New Build House. FTP in cupboard + Metal stud walls Best setup?

[Arsenalfc74]

I recently moved to a smaller house (circa 1100 sq ft) and bought my Netgear Orbi with me.

The house is new build and as BT Fibre to property (Good) and also has 4 pre-wired ethernet sockets around the house (Very good). What is not so good though is that the cabinet and input for all 4 ethernets is in an under stairs cupboard which is not the ideal place for a router of course. This means that if I want to use the pre-wired ethernet then the router needs to be in the cupboard to feed the inputs. On top of this the internal walls are metal stud walls.

I originally had an Orbi RBK50 which did not really work, you cannot switch wifi off an any of them so the main unit was boxed in under the stairs with a reduced signal but not reduced enough to have devices switch to one of the others. In the end I purchased a nighthawk AX8 which should be easily powerful enough for my house and it is however upstairs I am seeing a drop off in signal and speed. It works ok, is just not ideal and is bugging me. I put an ASUS router under the stairs with the wifi switched off which takes the inbound connectiona and feeds the ethernets. The Nighthawk in AP mode has been mostly in position 1 on the attached but I recently gave it a try in position 3 and it did not really improve things

Not sure what to do? Mesh with wireless backhaul seems pointless due to the metal walls and I cannot go mesh with wired backhaul without putting one of the nodes in the cupboard?

Any ideas much appreciated, happy to spend some money to get it right.

 

[coxhaus]

Go to separates. Run router in closet and wireless AP at one of the Ethernet ports outside the cabinet.

 

[Arsenalfc74]

Thanks, that is pretty much what I am doing now. Asus router with wifi switched off in the cupboard and the Nighthawk as an access point in position 3 on the attached.

 

[Trip]

Discrete components with a wired core (wired router and managed PoE switch) in the closet, plus controller-based, PoE-powered wifi (a lower-power AP at "x4" upstairs and another at "x1" downstairs) will likely solve your issues.

Since you'd be effectively starting from scratch for all three pieces, you might want to consider Ubiquiti UniFi, for the ease of management. Router choice depends somewhat on BT Fibre speed, but a USG for suffice for anything up to 1Gb aggregate. For a PoE switch, a US-8-60W. For APs, two AC-LITEs, ceiling mounted, or for desktop, two FlexHDs. You can do initial setup with the UniFi phone app, or, for more manual control (my preference) the UniFi controller on a PC. I'd recommend keeping the controller online, via an always-on PC, Raspberry Pi, or just bite the bullet and buy a CloudKey Gen2. Can do all of the above for £400-800, depending on model choices.

 

[psychopomp1]

OP, I'm in a slightly bigger house than yours but also a new build with metal stud walls. With Openreach FTTP. A single router (Netgear RAX200) easily provides full wifi coverage for me. A typical new build home in UK is usually very wifi friendly. My suggestion would be to buy something like the Netgear RAX200 or Asus RT-AX88U, but position it fairly centrally in the home - definitely NOT in an enclosed area such as under the stairs where Openreach usually install their ONT. No need to spend silly money on lots and lots and lots of Access Points when a top end single router - provided its in a good location - will perform just as well.

 

[Trip]

No need to spend silly money on lots and lots and lots of Access Points when a top end single router - provided its in a good location - will perform just as well.

The RAX200 and AX88U are £406 and £433 on amazon.co.uk, just about the same as a basic two-AP UniFi setup. Not sure where the "lots and lots of APs" comes into play. Perhaps in this scenario trying with a single Asus, then adding another unit, hard-wired in AiMesh up/downstairs would be a simpler approach. Either way, it's likely that getting cleaner, lower-dB signal closer to the endpoints may be the better solution, vs. just blasting a single AIO and hoping. Nice thing is, with Asus at least, he can add that second unit in later and recycle the technical debt from the first, so maybe that is the better way to go in this case.

 

[Tech Focus]

I apologize if I am misunderstanding here. Are the room/wall ethernet jack all single ports and all connecting back to the cupboard, right? If so, why can't you use ethernet to simply bridge one wall jack to another jack in the cupboard?

So put a router with AP on one floor plug its LAN port into the wall. In your cupboard connect that jack to another room's jack i.e. connecting two jacks. Then the other end is your wired access point. If you still want to use two other ports in your cupboard, you can just buy a switch. Am I misunderstanding your setup?

With this, you can turn on router's AP function and other AP of course on so you have two APs, one for each floor.

 

[Arsenalfc74]

OP, I'm in a slightly bigger house than yours but also a new build with metal stud walls. With Openreach FTTP. A single router (Netgear RAX200) easily provides full wifi coverage for me. A typical new build home in UK is usually very wifi friendly. My suggestion would be to buy something like the Netgear RAX200 or Asus RT-AX88U, but position it fairly centrally in the home - definitely NOT in an enclosed area such as under the stairs where Openreach usually install their ONT. No need to spend silly money on lots and lots and lots of Access Points when a top end single router - provided its in a good location - will perform just as well.

That is pretty much what I am doing now. The Asus router with wifi switched off in the cupboard takes the input from the cabinet into the WAN and it has 4 LANs that feed the 4 ports. I have the Nighthawk AX8 which is a pretty decent router that is now at point 1 on the diagram above. It is Ok, it works but the speed and bars do drop off upstairs.

I think what would be ideal is a mesh setup where I could use wired backhaul put the main unit under the stairs with wifi switched off and have a node at point 1 and 4 on the diagram. Pretty sure no mesh setups allow wifi to be switched off on an indivual node though. Maybe powerline mesh is worth a go?

I am kind of leaning towards living with it though. Maybe selling swapping out my AX8 for the AX12 (RAX200) would be slightly better, reviews all say the AX12 is faster but do not comment on range vs the AX8. eBaying the AX8 would probably make the AX12 a cheapish purchase so maybe worth a go?

Thanks for the replies

 

[Arsenalfc74]

I apologize if I am misunderstanding here. Are the room/wall ethernet jack all single ports and all connecting back to the cupboard, right? If so, why can't you use ethernet to simply bridge one wall jack to another jack in the cupboard?


.

I don’t think this will work? Unless I am wrong (highly possible) if I bridge 2 sockets in the cupboard yes they will be connected but I do not think they will then have any internet feed? I think they are independent circuits?

Right now each is being fed via the router in the cupboard So internet feed into wan port on router and the the 4 LANs feed the 4 sockets in the cupboard. So if I put say put a mesh node on number 1 and number 4 they would both be being fed an internet connection but not connected in a way that would make wired backhaul work. Does that make sense? I tried the Orbi this way when I moved in and it did not work.

I’ll try and post some pictures later if I can get them to upload.

 

[Adi11aQ]

Shouldn’t this be planned right from the beginning of the construction?