Would like advice on wifi configuration

[ferret141]

Whether it's due to to higher contention for the airwaves in my street or device degradation (if you believe the latter). I've reached the point where I need to figure out what to do with the Wifi in my house. I would like to kindly ask the guys of Overclockers to weigh in on my options. Some of them are illustrated below.

The current setup (openreach modem and Technicolor TG582n modified for fibre):

Excuse the setup of shame. It was supposed to be temporary but stuck. Note the steel door frames.


The first option is to stick strong router with 100 antennae like a Netgear Nighthawk or ASUS AC-1xxx in the study and hope that it beams all the way to the kitchen and bedrooms in the loft. Plus I can hook up an external HDD for the occasional share.

The second option is to place a strong router in the living room beside/behind/under the TV where it is more central within the house. It's not impossible to plug in an external HDD here but awkward if I ever planned to leave it in for an extended period.

The third option is to run an external Cat5 upstairs and come in through the CCTV camera hole. Then stick and access point up there. This is probably the most effective but for me it might have a caveat of adding additional layers of things to go wrong (routing, ap migration). Maybe stick the HDD up there too (furnished cupboard) and the put the router in the living room for best coverage or with any other configuration of the downstairs equipment.

Networked devices (additional capability E: ethernet, W: wifi)
Wired
PC
PS3 (W)
Rubbish Linux FTA Satellite receiver my dad bought
Samsung Smart TV (W)
CCTV PVR (presently not networked)

Wireless
4 Android smartphones
Samsung Tablet
2 Laptops (E)
HP Office Printer (E)
Nintendo Wii
Cycle computer


Below is a blank template should you wish to draw something

 

[mejinks]

First piece of advice is to ditch that technicolor router.

Swap the SW in pic 3 for the nighthawk
Put the hard disk upstairs with the cctv dvr

 

[ferret141]

First piece of advice is to ditch that technicolor router.

Swap the SW in pic 3 for the nighthawk
Put the hard disk upstairs with the cctv dvr

The Technicolor is only temporary. It's replacing a Billion that died.

So you're saying stick the router in the living room and put an access point in the loft bedrooms?

 

[Zefan]

I'd do exactly as described there, decent router downstairs (anywhere you can hide it, but preferably replacing that switch in the living room) and then route external UTP upstairs to an access point.

 

[ferret141]

I'd do exactly as described there, decent router downstairs (anywhere you can hide it, but preferably replacing that switch in the living room) and then route external UTP upstairs to an access point.

Aside from it being made redundant. Is there any other reason to get rid of the switch?

 

[Zefan]

Not particularly! The only thing I can think of is that in the current setup the devices off the switch share a single link between the switch and router, so if both devices are talking to something elsewhere on your network hard then you might find a performance dip compared to if they were connected to the router individually.

 

[ferret141]

Not particularly! The only thing I can think of is that in the current setup the devices off the switch share a single link between the switch and router, so if both devices are talking to something elsewhere on your network hard then you might find a performance dip compared to if they were connected to the router individually.

Fair enough. I never intended to have devices on that side of the switch transfer something big to the other side simultaneously so I never consciously thought of it.

Gutted that I missed out on a sweet deal for the Nighthawk R7800

 

[ferret141]

So an update. The Nighthawk R7800 is back down to £139.99 on the zon so I bought it.
Once it arrives that should clear most of my issues hopefully.