going to be a cake walk. For normal consumers, a mesh router is a headache free solution for multi story home. There is also the question of troubleshooting this complex setup which is not doable for end consumers.

Just elaborated so you are aware of different possibilities. If ease of use is most important, certainly go for any of the big 4 (with the controller and a wired backbone). The controller makes it very easy for non-technical person, and any (omada) gear which is added later gets auto-configured by the controller...

This means we can can configure controller once and forget the rest... Buy the hardware controler if you dont fancy installing it on a Raspberry Pi. https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-Omada-Cloud-Controller-Metal/dp/B07GX6GVB6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2QUZG0WVNOK8X&keywords=omada+controller&qid=1650957412&sprefix=omada%20controlle,aps,328&sr=8-1. This link is for OC200 (100Mbps) you need the OC300 for (1000Mbps)

Use only the same family (omada in this case) devices for most easy setup...

 

[deepakvrao]

Yes, use a wired backbone to maintain greater compatablity for future. Wire has been around since very long. You can get away by using the cheaper non-STP (sheilded) CAT6 cable, if you take care to run the ethernet cable well away from electric wires and in a dedicated conduict. This often works out quite cheaper than STP and you have that luxury when in the construction stage.

Suggest to wire each floor seperately with a small network rack on each floor. The wiring from a particular floor goes into the giabit switch which is in the rack of that floor. The racks/switches from each floor then connect to a central switch which also has the ISP ONT/Modem/Router/Firewall attached to it. If you only use managed switches the flexiblity of the network configuration will be greatest. I have configured such homes for large Hindu Joint Family with great degree of privacy for each floor as an example. (Possible with managed switches). Managed switch such as this https://www.flipkart.com/tp-link-tl...SWF2HTSE6BEDHDY&lid=LSTNSWF2HTSE6BEDHDYRQIKFI is quite sufficent and inexpensive.

Now regarding wireless as @ishanjain28 said and i quote ""Omada/Ubiquiti/ruckus/aruba make good quality wifi APs. (listed from low to high price)"". You can run the omada controller on an inexpensive Raspberry Pi, along with Omada equipment for a cheaper setup, albeit with good performance. With a centrally managed setup (with controller) from the big 4 above, you will get an easy to manage network at a decent price.

For the cheapest possible wifi setup, but requiring better skills. We can use an inexpensive router such as https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09MKG4ZCM...colid=UCCHEHSTGZQK&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it in all locations after it has been flashed with a custom OpenWRT firmware image which has the wifi configuration with credentials and fast-roaming enabled burned to ROM and thus identical on all routers. This works great for clients cause they can simply reset the router if they bungled up configuration while tinkering with router, and it would reset to a (working) configuration. Custom firmware allows striping out the dhcp server so it cannot be enabled accidently causing network problems and untold greif to support person.

A lot of people also use an IP based CCTV setup for home security. This also uses the CAT6 cable often with PoE (power is supplied via same ethernet cable). This should be considerd when designing the home network.

You can buy maybe a dozen MI routers for the cost of a set of big-brand mesh routers. Mesh is a good to have but not necessary with a wired infrastructure.

There are also opensource mesh solutions using OpenWRT which can work seamlessly with or without a wired back bone https://libremesh.org/. If you have one of the supported routers. Entire cities could be provisioned with mesh wifi using technology like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freifunk

Thanks so much for the detailed reply.

One question. IP based CCTV - does it need different cameras? My current CCTV setup uses co axial and a power cable. Is this IP based better?

 

[gwrench2000]

Thanks so much for the detailed reply.

One question. IP based CCTV - does it need different cameras? My current CCTV setup uses co axial and a power cable. Is this IP based better?

Yes, IP based CCTV uses different type of cameras which generally do not use co-axial cable. IP cameras will have a RJ45 port and/or wifi. However even the co-axial cameras often connect to a DVR which often has IP function and RJ45 port. Please refer to the manual of your DVR for co-axial CCTV.

 

[fastapifastdisks]

omada software controller is not that great, i have it running to manage 2 very expensive business routers.The remote management ui of omada is full of bugs,plus with every update that fixes something,something else breaks. I tried reporting multiple of these things,feature requests etc on tp-link forums and they don't bother to fix things that too for business device user's. Commercial users are worse off i think. Go with ubiquiti or cisco or something more professional.

 

[gwrench2000]

omada software controller is not that great, i have it running to manage 2 very expensive business routers.The remote management ui of omada is full of bugs,plus with every update that fixes something,something else breaks. I tried reporting multiple of these things,feature requests etc on tp-link forums and they don't bother to fix things that too for business device user's. Commercial users are worse off i think. Go with ubiquiti or cisco or something more professional.

Can you kindly elaborate on the problems you faced? and the gear used. Controller version?

 

[fastapifastdisks]

Can you kindly elaborate on the problems you faced? and the gear used. Controller version?

1x ER7206
1x ER605
1x Some 18 port gigabit switch.
Omada software controller running on a local network pc.
on the first install and setup of controller it was not able to detect dhcp client's,the list was empty, tried changing switches etc still nothing. Reinstalled it was able to see clients.
We wanted omada for remote troubleshooting,sadly it would error out everytime we tried assigning static ip's.opening ports for testing things etc remotely through its cloud service. All the advance networking feature's failed to work via the cloud. Omada version v4.4.4 and v4.4.6 both had same issues. the v4.4.6 solved the not able to detect dhcp client's thing. Remote/cloud control still broken. I think the hardware controller of omada is way better than the software controller version,atleast that is what i have heard/read online.
Also say goodbye to port 443 if enabling cloud control. Everytime i port forwarded a internal web service to the internet, the router even though configured would redirect 443 login page of my service to its own login page.All good routers have rather should have the ability to change its own internal cloud service to a different port.You can change the port on which omada runs but for some reason not change the actual router login page service.
We ended up not using omada in the end and now simply use the inbuilt standalone ui.Plus openvpn,ipsec performance is not the greatest of these routers. Should have gone with pfsense/mikrotik.

 

[gwrench2000]

1x ER7206
1x ER605
1x Some 18 port gigabit switch.
Omada software controller running on a local network pc.
on the first install and setup of controller it was not able to detect dhcp client's,the list was empty, tried changing switches etc still nothing. Reinstalled it was able to see clients.
We wanted omada for remote troubleshooting,sadly it would error out everytime we tried assigning static ip's.opening ports for testing things etc remotely through its cloud service. All the advance networking feature's failed to work via the cloud. Omada version v4.4.4 and v4.4.6 both had same issues. the v4.4.6 solved the not able to detect dhcp client's thing. Remote/cloud control still broken. I think the hardware controller of omada is way better than the software controller version,atleast that is what i have heard/read online.
Also say goodbye to port 443 if enabling cloud control. Everytime i port forwarded a internal web service to the internet, the router even though configured would redirect 443 login page of my service to its own login page.All good routers have rather should have the ability to change its own internal cloud service to a different port.You can change the port on which omada runs but for some reason not change the actual router login page service.
We ended up not using omada in the end and now simply use the inbuilt standalone ui.Plus openvpn,ipsec performance is not the greatest of these routers. Should have gone with pfsense/mikrotik.

Thank you for sharing. Honestly, while I have used the central managemnet, I have never used or enabled the cloud functionality. The central management from a local machine worked fine for the clients requirement. I am using a software based controller which runs in a virtual machine.

The problem of the devices getting detected is often a combination of the version of the controller and the revision of the firmware installed on the device. If you get a chance, first update all devices to latest firmware and then try the different versions of the (software) controller in a vm.

You can get the best of both world by using pfsense or mikrotik gateway for the best VPN performance while using Omada only to manage the wifi. It is a no contest when we put an x86 machine against the embedded platform.

When a static IP and/or inbound VPN is available, I prefer never to use 3rd party or manufacturer cloud service when static IP is available and never open ports when an inbound VPN is available.