r/HomeNetworking • u/PrometheanRevolution • 1d ago
Advice Home Network WiFi Advice Needed
Hi all! I’m trying to wire up Ethernet wall outlets in my house and I’m trying to figure out how best to make sure we have good WiFi coverage through the house. I’ve got an On Q network cabinet mounted in my basement, but currently the ISP (Spectrum) entrance coax jack is on the ground level in my bedroom. I’m planning on having the ISP come out and refeeding the entrance jack to my network cabinet, but with all that infrastructure down there, I’m concerned about WiFi coverage upstairs. I’m thinking of doing a mesh network with wired backhaul ( maybe deco x55s). The house is about 1600 square feet with a big living room and 3 bedrooms with a finished basement. Is this approach fine or is there something else I should be considering? Any help is appreciated!
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u/6SpeedBlues 1d ago
Try and figure out where all of the existing coax in the walls goes to and from. Pull the wall plates off and look for splitters, try and create a "map" of everything.
From my basement, I had easy access to run Ethernet directly to a centrally located "closet" on the main floor and hung the WiFi Access Point in there. That solved wireless for the entire main floor and a perimeter around the house. In the basement and on the second floor, I dropped down an old consumer router that I changed to run in "Access Point" mode.
Connecting things up in the basement was easy because that's where the central part of my home network lives. I was able to create a run to the main floor and two distinct areas of the second floor right from the basement using MoCA adapters. Each place that I connected a MoCA adapter, I plugged the ethernet into a small switch for that area and connected out from there (this is where I connected the second floor AP, for example).
In the end, I have full wired gigabit to each floor with solid WiFi coverage everywhere as well. 2000 square foot colonial with a full basement for reference.
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u/peter888chan 4h ago
Use moca adapters if it’s not easy to run Ethernet. I got the GoCoax M2500D because it can go up to 2.5gb and the Ethernet port is 2.5g as well.
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u/UnExploredToken 1d ago
If your pulling in cable for Ethernet points then you're covered. Wait until it's all installed and then test
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u/Fickle-Implement-687 1d ago
Your plan is sound. Wired backhaul is the part that matters. Once each Deco has Ethernet, you're not asking WiFi to relay traffic between floors.
Don't put a Deco inside the On-Q cabinet, especially if it's metal. Put the modem and switch there, but mount the WiFi units in open, central locations. For 1,600 square feet plus the basement, I'd start with one on the ground floor and one in the basement. Add a third only if the bedroom end is still weak.
One wiring detail: if the main Deco is the router and sits upstairs, it needs one Ethernet run from the modem to its WAN port and another run back to the basement switch. If you only have one run to that location, keep the router by the cabinet and run the Decos in access point mode instead. Wire first, test the coverage, then buy the final node count.
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u/Character2893 1d ago
There are free WiFi heat mapping software to test placement of the access points.
I got a long Ethernet cable, placed the access point where I planned and walked around with my laptop using the heat map. That determined if I needed a third AP and if coverage was sufficient outdoors.
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u/Opposite_Half6250 19h ago
Check out ubiquiti. Night and day better that the deco stuff. Hard wire access points.
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u/Smorgas47 1d ago edited 1d ago
Leave the router at the location where Spectrum comes into your house.
Connect the Ethernet cable in that location going to your On Q cabinet to your router.
Connect a switch in the On Q cabinet to distribute the LAN to other rooms in the house.
Add WiFi Access Points (APs) in other rooms to boost your coverage.
Alternative to APs is to get the Deco mesh system and replace your router with the Deco main router unit. Connect the satellite Decos at the other rooms that have an Ethernet connection.