Did I set up my home network correctly?

[dissonance79]

Hello. I'm a bit of a novice but I set up my home network a few years ago and now that I'm looking to replace my current router (AC Asus model), I want to make sure I have everything optimized. My network is comprised of about 16+ wired connections (poe cameras, desktop, streaming devices, etc), about 10+ 2.4ghz wireless connections (iot, etc), and about 15+ 5ghz wireless connections (phones, laptops, tablets, etc). Current internet connection is 500 mbps down and 100 mbps up.

All of my in wall Cat5e goes to a panel in my garage. I terminated each wire onto a Commercial Electric 12-Port Category 5e Mini Patch Panel. Then I used short patch cables to connect from the patch panel to a gigabit switch. My router and modem are not located here due to it being a poor location for broadcasting wifi. The router and modem are located in a central location of the house connected to a cat5e wall cable.

I think it's correct but it seems weird because my router is running the whole house through one cat5e cable plugged into it from the wall that then runs to the switch in the garage. It seems like I'd want to use more ports on the back of my router so I can use the gaming port for my hardwired Xbox and it seems like using more ports directly on the router may help with speed?

 

[degrub]

Where is the ISP demarcation box ?
How does the ISP signal get to the modem ?
Ideally, you want the ISP signal to be on a dedicated cable to the modem, then a dedicated cable(s) to the router. From there , a LAN connection to your distribution switch.
A sketch of your physical layout and cable types (coax, cat5e, fiber ?) would be useful.

 

[dissonance79]

Where is the ISP demarcation box ?
How does the ISP signal get to the modem ?
Ideally, you want the ISP signal to be on a dedicated cable to the modem, then a dedicated cable(s) to the router. From there , a LAN connection to your distribution switch.
A sketch of your layout and cable types would be useful.

Just like the cat5e, all of the coaxial cable also goes to the network box in the garage. However I don't currently use any of the coaxial wall jacks in my house except for the one that goes to my modem and my modem is next to my router in the central part of my house. I have that one coax wall outlet directly hooked to the incoming coax feed. So I think that qualifies as dedicated since all of the other coax wall outlets are currently disconnected.

So in the central part of my house, the coax goes into the modem, then a cat5e cable from the modem to the router, and then the router is hooked to the wall via cat5e which then runs to my patch panel and switch in the garage.

Here is a pic of the patch panel. Sorry about the mess but I hope it helps.

 

[degrub]

ok, that is what i suspected but was not clear. If you want to use more lan ports on the router, one of two ways - move the router to the area of the switch so you can dedicate one in-wall cat5e run to your gaming box and plug that into your router "gaming" lan port or run another cat5e cable either from the patch panel to the router (again dedicating an in-wall cat5e to the gaming machine location) or from the gaming box direct to the router where it is now, whichever is easier.

 

[degrub]

If you have unused coax (RG6 ?) in the wall, you could use that with moca modems to get to the gaming machine on a dedicated run, perhaps using a nearby ( not the same coax as your ISP drop) coax to get to the router.

 

[dissonance79]

The issue with putting my wifi router with the switch in the garage network panel is its on the far side of the house and has a lot of HVAC equipment blocking the wifi signal to the rest of the house. I suspect there is a way to run a modem and non-wifi router in my garage network panel and then run some sort of access point to the central part of my house (where my wifi router currently is) but I'm not sure if there's a simple way to do that and have equal or better results versus how it's set up now. I've always used Asus products and am familiar with the firmware and like the AiProtection, Parental controls, etc.

 

[degrub]

If your gaming traffic runs through AiP (remote servers), that may be a latency and bandwidth bottleneck issue, not the local network.
Note - if you used moca, there is a 2-3 msec latency increase by going through those modems.

 

[dissonance79]

I wonder if there is any benefit replacing the Asus router in the center of the house with an Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Max in the garage with the network panel and then an access point or two in the house.

 

[degrub]

i use an old cisco RV325 behind the ISP router plus 4 RV371 APs (5GHz only) scattered around a two level 3000 sqr ft house. My son's gaming doesn't seem to suffer from running over a moca2 backbone to the RV325 and through the ISP router out to the world.

In the SMB world, APs are lower RF power, but more plentiful to provide more even coverage for a large number of clients keeping up throughput and supporting roaming between APs.

CISCO 150x APs are reasonable value with AP controller built in. So are the TP-Link Omada series routers/APs (you need the controller OC200), Ubiquiti, and several others. Usually best to keep the APs from same company line. If you need VLAN support, make sure all components support VLANs at either ISO level 2 (2.5) or 3 using a managed switch / router or at least an unmanaged switch that does not strip off VLAN Tags. My understanding is that ASUS sort of supports VLANs in some of their consumer gear. Someone with better grasp of those devices will have to chime in.

 

[Tech9]

I wonder if there is any benefit replacing the Asus router in the center of the house with an Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Max in the garage with the network panel and then an access point or two in the house.

If the budget allows - do it. Most people come here for cheaper consumer All-In-One solutions. I'm all Cisco and Ruckus APs on my networks, Netgear switching, Netgate appliances and the only AIO router I still have in use is not Asus. Set and forget, focus on something more important for you in life.

 

[tgl]

Yeah, given the layout you'd be significantly better off separating the router from your wireless AP(s), so you can locate the router where the ISP signal comes in.

FWIW - I've been using UniFi APs for a bit under a year now, and I like them. However, in reading the UniFi community forums (a tremendous resource btw) I've not felt a desire to jump to using their routers. They seem to emphasize simplicity over configurability, which is a problem at least for me --- I have a setup with multiple external IP addresses and different filtering rules for each one, and I'm not convinced I could make UniFi do that. (ASUS definitely can't.) What I'm using instead is a Netgate pfSense router. This may or may not be for you, but I mention it for completeness. UniFi also seem to have a problem similar to ASUS in that their firmware releases are frequently two steps forward and one step back, so that you have to pay close attention to which release you are running and whether its bugs will bite in your specific usage.

If you are happy with your existing ASUS router in terms of networking throughput and features, you could do a lot worse than to turn off its wifi, stick it in the garage, and then buy one or more pure APs to provide wifi connectivity where needed. It might seem a little wasteful to not use the router's wifi, but not nearly as wasteful as junking it for something that won't make you happier.

 

[Tech9]

It might seem a little wasteful

No, the router is very old. From another thread:

I'm looking to upgrade my EOL Asus RT-AC68U

@dissonance79 is looking for a new Wi-Fi system.

 

[tiddlywink]

..

 

[dissonance79]

What problems are you actually having that you want to solve?

Asus now has two wired routers in the expertwifi series that works with consumer aimesh units:

ASUS ExpertWiFi - All Models｜Business Network Solutions｜ASUS Global

In ASUS ãASUS ExpertWiFi - All Modelsã - Networking / IoT / Servers , you could find most appropriate Networking / IoT / Servers based on product features, specification or price. And you also could get product's detail information and comparsion, even add it into the wish list in buy page.

www.asus.com

My current router is end of life so I just thought I'd re-evaluate my setup and see if it's suboptimal to have my router in the middle of the house and away from where all of my cat5e drops. Plus it's sort of fun. I plan to get a gig connection eventually. I've got about 100 mbps of constant wired network chatter from my ip cameras and 40+ devices.

 

[tiddlywink]

..

 

[dissonance79]

Your PoE cameras are on a separate PoE switch where your NAS/NVR should also reside. None of that traffic should be hitting your main network.

Just buy the ASUS ExpertWiFi EBG15 to put in that space + move cable modem there; confirm your garage doesn't exceed max operating temps. Then you can plug in any aimesh node in rooms including using any EOL routers as nodes. As your network demands increase, you can easily replace just what needs to be replaced.

Currently the cams go to a poe switch in the garage because most of the cams are nearby and can be ran through the attic. The garage is the only place that has an attic due to vaulted ceilings in the rest of the house. The poe switch is hooked into the main network switch so it can go to the nvr and monitor in the house. It seemed more convenient to have ithe nvr and monitor in the house for monitoring and viewing footage when necessary. I assume if I have a gig connection and gig equipment then I'll never see a gig internet speed. I assume I'd need a 2.5gig setup like a Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Max to see a full gig internet?

I'll look into that Asus wireless router. One thing that surprises me is how the cpus seem slower on those and the Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Max compared to a high end Asus all in one, like a AX88U Pro or BE88U. It must be plenty for the wired routers though as the Ubiquiti can do 300 connections, 2.5 gig, or 1.5 gig with ids/ips on, etc.

 

[tiddlywink]

..

 

[tgl]

CPU speed is meaningless unless you control the software.

Even more to the point: CPU speed is meaningless unless you first account for hardware acceleration paths. Most network gear in this class has circuitry that allows common packet-forwarding cases to be dealt with without ever hitting the CPU. As soon as a packet does have to be handled by the CPU, you're talking one or more orders of magnitude slowdown compared to the hardware-accelerated cases. So it's all about how many cases can the hardware paths handle, and do those cases include what you care about. Unfortunately, there's no way to know except by testing, because all of this acceleration logic is deep dark vendor-proprietary stuff with no published data.

 

[coxhaus]

CPU clock has a big meaning in routing I/O data. The faster the clock regardless if you use the CPU or not the faster you will move data. 64 bit vs 32 bit can make a difference in moving data also with large amounts of data.

 

[tgl]

Sure, I didn't intend to imply that CPU speed is irrelevant. Only that you can't compare two routers strictly on CPU speed if you don't know what hardware acceleration circuitry they have.