Choosing Wifi Network Solution for multi level house

[elp]

Hello, this is my first post in this forum and first i want to thank you for your amazing posts, i really learned a lot about networking from them.

I just moved to a new house and i need to setup a wifi network on 4 floors and basement (around 150sqm each) serving 25+ client devices with internet, voip, isp tv and dlna streaming from a nas. Many of the nas streams have variable bitrate with spikes around 150 Mbit.

My isp router, NAS and voip server are hooked on a switch on the top floor wired with another switch on the floor bellow. I am thinking to use a setup like the following:
3rd floor: ISP Router-1
2nd floor: Wifi Router-2 wired to ISP Router-1.
1st floor: Extender-1 connected wirelessly to 2nd floor Router-2 (Hop1).
Ground floor: Extender-2 connected wirelessly to 1st floor Extender-1 (Hop2).

I am considering Orbi, Velop, EA8300's or even Asus 5300's if the performance difference will make up for the cost difference. I am really hoping that you might be able to help me choose equipment able to do the following simultaneously:

1. Perform as good as possible on the Ground floor (Hop2).
2. Both Wifi Router-2 and Extender-1 stream 150Mbit to one smart tv each (connected with 802.11ac 2X2:2/80 MHz on less than 5 meters distance without obstacles).
3. My son with his friends being able to play games on their laptops or console with decent latency even when the router/extender on their floor streams to tv at the same time.
4. Roaming efficiently when changing floors with new smartphones.
5. IP phone dects and tv top boxes wired to the Extenders work flawlessly with low latency.

Also my ISP, managed switches and Windows use DSCP marking on packets so i need all new equipment to respect the marking. It would be nice if new equipment QoS had the option to classify each packet depenting not only from source IP and protocol but also from DSCP marking. Having the ability to remark them would be a plus***. Having both ways QoS would be an even greater plus. I have found Dynamic/L3 QoS to use a lot of CPU and delay routers so it is not a plus for me, L2 is enough for my needs.

I am also wondering about the following:

a. Is it possible for RBK53 to be used the way i need it (router -> satelite -> satelite) or both satelites need to be in router wifi range? If it is possible then maybe someone with experience from a similar setup is able to inform me about the performance on Hop2?

b. How good will 3* EA8300 perform on Hop2 compared to a tri band Velop? (Since i don't need BigJee choosing the much cheaper EA8300's seems logical)

c. I am really troubled that all Mesh Systems and Extenders provide only 2X2:2 radios for client connectivity. How much router performance and range increase should i expect if i choose the very expensive solution of BCM4908 + BCM4366 router combined with 2* IPQ4019 + QCA9984 extenders? Will broadcom and qualcomm play well together? What about the even more expensive 3* router (BCM4908 + BCM4366) solution, is there any product with it that supports wireless bridge and has anyone tested its performance on that mode? Did anyone have problems or slow performance when creating a dedicated backhaul on tri band products that are supposed to support wireless bridge?

d. Is there any low cost equipment that would allow me to encode to G.993.2-5 so i can use the telephone wiring that connects 2nd floor with ground?

e. Will a powerline be able to maintain speeds above 200Mbit after 3 floors and hundred of meters of electrical wiring? (the cable is of good quality and new)

f. Are we expecting new mesh systems in the near future with at least 3X3:3 for client connectivity?

I really hope my bad english and long post will not discourage people from reading it, i couldnt make it smaller because all this questions circle in my mind for more than a month and there is noone i know that could give me advice on the small island i live.

***For example Rule1: Filter all outgoing packets from any IP that have EF DSCP marking and send them to queue-1, Rule2: Filter all outgoing packets with source IP range X, change their DSCP marking to AF31 and send them on queue-2.

 

[ulaganath]

I would suggest to have ap in each floor. It’s only cost effective solutions. Say 3 floors 3 -5 ap. Based on the need.

Get latest ap. Say if you are only connecting 2*2 client no point with 3x or 4x router/ap

Plus most devices are wireless roaming is ease .

If you don’t have any router get one of best . But routers can’t cover entire home.

Try these

Eap225 v3 for 2*2 1350Mbps
Eap 330. For 3*3 1900 Mbps

Hope you now get close to solution


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[degrub]

1) use RG6 coax and MOCA2 modems to each floor or install CAT5e or CAT6 to each floor and use POE based APs. Powerline is unlikely to meet concurrent high demand bandwidth
2) Use 5Ghz APs only if all clients will work on that band. If 2.4 GHz used, you will need to be able to reduce power on each to avoid overlap and interference.
3) Wireless based extenders can be bandwidth problematic if there is a lot of interference and high usage.

 

[elp]

@
ulaganath,
Thank you for your answer but i am not sure it is a really cost effective solution. If i understand correctly each AP needs to be wired and wiring the whole house/ceilings and repainting it will cost more than a wifi system. I am still hoping that i can get the performance i need with two wireless bridges, if i find out that i cant then i will follow your advice and use those AP's.

 

[elp]

1) use RG6 coax and MOCA2 modems to each floor or install CAT5e or CAT6 to each floor and use POE based APs. Powerline is unlikely to meet concurrent high demand bandwidth
2) Use 5Ghz APs only if all clients will work on that band. If 2.4 GHz used, you will need to be able to reduce power on each to avoid overlap and interference.
3) Wireless based extenders can be bandwidth problematic if there is a lot of interference and high usage.

Thank you for your answer, probably saved me a lot of frustration. Since wiring is the only solution for high usage i will read about MOCA and choose the best wire for my case. I have both 2.4 and 5ghz clients so i will make sure the AP's i buy are able to reduce the 2.4 power for less overlapping.

 

[svt11]

You must use wifi with band steering

 

[Easy Rhino]

Okay I only know a few answers..

orbi cannot do two-hops. Everything has to be arranged in a 'star' configuration so the satellite would have to connect straight to the 2nd floor.

The basement setting will be difficult. it seems from Tim's mesh system reviews that a two-hop performance is only sometimes reach a 150mbps peak speed.

If the telephone wiring is Cat3 or less, then you're talking only 100mbps -- or less -- performance, so that's probably not a good option to use as "native" computer cabling. I don't know enough about powerline to guess how that would do.

Do you already have coaxial cable in the house? That's when you'd use MoCA.

If you have to rewire, I'd probably go with Ethernet.

Another option would be to try using a wifi extender on the ground floor that connects directly to floor 3 wirelessly, avoiding a second hop. If you go to the ground floor in the best possible location, what kind of actual wifi speeds can you get when connecting to the floor 3 router?

 

[sfx2000]

My isp router, NAS and voip server are hooked on a switch on the top floor wired with another switch on the floor bellow. I am thinking to use a setup like the following:
3rd floor: ISP Router-1
2nd floor: Wifi Router-2 wired to ISP Router-1.
1st floor: Extender-1 connected wirelessly to 2nd floor Router-2 (Hop1).
Ground floor: Extender-2 connected wirelessly to 1st floor Extender-1 (Hop2).

I'd suggest a dedicated AP on each floor... CAT5/CAT6 as a distribution from your primary router... for AP's - consider 700 sq ft good coverage for 5GHz, 15oo sq ft for 2.4GHz

Netgear has business oriented AP's that are actually nicely priced, or there's always UniFI's (and don't forget to consider either Zyxel or Edimax for dedicated AP's, they're pretty good). BHR's work as AP's in a pinch, but a dedicated AP is a better play in the long run if you need to add capability like SSID to VLAN mapping (see next paragraph)

Personally, I'd backhaul everything into a layer 3 lite switch like the netgear gs-108t (lot of capability there for an 8 port switch under $100USD) - for the router, maybe consider the ER-X or the Microtik hEX, both are reasonably priced and very capable.

For Wiring - Find a telco/cable installer - many are independent contractors, and they can do this fairly quickly for the wiring - you'd be surprised how easy this is...

 

[Michael Cool]

Maybe you can use a wifi tester to make sure everything is done. I recommend you AR Signal Master which can help you record the signal strength of all the places you have passed and show the results in the heatmap where you can make comparison between different points in your house. Then you will know whether the solution works or not.

 

[RogerSC]

Okay I only know a few answers..

orbi cannot do two-hops. Everything has to be arranged in a 'star' configuration so the satellite would have to connect straight to the 2nd floor.

Orbi has been able to daisy-chain satellites for some time now.

I'm also a MoCA 2.0 advocate...added a couple of MoCA links recently, one for each remote mesh node, and they've certainly helped my wireless mesh. Nothing like a wired-equivalent backhaul *smile*.

 

[elp]

I finaly completed my home wifi using two AP's on every floor. To do so i had to run CAT6a (MoCA cable is not used at all in my country) inside the concrete ceiling, the cost of cables and repainting the ceilings was high but it seems that it was the only reliable solution. I used EAP225v3 and i have to say that they are really fast (both on bandwidth and latency) even with multiple connections on them. The 2.4ghz range though is dissapointing. The WMM is working great, so great i dont need any other kind of QOS like i did with any router i had till now. I had some reliability issues with band steering so i had to disable it.Roaming was a total failure even after i spend hours adjusting the power of each AP, even when working it is too slow for my needs, switching networks after 15 seconds is of no use when you are having a video call, pressing the new network name by hand only needs 1 sec. I am now using a unique SSID on every AP and i am manually changing network on client when i move around. I want to thank you all for your replies that kept me away from the chaining extenders hell.