Yesterday, I finished upgrading my home network from PlusNet’s Hub One router (with Apple AirPort Extreme handling WiFi)) to Ubiquity Unifi with a DrayTek Vigor 130 modem. Pictured below are the Vigor 130 modem & Unifi US24 switch (both in loft) and Unifi Dream Machine (UDM) router (in the study) - I’ve turned off the blue LEDs on the UDM & switch in the control software. Loving the Unifi control software (very intuitive) and learning about the many features (intrusion detection & protection, use of separate Vlan for IoT & guests, etc.).
Really pleased with how this project has gone, and whilst I don’t need any more WAPs (the UDM gives good coverage across the house), there is always that option to add more if needed. Indeed Unifi have a WiFi 6 (ax) WAP in beta.
I’ve found documenting the installation, mapping the ports and the use of a new Dymo label maker have helped to make the whole thing better organised and managed. You can tell I used to work in a regulated industry!
I agree with previous sentiments about having extra cables/ports, and as the network has grown, it’s been great having twin or quadruple wall ports available. It also has resulted in a ‘clean’ installation with no daisy chaining of extra switches needed.
Yes, I could get a data cabinet, use a patch panel, etc, however this setup as it stands is working well and I’m not in a mad dash to do much more for now.
Good luck to the OP - let us know how you get on with your project! It can be lots of fun, occasionally frustrating, however you’ll learn so much in the process!
In bedrooms, how many devices do people really want to hard wire to their network??
It’s not like kids have desktop computers; this is 2020. Laptops, phones, tablets, etc. All require good wifi. Smart devices, internet-of-things devices – all are on wifi. My router table has never been more filled, and as time goes on more and more will come. My refrigerator can monitor itself and send me an alert. Doorbell. Lighting. Garage door opener. But they’re all wifi.
I think that those planning extensive wired networks in homes today are perhaps a bit behind the curve.
Yes - our hi fi networked streamer players still seem to like wired connections better. So in 2020 a run of ethernet cable from our server>switch>player is still desirable. That’ll surely change soon too.
indeed Bart - it might be different if you were running a comms room - but then you wouldn’t do that in a bedroom - or at least most wouldn’t…
I agree as I said earlier in this thread - if planning and installing ethernet infrastructure in a house - do ensure you focus on the ethernet uplinks from access switches to extensive low power WAPs that are all managed as a single ESSID so they can load balance and band steer. It almost makes ethernet redundant for end user devices. The world has moved on… but again as I have commented elsewhere there is seems a time lag with some/many? audio enthusiasts … it might be an age thing - I don’t know
In which case, maybe we should be putting ethernet to the ceiling, to install ceiling-mounted WAP’s. (Although, practically, in homes, a desktop-style device is probably easier to deal with.)
Ceilings are good - I have done that in places here - and one disc WAP is next to a disc smoke alarm in the ceiling and looks quite innocuous - the WAP is PoE.
High on walls is also good…
I’ve always had an interest (if not a facility) in state of the art solutions for home use. Those who don’t probably just assume that, like in 2005, wiring up rooms is still state of the art. It isn’t, that’s all.
Not everyone uses their bedrooms as bedrooms. For example, my wife uses a bedroom as a craft room and my music room (main Naim Rig) is in another bedroom. I also know some folks use their smallest bedroom as a study (especially with increased working from home).
The bedrooms in our house have aerial sockets - fairly redundant in our house, and we have repurposed the ones in the craft room and music room for Ethernet.
Not knocking wireless, however my preference (for rock solid reliability) is to hard wire wherever I can (Smart TV, A/V, streamers, NAS, servers, PCs, etc.).
At the same time, good wireless from our new UDM will guarantee that our IoT devices (that can’t physically be wired) - smart bulbs, plugs, UFH, thermostat, etc. - work well.
Hi fi - yes we’re still a bit tethered to Ethernet for best performance oftentimes.
But office work? My wife and I do our work from home 8 hrs a day each, on laptops and wifi. Zero need for an ethernet cabled connection. She has converted a bedroom into her office, but again, zero need for ethernet in 2020. Laptop - wireless. Phone, obviously wireless. Printer - wi fi connected to the network. With decent wi fi hardware, can get the full speed the comes to our home in every room of the home (we’re at 100 up and down).
With our Lenovo laptops and the multiple soft phone and Cisco WebEx calls, we found the wired connection to be 100% reliable - even when sat right next to our Apple AirPort Extreme. Maybe it was the Lenovo wireless cards (or the configuration put in and locked down by corporate IT) - anyway, the wired access never failed us (wireless did), and we stuck with it until we retired recently.
I suspect it may be down to the access point. Or possibly wifi drivers, but unlikely.
These days for major organisations we use more and more wlan infrastructure and for obvious reasons it has to be reliable and secure as well as cost effective… and it is otherwise we wouldn’t do it…
In fact there is one very large customer I work with where we are defocussing wired accesses for end user devices. and using wifi (For video, voice and applications) … this is for security, cost and flexibility reasons.
A correctly installed wlan system can be as effectively reliable as Ethernet for many end user devices … and be a lot more flexible. With the advent IoT etc wlan has become the norm in many cases.
Clearly different in comms room, server rooms, and specialised infrastructure.
If you own a modern home, it may be worth checking what cabling was installed behind the telephone sockets. I discovered that my home is pre wired with Cat5e, which is presented in most habitable rooms as telephone points. After some tracing I figured out the routing, which which having designed many large commercial installations was not at all obvious to me at first, but on reflection it is very efficient on cable length! Good ol developer!
Having swapped out the telephone points I now have a neat Cat5e structured cabling system re terminated in new RJ45 outlets as required. It is a pity that they didn’t install multiple Cat 6 to each point, but hey its a commercial product.
That’s fortunate… Cat 3 telephone cabling tends to have 6 wires, where as Cat5e tends to have 8 wires.
Strictly speaking the characteristic impedances are different between the two, but I suspect over short distances it makes very little difference.
Yes, SOMEHOW ‘big business’ seems to put hundreds and hundreds of people into buildings, each with a laptop and a phone, up and downloading data and docs, doing video calls, and streaming Zoom, Skype, Teams, etc., to conference room displays and audio systems, and none on a wired connection.
Home use wifi hardware in 2020 can replicate this functionality pretty well. I’m sticking with ‘no need to go to extraordinary steps to fully wire a home in 2020.’
I am guessing that Cat 5e is so cheap that it isn’t worth penny pinching. I also suspect that there is something in their marketing guff that says all of their homes are ‘prepared for IT’ or some such claim.
Maybe one day they will build all homes with Ethernet star wired back to a hub in a cupboard! or perhaps 5G will mean this isn’t necessary!
