2.5GB Home Network Upgrade

ssmacc

ssmacc

ssmacc

Soldato
Joined
5 Mar 2007
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Location
Macclesfield
Hello All,

I’ve just ordered Youfibre 2GB, I’d like to make the most of it so am going to upgrade my home network.
I currently have virgin 1gb, the Virgin router is in modem mode connected to a one Huawei ax3000 as the main router and two others as access points, one upstairs connected via cat5e and one in the shed (man cave) at the bottom of the garden, connected via cat6.

Upstairs has my main PC hard wired into the access point, the PC has a 2.5GB port, I also have two nvidia shields hard wired. I’m planning on running a cat6 cable as part of the upgrade.

The Man Cave also has a PC hard wired into the access point, also has a 2.5gb port.

Ive read good things about the flint 2 routers. However, im clearly no expert so happy to hear any advice…I’m thinking of a Flint 3 as my main router and two Flint 2’s as the access points, but have a strong feeling this is overkill and cheaper / better options are available…

I have 20odd Alexa type devices.

Any advice appreciated!
 
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Flint routers are great except they don't support mesh and, imo that is a must for multi access point networks.

Nvidia shields are limited to gigabit.

I think unifi stuff is often recommended. Just don't buy Asus (or do as that'll get the networking folk out from the shadows)
 
Thanks for the response.
The routers will be hard wired, assume that negates the "mesh" bit as they will be in access point mode? (that's my limited understanding).

Unifi - Stuff is highly thought of on here, can you (or anyone) recommend a Unify set up that would suite my use case? (Hard wired, wired to PC's, so would like 2.5GB port (x2 min)

Cheers
 
Personally I have used all TP link Omada stuff, I used an ER7412-M2 router for my 2.5Gb upgrade, its been flawless (if a little over spec'd for my home network), I run a bunch of VLANs for IoT , work laptop etc. I think they also do lower spec'd 2.5Gb routers too.
 
Sounds like the stuff you want fast internet on is wired and wifi is for casual/IOT stuff where your current wifi is probably enough, could you not just put a couple of cheap 2.5/10g hubs in places and leave everything as is?

Depending on how many ports you want it probably be sub £100.

I use a load of ASUS Zenwifi stuff for Wifi7 mesh, it has been great, very fast, stable, not cheap though.
 
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I have Unifi, I went 10gb between servers. Laptop and a few other devices have 2.5gb.

I have Unifi Access points wifi7. Unifi is the most simplest, quality product I have used in a home lab.
 
I'm on YouFibre 2000. What's your use-case? What do you 'need' 2000 for? Not pulling you down or recommending against it (as most who ask that would be), rather I'm trying to gauge your needs.

What's the budget for equipment? As someone said above, if your wireless devices are already having their needs met (media streaming etc is hardly needing WiFi 7) then you can focus on the core network first. In theory, you could go really budget and use YouFibre's own Hub with your existing WiFi APs, and just chuck in a cheap Chinese 2.5Gb switch or two. Or, you can do what I did and build a new router, buy enterprise WiFi, rip out your cabling and replace it with fibre internally as your lAN backbone, and run 2.5G access switches.

In hindsight, I wish I'd just gone the whole hog straight off - 10G router, 10G switches and be done with it. As I said, use case and budget call the shots. Give us some more details and I'll be happy to give you my thoughts. Unless you live in a mansion, a single cheapish UniFi AP in the house and a fibre or Ethernet cable to the man cave (for a second cheap AP or reusing your existing one) would do fine.
 
A few minor points, non CCA 5e will handle 10Gb unless you live in the size of property that has a servants wing, it’s cheap to add 2.5Gb Chinese switches, they tend to come with SFP+ ports and this means running fiber to them, and then using the switch to break it out to copper, this is literally what I do on each floor.

You can either go budget and do 2.5Gb for very little money, literally buy a 2.5Gb switch (£40 upwards) and router with 1xWAN and 1xLAN 2.5Gb port, then put the switch in the existing 5e in the man cave and plug clients in, the router where your existing router currently is, AP’s as before (because most mobile devices lack the space to download lots of data anyway and most people’s idea of lots of data is streaming 4K). Hardware wise the Unifi Cloud Gateway Max (£190) or above will do 2.5Gb, but the major advantage with Unifi is single point of management, so I would consider Unifi AP’s longer term. Absolutely nothing wrong with the Flint’s either and you do get more bang for your buck, switch wise I use the YuanLey stuff, it’s inexpensive and zero issues in what will be literally hundreds of TB’s over almost 2 years at this point.

Of course, 10Gb isn’t much more expensive at a router level, and we all know 5-10Gb packages are becoming more and more common….
 
Yup mine is using normal CAT5/6 doing 10Gb around the house except for one floor I still haven't wired :rolleyes: but wifi7 is doing 5-7Gb bridge which is plenty for me not to bother :) Used SFP/RJ45 transceivers on my cheapo switch to do this.
 
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sandys said:
Yup mine is using normal CAT5/6 doing 10Gb around the house except for one floor I still haven't wired :rolleyes: but wifi7 is doing 5-7Gb bridge which is plenty for me not to bother :) Used SFP/RJ45 transceivers on my cheapo switch to do this.
Click to expand...
Just to add to this for the OPs benefit. SFP to RJ45 transceivers get very hot. If any are used then be careful!
 
Hello All,

Thanks for all the advice :)

I'm leaning towards getting three 2.5GB switches and using my current Huawei ax3000, I've just done a speed test and got 419 Download and 105 upload so fast enough...my most most intensive WiFi usage is streaming to my Quest 3 for PCVR.

Am I right in thinking...

Provided Router in modem mode (Room 1) to 2.5GB Switch 1

Switch 1 to Huawei ax3000 (Router)
Switch 1 to PC 1
Switch 1 via cable to Switch 2

Switch 2 to PC 2
Switch 2 to Huawei ax3000 (AP mode)

Switch 1 via cable to Switch 2
Switch 3 to PC 3 (Man cave)
Switch 3 to Huawei ax3000 (AP mode)

Or can I use the Provided router and just use the two Huawei ax3000 as AP's?

Does that make any sense?

Or I might go Flint 3 as the router (No expert but I'd like to explore the remote access, I've upgraded for the upload as I access my Plex server while away) and the above the same?

As you can see I'm a little all over the place so advice more than welcome!

Cheers all

FYI,
I was paying just under £40 to Virgin for 1GB download and 100Mbps upload
New deal (Youfibre) £35 2GB download and 2GB upload
 
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ssmacc said:
Provided Router in modem mode (Room 1) to 2.5GB Switch 1
Click to expand...

The cheap hubs provide no network routing DHCP etc, so you couldn't go in modem mode, not sure that is a thing on the fibre gear,

ssmacc said:
Or can I use the Provided router and just use the two Huawei ax3000 as AP's?
Click to expand...

This would like be the route to provide your 2.5Gb source, then yes you can pretty much wire it as described all for less than 70quid :)
 
Bluecube said:
Just to add to this for the OPs benefit. SFP to RJ45 transceivers get very hot. If any are used then be careful!
Click to expand...

He's not wrong, I have two side by side in my switch, it is indeed toasty, but it was still pretty toasty when I used fibre between my NAS and PC.
 
ssmacc said:
Am I right in thinking...

Provided Router in modem mode (Room 1) to 2.5GB Switch 1
Click to expand...
Not quite, the "modem" for fibre is a little black box that goes on the wall that connects to a router.

I would do

Modem to provided router to switch 1
Switch 1 to PC
Switch 1 to Switch 2
Switch 1 to switch 3

Switch 2 to PC 2
Switch 2 to Huawei ax3000 (AP mode)

Switch 3 to PC 3 (Man cave)
Switch 3 to Huawei ax3000 (AP mode)

Reason I recommend Mesh setups is that I think that is what allows for wifi handoff between APs. I remember years ago, before mesh was a consumer thing, I l lived somewhere big enough to need APs. My devices would only jump to the strongest wifi if they completely lost signal to the previous AP. So you could be stood on top of a wired in AP with full bandwidth and still be connected to the router through 2 thick stone walls and barely get any data through. It was annoying, though having 6/1 internet when games started to be dozens of GB was worse.
 
Disco_P said:
Not quite, the "modem" for fibre is a little black box that goes on the wall that connects to a router.

I would do

Modem to provided router to switch 1
Switch 1 to PC
Switch 1 to Switch 2
Switch 1 to switch 3

Switch 2 to PC 2
Switch 2 to Huawei ax3000 (AP mode)

Switch 3 to PC 3 (Man cave)
Switch 3 to Huawei ax3000 (AP mode)

Reason I recommend Mesh setups is that I think that is what allows for wifi handoff between APs. I remember years ago, before mesh was a consumer thing, I l lived somewhere big enough to need APs. My devices would only jump to the strongest wifi if they completely lost signal to the previous AP. So you could be stood on top of a wired in AP with full bandwidth and still be connected to the router through 2 thick stone walls and barely get any data through. It was annoying, though having 6/1 internet when games started to be dozens of GB was worse.
Click to expand...
I would respectfully suggest that your AP experience is a little outdated, in the iPhone 3G/4 era this was a thing, devices would cling onto whatever they connected to for grim death, but we now live in a world where devices will prefer the strongest AP signal and AP’s can have fast roaming/switching enabled, MESH also doesn’t have to have fast roaming enabled - my Deco’s for example never have.
 
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