Home Networking Help

Hope that someone with a bit of knowledge can help me here? We are currently on 64mb broadband using the original Google Wifi Mesh. Virgin media will be installing 1gb fibre next week, so to at least use some of that speed I need to upgrade as well. So a few options: Use the new Virgin media hub and extenders, which I’m not a fan of doing, continue with the Google wifi but at a better speed (max 100mb) or purchase a new mesh system like TP-Link Deco XE75 Pro AXE5400 which is wifi 6e. Any thoughts or potential issues?

I’m also thinking that I should hard wire the two main users of the broadband the “office” and living room. To do this I’ll need to route the cables outside and back in again. I’m thinking for this I’ll need:

• Cat6a exterior cable reel
• 2 x four port switches (PoE? ) one for near the router and one for the living room. Can I just use 1 gb switches or should I go 2.5?
• 1 x wall socket for the office

Anything I’m missing or any recommendations for cable?

Thanks in advance

Personally I like to use wired for the important things if at all possible. It reduces the likelihood of outage.

1Gb/s switches will be fine unless you have some devices on your network that can talk faster than that to each other, like a NAS maybe. If you don’t have anything like that, then your limiting factor is that 1Gb Virgin internet link, so no point going 2.5Gb.

As for PoE, if you have something you need to power, like a wireless access point for example, then get PoE, otherwise save your money.

If you’re running cables through the walls, then wall sockets at each end keep things nice and tidy.

As for upgrading your WiFi mesh system, 6E capable systems are pretty pricy at the moment. Do you have any 6E capable devices, or think you’ll benefit from having that extra 6Ghz channel in the future? Wifi 6 (non E) still plenty quick.

If you’re wiring the important devices, then the upgrade of the wifi can happen later as needed.

Just my thoughts of course, YMMV 😉

We have those Deco’s. From memory the XE75s have more radios which if you’re using the wifi for the ‘backbone’ connection between them is important. We can get close to the 900 meg internet pipe with 6E devices but it does drop off depending on how many hops away you are (on wifi backhaul anyway)- house is a strange shape and with a cabled deco in the shed, we have a total of 6.

For exterior, you don’t need PoE switches unless you’re going to be running something that needs power off the cable. Switch to switch will be fine with non PoE ones assuming length is less than 100m! Not sure what 2.5gb would give you unless you have ‘internal’ cabled devices that need that (eg a big NAS) but even then probably couldn’t get anything to drive that speed.

What do you need a wall socket for? Can’t you just run a cable from the ethernet switch?

No NAS so looks like 1gb switches will be fine.  Socket was to terminate the cable in the office, so that a shorter cable could be used to plug and unplug a laptop each day. Although if I used another switch then I could plug in the printer and I don’t need to cut a whole in the wall for a socket!

I’m not sure why you think you should change?

We’re on [an actual] >180mb connection* and also use the original Goggle wifi – not an issue!

I’d plug in the virgin router, disable the wifi, plug your base mesh station into it and then carry on as you were before.

I’m also thinking that I should hard wire the two main users of the broadband the “office” and living room.

It’s nice but also a faff.  I bet you’ll find that cable doesn’t really give you any advantage over your existing wifi – we certainly don’t when my girls are at home and everybody’s streaming stuff.
Leave it as it is and see what happens rather than implementing a solution to a problem that probably doesn’t exist.

* what they say you get and what you actually get are usually two different things – plus you’ll never use that much anyway as the bottlenecks move further up the stream.

Before Cougar says it, you don’t need Cat6 cable, Cat5 is fine.

Cat5e

😂

Are you going to let us in on the joke?

Anything I’m missing ?

Punch down tool for the wall plate

RJ45 plugs and crimp tool if you are going straight to the router/switch.

Are you burying the cable or clipping to the wall? if its a short run i’d just get the best quality shielded cable you can so you dont have to  do it again. I’d also be tempted to double up

I’d plug in the virgin router, disable the wifi, plug your base mesh station into it and then carry on as you were before.

This is the right starting point for sure, and is what I did. I then wired up my TV/Xbox/Sonos/Hue stuff along with wired backhaul to the other mesh node afterwards. This had essentially zero practical benefit except that I now know everything is as good as it can possibly be, the 1 time in 50 that it took my TV more than a few seconds to join the wifi no longer happens any more, and the Xbox downloads stuff faster.

I looked at this when we upgraded to FTTP. Decided to go MESH as the faster connection just reduces a bottleneck on the internet side of things. The only benefit for hard wiring a device, would be for my son to download huge updated to CoD. For everyone else we’re getting speeds over MESH WiFi that are perfectly acceptable for everyone. Utlimately it means we can have 10 devices connected at 100Mbps for a total of 1Gbps and the internet conneciton doesn’t limit it.

The only other thing that wired connection will give you in theory is better stability e.g. if you have lots of neighbours with WiFi on close or competing channels. Not an issue for us as we only have a couple of neighbours with WiFi close enough to be in range of us.

We have a similar set up to what you are considering OP.
* 350Mbps Virgin internet
* Virgin router into modem mode
* 4 x (original) Google Wifi pucks throughout the house and garage
* 24 port 1Gbps switch in a cupboard
* 2-4 Cat5e cables run from various rooms back to the switch cupboard
* Patch panel in switch cupboard
* Wall plates in hardwired rooms
* Wifi pucks all backhauled via physical cable
* X Boxes, PCs, Sky boxes all hardwired in

Yes it’s almost certainly overkill, but it works very well and never any complaints from the kids. We did a load of work on the house a few years ago and I happened to have a large reel of cat5e, panels, etc from a data centre build I helped with some time ago so in it went. Nice to know that sometimes that stuff you’re keeping “because I might need it some day” actually does get used!

Son number 1 can get a measured and constant 380 Mbps to the Xbox in his room.

Before you run cables everywhere. I’m using a deco mesh and I’ve one of the boxes in my office and one connected to the virgin box. I have a wire from laptop to mesh box in the office and that give ~250Mb/s at the laptop – it’s also really stable and I’ve not noticed any problems

I’m not sure why you think you should change?

This was my instinct.

You’re trying to define a solution before you know there’s a problem.  Get the broadband upgrade, do some speed tests, then work out whether there are issues to address.

I have 500Mbps Wi-Fi to my desktop, and I have walls two foot thick.  Getting to this point took more effort than I’d like to admit, but my starting point wasn’t “best break out a core drill” before the FTTP had even been provisioned.

@ihn cat5 is 10mbps and probably impossible to find now. 5e is 100/1000mbps and what you were talking about.

What @cougar said

i wouldn’t bother with Virgin’s ‘great wifi everywhere offer’ – it’s a way to get more money out of you regularly for something you could buy and install yourself for cheaper.

See how you get on with the virgin router.
then see how you get on with that in modem mode and your current Google things.

then, if it isn’t good enough, try a 3-band MESH system.

if that isn’t good enough get some wires.

it sounds like you’d have a bit of an ordeal installing cables and you might not need them

you were planning on setting the SSID and password on your new Virgin router to what you currently use right? The number of folks I’ve met who ‘had to change’ the WiFi settings on all their devices when they got a new router from their ISP🤦🏻‍♂️

@ihn cat5 is 10mbps and probably impossible to find now. 5e is 100/1000mbps and what you were talking about.

Ah, okay, I see now. It was the number I thought was the significant bit, I should have been clearer 🙂

If your new Virgin 1gb service comes with their new Hub 5x you need to be careful about mesh.  This will definitely be the case if it’s suddenly become available in your neighbourhood.
The hub 5x does not yet have modem mode.  And there are some signs it might never get it.
So if you choose a mesh which has to act as the router, at best you’ll end up with double NAT.

Do you have an o2 simcard? That gives you volt, which makes the virgin wifi extenders free. So you might as well try them in the first instance.  What are you doing with your existing router which you don’t think the virgin hardware will do?

You best solution if you are already drilling holes and running cable is wired access points – cheaper than mesh, compatible with everything.

The cat 5 / 5e joke is that cat 5e is absolutely fine for these purposes but cat 5 (no e) definitely isn’t.

CAT5 = obsolete.

CAT5e = what everyone means when they say “CAT5.”

CAT6 = no better than CAT5e for DIY domestic installations, difficult to meet with compliance, and awful stuff to work with.

CAT5e = what everyone means when they say “CAT5.”

Indeed

In my last house I spent a lot of time installing Cat6 cables. Had a Virgin media hub in the upstaris front bedroom the 4 Cat6 cables going up into the loft and back down into different rooms. One cable went to a second router downstairs at the back of the house to cover the garage and garden. That was when i was doing lots of data yransfer between computers so was worth having them wired rather than wifi.

Now, in a different house have BT fibre which seems faster and better wifi coverage so not bothered with anything more than a wifi extender for the TV.