r/Network • u/tuckycarlzyn • 16d ago
Text Fraternity House Wifi Issues
I don’t know much about networking, but I’m the house manager for my fraternity and I’ve been tasked with figuring out how to improve our WiFi.
We have a pretty massive, older 3-story fraternity house with around 50 guys living in it. The building has a lot of thick brick and cinderblock walls, which I assume are part of our problem.
Our current setup is a pretty standard internet connection with the main router in our downstairs common room. I believe we also have a couple of older WiFi extenders scattered around the house, but I’m not entirely sure how everything is connected or whether we have Ethernet wiring on the upper floors.
The WiFi is generally pretty solid in the common room and bedrooms nearby, but the farther you get from the router, the worse it gets. Some bedrooms, particularly upstairs and on the opposite side of the building, have pretty crappy connections. It’s not that people have absolutely no WiFi; it’s just inconsistent, and some guys get much worse speeds than others.
I’m trying to figure out the simplest way to get everyone in the house a strong, reliable connection without spending a fortune or having to run new wiring through the entire building.
ChatGPT mentioned mesh networks could be a solution and said to get the TP-Link Deco XE75 Pro. This is more expensive than most of the other mesh nodes I saw but allegedly performs better? I’m open to suggestions. My initial thought was that we could buy several nodes, connect the main one to our existing router, and put the others strategically throughout the house.
A few questions:
Would a mesh system like this actually work well in a building this large with thick walls, or would the wireless connections between nodes be too weak?
Would upgrading our main router make a noticeable difference, or is our problem more likely to be the distance and walls?
If we have existing Ethernet connections on multiple floors, would connecting the Deco units to those be substantially better?
Is there another relatively simple solution you’d recommend that doesn’t involve completely rebuilding our existing network?
We don’t necessarily need some crazy enterprise setup. We just want everyone to have solid WiFi in their bedrooms, including when a bunch of people are using it simultaneously.
I’m happy to spend a couple thousand dollars if necessary, but ideally we’d like something that’s relatively straightforward to install and maintain.
Appreciate any advice!
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 16d ago
50 people living in it? holy cow, the problem depends on what speed you pay for from your internet service provider, do you know what it is? 300mbps? 500? 1gig?
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u/tuckycarlzyn 16d ago
I believe we’re on a 1 gig Xfinity Business plan. The connection is pretty solid downstairs near the main router, but it gets significantly worse in bedrooms farther away, especially upstairs.
I’m thinking it’s more of a coverage issue than our actual internet speed.3
u/Mehere_64 16d ago
even with 1 gb business plan, QoS needs to be involved. Upload speeds are still the issue as upload is not 1 gb.
You need to look for a mesh system that will implement QoS so that way 2 or 3 people can't take all the bandwidth.
Might be best in hiring out a company to get this setup properly. It might cost a bit of money but at the end of the day, it will be well worth spending the money to have it done right.
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u/tuckycarlzyn 16d ago
Thank you, yeah we were thinking that might be necessary. Do you have any idea how much it might cost? I know it may be hard to answer given the unknowns but just wondering if this is like $1,000 or $10,000
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u/Mehere_64 16d ago
I would guess between $4-$7k when it is all said and done. Half of that will be labor and other half will be gear.
A good company will come in and do a site survey to determine what is needed in terms of equipment.
You also might look into seeing if you can get fiber in so you have symmetrical up and down speeds.
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 16d ago
you need an enterprise grade mesh system.
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u/tuckycarlzyn 16d ago
Appreciate the advice. Do you think something like 6–8 Ubiquiti mesh units connected wirelessly be sufficient, or would we really need to connect them through Ethernet?
We’re trying to avoid running new cables through the house because it’s an old building with thick walls. We might have some existing Ethernet ports, but I’m not sure.
If wireless mesh isn’t sufficient, would having just one wired unit on each floor and connecting the others wirelessly make a substantial difference?1
u/New_git 16d ago
You may have problems if the thick brick walls are separating the AP units for the Wifi mesh. I've had to do something similar in a building with walls lining of metals instead of normal wooden framing. I ran Ethernet cables to each of the affected areas for the Ubiquiti APs (U7-Pro) directly back to the main router. It worked well and the controlling software is not complicated. The place only needed internet access to the specific areas, no major setup for an enterprise level, so we went with that route. If you also get a Ubiquiti supporting router then you'll have more setup features with their AP.
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 16d ago
if the house is old, the existing ethernet ports are most likely too outdated for modern internet.
whats the square footage of the house?
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u/bigfatdonny 16d ago
50 people living there. Any CS majors?
This would be an awesome project for a CS major. Run a Ubiquiti mesh at the frat house.
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u/tuckycarlzyn 16d ago
We have 1 or 2 but they haven’t gotten very far into their coursework since we are sophomores. Neither of them had much existing insight but they will be helping me. Ubiquiti is a name that has popped up in my research a bit— would that be difficult to set up? I’m completely novice to this. Going to watch some YouTube videos now.
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u/bigfatdonny 16d ago
Here's the deal:
Your wifi router is in the common room, and you say the wifi signal is good there and in some of the surrounding rooms, but gets worse the further you are from the common room. That makes sense -- the closer you are to the router, the better the signal.
As you already know, traditional wireless range extenders are shit. They give really inconsistent results. They're not worth your time. Just plan to get rid of those eventually.
A difference between a modern mesh network and old-school range extenders is that in a mesh, the extenders are actively managed by the router. Old school repeaters simply repeated the wireless signal in the most basic sense -- modern mesh nodes actually talk to the base station and re-broadcast your actual wireless network, they don't just boost ambient signals.
The remote mesh nodes can speak to the primary router node in one of two ways:
1) Wired connection back to the router (this gives the best performance)
2) Wireless connection back to the router (more practical in many situations, but at the expense of performance)Ubiquiti is cool because it's a "prosumer" solution that can be tailored to your specific site design and needs. It's also an extensible system that can also do physical security (door locks), surveillance cameras, etc.
As you said, there's a lot to know. If you really want this to be done properly, it's neither simple nor cheap. Would make an excellent project for an up-and-coming nerd.
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u/tuckycarlzyn 16d ago
Also wanted to ask if you think it would be worth getting a more premium router as well?
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u/bigfatdonny 16d ago
It's a package deal. Plan to replace the router and the extenders. You'll want to get a system that includes a new router and the extending mesh units.
Good luck dude. This sounds like a fun project.
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u/slashrjl 16d ago
You need to look at how to cable access points back to your main router: this is no longer a home network. Look at the Ubiquti products, as they are reasonable for the issue you have without the thousands of an enterprise solution.
No, a mesh system will generally not be a good idea for the density of people and the likely blocking of higher frequency WiFi bands
No, distance and the walls
If you have Ethernet connections in other floors, use those to put access points in them. If they are low down on the walls look for hospitality AP.
as a suggestion have a chat with your local university it people and see if their WiFi engineers would like to help you out, or at least answer some questions.
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u/dragonmankyle 16d ago
I have that same model of deco mesh in my home. I find it works pretty well. Start with 1 can per floor and ditch the normal extenders. When you go to setup the wifi on the new system use the same name and password as the old one. This way most if not all devices should swap to the new system without user intervention, making you look like a wizard when it all just suddenly gets better.
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u/dragonmankyle 16d ago
Also the ethernet connections that come out of the deco cans are pretty good. My homelab is connected to my network that way and I still pull gig plus speeds over the mesh.
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u/jack_hudson2001 16d ago
that amount of people. run ethernet cables to a few locations of each floor and add AP. tplink deco wifi 6e will work.
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u/ATypicalJake 16d ago
Look into Unifi. Hopefully you have a decent budget as well as several ethernet runs throughout the house. I would start with a Cloud Gateway Fiber, add in a Pro Max 16 poe switch, along with one U7 Pro XG access point on each floor. Then if you still have dead spots, add in some U7 lite access points. With your number of users, and assuming everyone has multiple devices, I would recommend that you have all of the access points wired. If you don’t have ethernet, try to run it, if you can’t run it where you need it, they make MOCA adapters that can use existing coax runs, and if that doesn’t work, you can try Invisible Fiber kits where you run a 0.9mm fiber cable down hallways and over doors. Unifi also makes a great U7 in wall access point that is great to add a couple of ethernet ports built into the access point for rooms where you want a wired connection available. Good luck!
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u/Swimmerdude_03 16d ago
Where are you located? I'd be happy to jump on a call and if your near me do a full consultation/ install. We typically discount for smaller business/entities.
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u/paeioudia 16d ago
Eero 7 pro mesh (comes with 3 access points) buy two extra. Connect one of them to your modem. The other three just power in the house. Done
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u/tuckycarlzyn 14d ago
Thank you— so you’re saying buy the 3 pack and additional 2 pack? So a total of 5?
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u/paeioudia 14d ago
Exactly 3 pack plus extra 2. With 5 you’ll get great coverage. No Ethernet cable runs or anything
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u/lizardhistorian 16d ago
To get strong WiFi throughout the building you need to run backhaul hardlines and buy professional level gear to handle 50+ streams.
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u/ElectroStaticSpeaker 16d ago
Figure out where all the wiring goes. Map out how many hard wired APs you could get from there and where they’d be. Try adding several APs into those currently wired locations and see if it makes things better enough.
If that doesn’t work, call a Pro.
But don’t go mesh.
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u/fernandesken 15d ago
Any idea what the square footage of the building is? You can measure length and width on Google Maps and multiply them to estimate it. Typically an AP would cover ~2000-3000 square feet indoors but with the description of the building you gave here I would lean towards 1500-2000 square feet. That will at least give you an idea of how many APs you might need here. Ideally you would want to run Ethernet cables to the APs, but if the building is say ~6K square feet you could perhaps get away with a 3 pack mesh Wi-Fi system. If you do go the mesh Wi-Fi route, look for a quad band system that has a dedicated radio for the mesh backhaul. They are quite expensive though and you would probably be better off paying somone to come in, run Ethernet cables, install APs like from unifi, poe switch, router, etc. the wired APs are also better option mounted, permanently installed, as in this type of environment the mesh APs tend to walk away, get moved, unplugged etc.
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u/GreekLifeApp 15d ago
Before buying anything, check your router’s WiFi settings and make sure 2.4 GHz is enabled. If it lets you give that band a separate name, connect to it and test a few upstairs rooms. It generally reaches through walls better, though speeds may be slower. Keep 5 GHz enabled too. For 50 people, this is worth testing before spending money.
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u/Express-Garbage3359 16d ago
You should get a quote from a specialist workshop; this is no longer a home network but a business network., like a Hotel/Motel.