Upgrading my network, need help

[couzin2000]

First time poster here.

I'm a home user, I feel like there's a whole lot of appliances connected to my network, my router is beyond old, and I'd like to update everything in the house, including the cabling.

I know a few things about managing DHCP and setting up static adresses. I also know wired is more reliable than wireless, but I do use both in the end (lightbulbs and wall switches can't be wired here, neither can iPhones or iPads).
But my network has become unreliable as of late and now I need to become an expert in all this.

I read some post in a forum that a wired router, connected from modem, to router, to wireless access points (or routers in this case) can be wholly better than just using the "wired/wireless" router combos most vendors sell on Amazon. I'm not a gamer, but I do need reliable wiring. I have a Plex Server, a Minecraft server (for home), and a fileserver for all my computers. I have a Windows 10 workstation, a Mac Mini with Monterey as a TV station, and a Linux box as a home server (I use Ubuntu 18.06LTS). Everything seems to work as of right now. As you can see, I'm not unskilled.


I have a Docsis 3.0 modem by Thomson. Right off the bat, I'm using Cat5e cabling. I usually don't custom-make my own cable. I could, I just need to buy the proper tools. From there... well, here is a bullet-point schematic of what I have.

• Thomson Modem
• 3-foot cat5e
• Asus RT-N66U #1


• 50-foot cat5e


• Asus RT-N66U router #2


• 10-foot cat5e
• Windows 10 laptop (wife's work pc)
• 50-foot cat5e


• Asus RT-N66U router #3


• 10-foot cat5e


• Mac Mini 2018 (Monterey)
• 25-foot cat5e


• TP-Link 8-port unmanaged switch
• 6-foot cat5e to a Linux-managed PC
• 6-foot cat5e to a Linux-managed PC
• 6-foot cat5e to a Linux-managed PC
• 6-foot cat5e


• TP-Link 8-port unmanaged switch


• 50-foot cat5e to Windows 10 Desktop
• 50-foot cat5e to Windows 10 laptop (work)
• 50-foot cat5e to Ubuntu Desktop 18.06LTS, running headless
• 6-foot cat5e to Cisco SPA122 (voip box, plugged but not running)
• 6-foot cat5e to PoE adapter to 25-foot cat5e exterior cable to TP-Link Exterior router (2.4GHz only)

This is without all the assortment of WIFI stuff that's floating around int the house: iPhones, iPads, lightbulbs, light switches, wall outlets, Chromecast, Apple TV 4, 4x Google Home Mini, ecobee thermostat...  yeah my work is truly cut out for me.


So now I am trying to assess how much I'm going to be spending. I'm still on WIFI 4, I believe, and these routers are no longer supported by Asus.
What I'd like is to have a gigabit network (don't think I need more for now). I'd think I'd be better off with a wired-only router, with a built-in firewall and such, have a few wired WIFI access points (ideally there'd be one in my basement, two on ground level, one on second floor (I currently have no way of passing a cable for the second floor anywhere, so that might be a scrapped idea). I'd like to have a few unmanaged switches so I can split the wired network, and use it as a signal booster to run my lengthy cabling to the machines.

In the end, I need some help with finding the proper wired switch, and wireless access points. Not sure where to get any of that.
I guess configuration will come later.

Also - long term, should I change all that cabling to cat6?

Thanks for taking the time to read me.

[icecream-guy]

remember 1Gb connectivity is much different then 1Gb throughput,  most consumer grade hardware is 1Gb connectivity with a few hundred Mb of throughput.

wifi is iffy, depends on how close your neighbors are, I 've seen in some situations (regarding VPN) where users are having issues connecting to the business network, sometimes the issue has been the "find best wifi channel" settings that the close neighbor is using and causing network contention on a hard set wifi channel at home.

your best bet is to take the path of least resistance (cheapest) to resolve your network issues, find the most important issues and take it step by step. if your internet router is way old, it is probably vulnerable to security issues, contact your ISP and find a compatible newer replacement.

you may want to break off the auto home into a separate network (at the router if possible) just because those things tend to be very vulnerable and not usually patched quickly by the vendor.

[deanwebb]

Cabling: Cat6 can get you speeds of up to 10Gbps. But if your network ports max out on 1Gbps, Cat5e is just fine. I'm using it all over my wired office network, works just fine. My chokepoint is the ISP, which can't get me 1Gbps fiber in this house. (How I miss my gig connection from my old house... only thing I really *do* miss... )

Wifi - there is now home wifi mesh gear that can use the 6GHz bands for better performance, but the connecting gear also needs to be capable of using it, or it's just back to the older 2.4 and 5 GHz radios. But I *do* recommend going with a mesh system instead of a base system with an extender. The difference is that the mesh system doesn't involve a relay having to translate back to the base - it's all seamlessly handled in the mesh. The old Google systems are still serviceable, but there are more modern systems from ASUS and TP-Link that can give some powerful bandwidth, excellent coverage, and which also include antimalware protections. For about $500, the Asus ZenWiFi ET8 looks like the best overall deal to me. It's got permanent antimalware coverage, not stuff that drops off after a trial period.

PCMag review: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/asus-zenwifi-et8 (not a sponsored link) If that's above your budget, the TP-Link Deco M9 is my second place choice, at around $250.

Having said that, I'm still using a first-gen Google Home mesh system and it's fine for my kids. None of them do high-intensity online gaming, preferring home LAN parties or Minecraft. My work PC is wireless-only and I'm able to do all my work without issue, no matter how many people in my house are streaming movies or whatever, and I can have up to 4 other active internet users at peak usage, 11am-noon.

My personal PC is on a wired connection. I used to connect to an old Cisco 3750, but got tired of the heat and noise. Using a Cisco Small Business switch, an SG-350-10. That handles my PC, server, uplink to the router, connection to the Google Home, and I have a few more ports in case I need to plug in other gear. It's quite sufficient. And Google Home does do a good job of screening wireless devices. It's pretty much a deny all inbound firewall.

[couzin2000]

Ok, you guys have given me a lot to cover. So I'll bring this back down to one particular issue I'm having - perhaps you'll steer me in another direction.

The Asus RT-N66U does have gigabit capability. Is also handles wifi. For the actual speeds I get, I'm happy with that. The problem is that I'd need a separate LAN to handle all the hope appliances that go into the network. Lightbulbs, light switches, wall outlets, thermostat... all of that is automation, and I'd like to keep that separate.... (I recently ran into the issue where my main PC was booted from the LAN because it was requesting a certain IP and some random bulb didnt ask permission to use. So the IP was blocked and I couldn't connect for work. I had to figure out the MAC adress was being used by WHICH bulb, then shut that down. Took hours.

That said, I run 2 work computers on their ow VPNs, connected to the work infrastructure, on a wired connection. I also may use at any time (including during work) a Plex server that would be dishing out up to 10mbit per sec for multiple users. Couple that with LAN gaming, and internal use of the Plex server as well as Youtube all simultaneously...

So I need a router that is capable of handling good maintained speeds as well as several static IP's for appliances (most on 2.4GHz) and workstations.

To give an idea, I was looking at a D-Link DSR-250, or a TP-Link ER-605... but I can't find info about DHCP server limits. Can it handle multiple static connections? Can it handle all the throughput? Can it handle a separate VLAN to put all my home automation stuff in? Can the iPhone on the standard WLAN connect to the appliances on the separate VLAN?

What's your take?

[deanwebb]

Defining a DHCP range to exclude static addresses should be doable on most home gear by now. I've got an ISP-issued Arris router that I have set to use 192.168.1.X addresses, starting at .21. 1-20 I have statically assigned to my server and switch and server VMs. All else get DHCP. My Google Home system uses the 192.168.86.X range, so all the devices on Wifi share that space. Since I don't have over 254 wireless devices, there's plenty of room in that range.

Back to the Arris, setting the range start and end was pretty easy to do, I'd imagine the other vendors can do the same. They also typically have separate SSIDs for user and guest networks, so you can set up your work gear on the user network, all else associate with the guest network. The guest network can be configured to have the same security and access permissions as the home network, essentially making it a parallel SSID and not an actual "guest" network.

[couzin2000]

Upgrading to TP-Link ER7206 High-performance wired VPN router and TP-Link TL-SG1024DE unmanaged 24-port gigabit switch. Not changing the wiring in place right now, as for the moment it's not required. I just need more robust management of the LAN, probably even to create VLANs which I cannot do for now. All 3 Asus RT-N66U will be used as wired/wireless access points trhoughout the house. N speeds will suffice for now, and will help mitigate my son's impact on the network with all the wifi he consumes.

Thanks for all the help.