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Old building Wi-Fi Solution

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Thanks for the updates @heartl3ss21, and additions @L&LD.

Good to hear regarding more DSL lines; two (or three!) will definitely help alleviate internet bandwidth contention. As far as combing multiple lines, I suppose the theoretical ideal is true bonding, ie. a single link of # of lines x ## Mb/s, as viewed by your router (and everything downstream). However, this is most often best done at the ISP link level, not just on the router. Beyond the included ISP equipment's ability to do so (or not), setting up true bonding at that level is usually quite costly (thousands in gear up-front, at both your location and an upstream POP, and/or however much per month for doing that via a tunneling service, such as something like what Mushroom Networks provides, etc). Likely not worth it, considering the second option of simply load-balancing via router multi-WAN (@L&LD's mention). When done well, a router can often mimic a single large link, usually by spreading sessions from a single host across the multiple connections at once (among other methods). You could certainly configure this on the ER-X for up to 4 WANs (saving the 5th port for the LAN), but it will be a fair bit more involved and the only support you'll get is Ubiquiti's KBs/forums and/or Google. That's where purpose-built multi-WAN routers come into play, the cream of the crop for turn-key usage being Peplink (IMHO). But they do come at the cost of hundreds of USD, versus $50 for an ER-X, so if that's a deal-breaker, then it's likely your time and sanity that will pay for the multi-WAN setup.

Regarding wifi, after looking at the photos (thanks for those) you might be able to get away with broadcasting in from outside, but in addition to what @L&LD said, we've got to think about client count. No TP-Link CPE series (nor EAP series) is going to play too well with more than, say, 20 to 30 clients per radio. If you did end up with an average of 2 devices per person x 4 people x 12 rooms, or even half that, I would envision needing at least 3 of those APs (perhaps with 1 on each end of the building and 1 in the middle, all on one side), if not 4 (2 placed a bit interior from each end of the building, on both sides). That's another advantage if you were to entertain higher-density and/or indoor gear (like Ruckus): it's designed to accommodate many more clients per radio, often requiring fewer radios, assuming coverage is still addressed.

Directly related to that is your expectation of the tenants being able to make/take video calls and/or do streaming just because you've added another DSL line or two (or heck, even 1Gig fiber). Without the requisite radio capacity and handling know-how for all the endpoints, there won't be enough wifi transit at low enough latency and jitter to ensure they could do any of that. Not saying you couldn't pull it off with the TP-Link stuff, but just know you might likely have to install another pole, AP, and cable run (or 2, or 3...) to even approach the equivalent performance of perhaps half the number of higher-density indoor APs.

Just some points to chew on as you mull this over. I know the whole buying new vs. refurb thing probably ties your hands, regardless. I at least want you to know some reasonable limitations on the technical side, in spite of the finance and accounting limitations.
 
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