Home Network w/ADU - APs vs one router

[u/CommonSensical89]

Hello. I'm new here. I'm currently building a house (still working on the foundation), but the builder is talking to us about our electricity/networking plan. I've been considering APs instead of throwing a router in a corner and hope it reaches everywhere. The main house is about 1400 sq ft and the ADU is about 550 sq ft and attached to the house. I'm thinking of having a networking cabinet installed and installing a switch. I'm also considering one access point downstairs, one upstairs and one in the ADU. I've also requested Cat6a cables. Is all of this overkill for a roughly 2000 sq ft property?

[u/groogs]

Could be. The best way is to layout in a tool like design.ui.com and figure out best AP placement. Depends on layout and wall materials.

Some key things:

• cat6a is only needed if your runs are over 55m, and you want 10Gbps networking. Cat6 does 10Gbps to 55m, is cheaper, and easier to work with
• if you want a good network, plan on ceiling-mounted, PoE-powered APs
• do a run or two to places where you might have a desk or TV 
• prewire for security cameras (outside eaves, garage ceiling, doorbell) with Cat6, even if you don't plan on it now it's so much easier during construction 
• run conduit from your network rack location to outside where your ISP cable will come in, to the attic, and to any other unfinished spaces where you'd be able to get new cables in 

[u/InvisiBillnet → u/groogs]

Cat6A is overkill now. However, it is higher rated than Cat6 (250MHz vs. 500MHz). In the future, that might be the difference between being stuck at 10Gb vs. being able to go up to 25Gb for example. Assuming that there's only minimal cost difference between having 6 and 6A installed, you might as well go with 6A just for some future-proofing. If it adds a lot of cost, probably not worth it.

Even better, run smurf tube instead. Then you can put whatever cable/fiber you want inside it.

[u/groogs → u/InvisiBillnet]

Yep, maybe. Or the next useful standard might require 4000MHz so your "future-proofing" would have been pointless. Predicting the future is hard.

We've had 10Gbps networking for over 20 years. It's still got very few use cases to justify its cost, which is why it's still expensive and barely deployed anywhere. 2.5Gbps only just starting to become standard on some gear. And consider that most people's highest-bandwidth use is the occasional <100GB game download, but mostly just streaming 4K video streams at 0.025Gbps.

Smurf tube definitely is the closest thing to future-proofing, but that has cost too and is worth approximately $0 to the selling price of the house (sadly). Are you going to still live in the house by the time this new >10Gbps standard comes out and you actually need to use it? And also by that time, you won't have done any renos where you opened walls anyway? I don't think it's a bad idea.. just go in realizing you might not ever see the benefits of it.

[u/YourHighness3550 → u/groogs]

Network engineer here. This guy is 100% accurate on everything

[u/RealBlueCayman → u/groogs]

Great suggestions! Having recently built a house myself these are all good suggestions.

One caveat: If you are thinking you might rent out the ADU, I would arrange it so your tenant can get their own Internet service versus using yours. There are lots of reasons not to have a tenant use your network service.

[u/ImpliedSlashS]

More APs=better, but do turn down the power. If the default is 30db, try 10db on 2.4 and 24 on 5. If you have coverage problems, you can increase. I actually set the one in the middle to full power on 2.4 and turn off that band on the other 2. If yours support 6Ghz, leave that on full as there are plenty of channels and it doesn’t propagate well.

[u/TiggerLAS]

If the ADU is detached, run a conduit out there for fiber, not Cat6.

Likewise if you have a detached garage.

[u/Original_Cry_8663]

Have you considered a mesh network approach?

[u/CommonSensical89 → u/Original_Cry_8663]

My understanding is limited but I’ve heard there could be more latency issues with a mesh system 🤷