this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The area sounds like you need a mesh network for it to run properly, the router itself shouldn't be a problem besides that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is what you want, op. Realistically, covering a space like this means running some cable and using it to connect everything. You'll have one router that connects to the fiber gateway then probably two or more access points connected to the router, those can be old routers if you have one or more laying around, or just WAPs (wireless access points).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Using wired access points is always way better than a wireless mesh system, it does bring so some difficulty in potentially pulling cable though the wall or ok the outside. If that can be overcome, it's WAY better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes thats true but knowing houses like mine cables aren't exactly a good idea. Man my walls are Reinforced Concrete... They block most signals and i cant drill holes in them...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mesh would be terrible if your walls block most signals. Mesh networks are already bad as it is.

The worst thing is that the mesh network nodes constantly need to communicate with each other, and that will slow down any transmissions from devices to nodes.

Check out MOCA networks or even powerline. Moca is ethernet over coaxial so you can reuse old coax cables. Powerline is ethernet over the houses electrical wiring. Powerline is neat but its performance can be very dependent on how old your wiring is and how it's setup, and which outlets you choose. Sometimes it doesn't work at all.

Moca is more expensive but allegedly (haven't used it personally) much more reliable.

You could also do what I did and replace the coax with normal Ethernet cables by using the coax as a pullcord for ethernet.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah i know, im working on getting cables into the wall, but thats basically impossible. I bought mesh nodes that can be wired. Powerline is sadly not a good option, it works barely for some reason (cables are basically new) and besides electrical wires there haven't been any wires in the walls in general, the one that had the house before apparently just had some cable laying on the ground... Mesh is currently the only option to get decent speeds around the house.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah, that's a shame.

I hope the cables work out in the end :)

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

I hope as well 😉

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Depending on how technical you are, look at open WRT. GLI net sells good devices, fairly inexpensive, and has open WRT pre-installed. I have several of the devices in their rock solid

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I have the ASUS RT-AX86U (AX5700) Dual Band WiFi 6 Gaming Router and it can do all of those things. It's also mesh compatible, so you can buy a second router and use it as a node if you end up with any dead spots behind brick walls.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

How technology inclined are you? Build a PFsense/Opensense router from an old pc with two network adapters then get Unifi access points. They have been the best wifi experience in my whole life. This route is very technical but will give you the best coverage but will learn a lot. Also running cat6 drops or using power line adapters would be one of the best ways to get the connection around the house. But I have experienced with gfci breakers they can cause problems with them working.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Definitely a mesh network.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

With that kind of surface area to cover, and with how higher frequencies are not passing through these kinds of walls easily, you'll have trouble finding a single router that covers it all.

You could try a router that can do a mesh network with a dedicated wireless backhaul to ensure good coverage, but if the walls are impeding the signal too much for the wireless backhaul to operate to a satisfactory speed then you may need to go with a wired backhaul, which is to run Ethernet wires from the main router to the mesh nodes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

OP will be "fried" before such a router AP will be able to cover such a vast area aith a usable signal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This looks pretty cool. My house is old and ungrounded mostly. I wonder if that matters.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It does. I lived in a place with aluminum wiring. The pigtailing defeated the adapters. The place I'm in now is all copper, but the connection can be flakey.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My place has 7 or so circuit breakers from various additions over the years, and it looks like the adapters need to be on the same circuit, which makes sense, so I can't really use them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Look into MoCa adapters. (Media Over Cable)

These let you do the same thing as powerline, but with the Coaxial cable TV ports in your walls instead.

If you really want to get fancy, pull out your old phone jacks and follow them through with CAT6 ( and new phone wire if you want to keep both). You don’t need to wire everything; buy some WiFi APs and keep the router in the basement, and run hardlines to your APs (an AP or Access Point is just the WiFi part of what you think of as the router, it doesn’t do any routing, it just goes from wired->wireless)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

pull out your old phone jacks and follow them through with CAT6

If you're lucky, you may not even need this step.

Buying 4-pair cable in Cat5e-or-better spec has been cheaper than 2-pair Cat3 "phone cable" for probably around 2 decades now, due to the vastly higher quantity of it being manufactured, so in plenty of newer houses the phone lines are wired with it.

You could still get unlucky and find the jacks are daisy-chained, but having a central wiring panel where they all connect to became popular in a similar timeframe.

Bit of a long shot, but in the best case scenario all you need to do is replace the jacks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If you could get a decent spread of the house via 1 meter you would be fine. I live in 3rd Story of an appartment in Germany, my cellar is on same meter but different breaker and I get maybe half the speed, but is unbelievable that it goes that far and it works for Youtube etc. Maybe see if you could try some out, send back under 30 days if they don't work?

When they do work they feel like magic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I have 5800sqft and use 3 ASUS ZenWiFi AX6600s. I think you'd be good to do 2 unless you have a very odd layout. They are definitely on the more expensive side but they do very well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be fair you wanna cover 3400 sqft and that's not going to come cheap

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I honestly just didn't realize how expensive routers could be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

alternatively the neighbor in ASUS' product stack: the AX92U - also available in a pack of 2 (with a separate product name and page), for just a little more than the AX88U, so you can cover the area more efficiently with their easy to use meshing feature.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I live in a large space (dunno square feet). Two pack of Eeros has me good.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Google nest pro is actually damn cheap for wifi6e, around $350 for a 3 pack I Believe.

Edit - no VPN or custom support though, so not a good fit for you