New build house networking advice needed

Mattr · 30 Jan 2022 at 19:00

Hi all,

Moving into a new build with OFNL fttp provided by seethelight and looking for some tips/advice on setting up our network as I’m a networking noob.

House is over 3 floors. Utility room on ground floor houses the ONT and a patch panel which provides (I think) 2 sockets in living room and 1 to master bedroom on top floor, no sockets to first floor (3 bedrooms).

Use case will be
- Living room: TV, SkyQ and possibly Apple TV
- First floor: gaming PC x2 in bed 3. Office with laptop in bed 4
- Second floor: No use for this patch panel socket except perhaps mesh wifi

My plan is to use my rt-ac88u instead of the ISP provided router and place this either in living room via patch panel or in utility room.

If I place the router in the utility room then I can always get an AIMesh router and put it on the top floor to provide coverage. Will only leave 2 sockets for living room though.
Ideal situation would be to expand patch panel to bed 3 (x4) and bed 4 (x2) but from what I can tell this is quite expensive. Does anyone have any experience of this?

Is there a better or easier solution I might be missing? If it were you, would you fork out for the extra sockets to first floor early on?

Thanks in advance,
Matt

tigerstyle · 30 Jan 2022 at 20:52

No I'd get a cheap 5 port gigabit switch and put it in living room or bedroom as required for extra ports.

Mattr · 30 Jan 2022 at 20:56

tigerstyle said:
No I'd get a cheap 5 port gigabit switch and put it in living room or bedroom as required for extra ports.

Thanks good suggestion, only difficulty is we need ethernet to the first floor really. Or good WiFi.

ChrisD. · 30 Jan 2022 at 21:22

Mattr said:
rt-ac88u

ASUS networking kit really is mediocre, with a horrific attitude towards customers from the vendor.

tigerstyle · 30 Jan 2022 at 22:13

Mattr said:
ethernet to the first floor really. .

Sorry I missed that bit of your house layout, sounds weird, why don't they just run 1 socket per floor? Then you mesh wifi from each floor out like that?
Maybe worth paying extra for, but get them to cut back on others so the cost is minimal.

Mattr · 30 Jan 2022 at 22:39

tigerstyle said:
Sorry I missed that bit of your house layout, sounds weird, why don't they just run 1 socket per floor? Then you mesh wifi from each floor out like that?
Maybe worth paying extra for, but get them to cut back on others so the cost is minimal.

No probs.

Well house is already built, moving in tomorrow (I should have mentioned) and we were too late in building process to make changes to wiring sadly.

I don’t even know which professional I’d call for a job like this! Sparky?

ChrisD. · 31 Jan 2022 at 08:06

Mattr said:
for a job like this! Sparky?

Home AV or security installer.

WJA96 · 31 Jan 2022 at 21:19

I’ve had very good results from TV antenna installers, but then I terminate the cables myself. The TV aerial people are really good at working at height and they can run cables neatly and do surface or recessed boxes as required. And best of all they don’t tend to charge up-themselves silly prices like data cablers do.

Doing Data cables correctly is undeniably a skill but running two lengths of CAT6 into surface mount keystones isn’t data cabling.

MrRockliffe · 31 Jan 2022 at 21:44

As above, I had a great result with an aerial company. They charged less than a local home network installer, and did a really neat job.

I got to supply the cable too, which was great for me, as I could spec it exactly how I wanted it