Need help deciding on direction

[restorick2378]

Hello all,

First time poster here. Been a lurker for a little bit. I'm trying to get my arms around going routers or mesh. When we built the house 18 years ago, I ran Cat5 throughout. I eschewed the first few gens of wireless devices because I had a pretty solid setup with the ethernet. Downside, of course, was that everything was tethered.

Now, I have a Netgear R7300 as my primary wireless router behind the Arris cable model (Uverse). In hindsight, the R7300 seemed like a good idea as it included a dead spot device. But I never got that working correctly and it's gathering dust in the closet. The R7300 itself is a nice router, but it doesn't support options for VPN servers through firmware updates.

Wireless coverage throughout the house is pretty good, but sometimes that the TV in the far bedroom starts to pixelate and stall when we have company and a lot of wireless devices are connected. We have 4 TVs in the house, but at one time only 2 may be on.

I'm in the process of cutting the cord with Uverse and going 100% streaming. Want the best experience for it, so I've been looking at mesh (Orbi) or perhaps getting some new routers and connecting them through the ethernet backbone. Concern I have is the Cat5 is technically only good to 100mpbs, and since it's buried in the wall, I'm not too keen on pulling Cat5e or 6.

If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Rick

 

[joegreat]

Well, my (biased) view on this would be this:
Invest the money in CAT6 cabling (as I did before moving into my flat) and buy rather "cheap" routers/access points (as I did - see footer)...

A mesh setup is expensive with low throughput (compared to Gigabit cabling) and has a short lifespan (new technology to be replaced soon with newer).

With the CAT6 cables and the cheap routers you are save and can use the upcoming technologies at low cost like 60 GHz 802.11ad WLAN - which will not penetrate walls anymore and needs a router/AP in each room!

 

[restorick2378]

Well, my (biased) view on this would be this:
Invest the money in CAT6 cabling (as I did before moving into my flat) and buy rather "cheap" routers/access points (as I did - see footer)...

A mesh setup is expensive with low throughput (compared to Gigabit cabling) and has a short lifespan (new technology to be replaced soon with newer).

With the CAT6 cables and the cheap routers you are save and can use the upcoming technologies at low cost like 60 GHz 802.11ad WLAN - which will not penetrate walls anymore and needs a router/AP in each room!

Appreciate the feedback. I could run new cabling, just wasn't keen on doing so. With winter in Wisconsin, it will give me something to do...

That said, there was a deal posted here in SNB for this: https://computers.woot.com/offers/netgear-wb7520-100nas-network-bundle?ref=w_cnt_lnd_cat_pc_6_2

Wondering how that would compare to getting a couple of routers?

Thanks again,
Rick

 

[Klueless]

So your existing router's WiFi coverage is actually pretty good save for that one corner? (Too bad about that "dead spot device" not working.)

JoeGreat's not wrong (never is : -) but I'm a lot lazier than he is.

I'd get a loose length of CAT6 and a cheap AP (I kind of like those dual band range extenders that can be wired as an AP). I'd run the cable along the floor, place the AP somewhere between the router and the flaky area, plug it all in and try it out. (You might even get away with using it as a "range extender" until spring.)

If I liked it I would run one CAT6 as per Joe. I'd leave the rest as CAT5. 100 Mbps legs should be fine (for awhile). You just don't want 100 Mbps "pinch points", e.g., wires that multiple devices share, such as a wired AP (or the line between the router and modem). Even then, if you have (s)low speed Internet like me, I wouldn't consider 100 Mbps CAT5 a "pinch point" ...

BTW: I'm also "cutting the cord" and moving to streaming. We've five TVs and, sadly, no Ethernet. We've moved three to streaming with no problems. I'm staying away from 4K. I have cataracts so HD is good enough.