Keep it simple

[email protected]

I’ve wondered the same. Pretty sure they just lean on the ISP equipment offerings and outsource the rest to the cloud. Critically, I envision plug and play users who don’t give a shit about security or privacy, and that simplifies a lot.

Honestly if you take that setup from the ISP (which I think is often free and now usually includes a docsis 3.x with at least one repeater, installed) then just bump the default encryption and add a VPN, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad way to go at all, mainly because when there’s any issue it’s on the ISP to fix it.

It won’t be bleeding edge and you won’t be able to do any directed networking fanciness without your own gear, but the not my problem perk is nothing to sneeze at.

And yeah mesh is a headache. It’s all wired backhaul (sfp+ and copper) but nodes regularly fall out of sync and the mesh doesn’t heal properly. Main reason I kept coming back was the benefit of co-channel stacking, which makes your signal footprint small but really deep so neighboring routers move over.

[email protected]

Preach! I just finished a long DIY remodel and running ethernet to everyroom was less than a $100 in cable and connectors. Obviously it was easier and cheaper for me because I already had a lot of the drywall down.

Either way such a good point you make, people will drop 1k on a phone no questions asked but a few hundred is too much to get the best home upgrade a tech enthusiast could ever ask for.

beefbot

Way less so if your home is constructed such that the wireless is borked

[email protected]

Wireless data links should be the exclusive domain of temporary, nomadic and/or sacrificial applications.

If the channel is permanent, static, or critical; as much of the path as practicable should be provisioned with constrained energy transmission.

Midnight Wolf

Disabled, so physically cannot do it, or I would.

[email protected]

I’m a nice fellow who provides free internet to all of my neighbors.

It’s a pain sometimes.

I worry about the teenager upstairs, but all the others are old ladies and it doesn’t bother me a bit…until I want to do something serious.

I’m about to (tax time) invest in a router that allows me to control their bandwidth. It’s free, so if 20mbps don’t work for them they can pay for it.

I will open up the kid’s PS5 so he can game. His laptop is getting 10mbps though.

[email protected]

As someone with a telecommunications background who's taken apart some cheap routers that look like that: the only caveat I'll add is that the antennas are only useful if they're actually connected to anything. From a decently trustworthy brand you're probably fine, but I've seen a few where only one or two of the antenna couplings were connected to anything internally.

[email protected]

What do you define as a "decent" WAN connection?

[email protected]

Let's see that ethernet cable do orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing...

[email protected]

Ah butts, you’re right, the first guy said “mobile” and I didn’t read it correctly.

[email protected]

I could preach all day about this.

I have a simple philosophy: wired when you can, wireless when you have to.

With that being said, doing a site survey for wifi and getting optimal access point locations, then placing Ethernet in ceiling there for said access points, ensures you have good coverage of your space, which then leads into another rant about network hardware and people spending thousands on everything except their router/access points even if they have the structure cables to support such a system....

Then people wonder why their wifi sucks.

I mean, spend a couple hundred one time to get Ethernet run, spend some time on an online ap placement tool and signal estimator for it, and then go buy infrastructure wireless for your home, and spend upwards of $1000 on networking hardware. You'll get more out of it and it will work for longer than your $1000+ smart phone, or many $1000s laptop that use it almost constantly.

Networking is critical and it should be seamless and blend into the background. You shouldn't need to mess with it constantly to get it to work. If that's normal for you, then something is very wrong.

[email protected]

I know but IDK. Just figured it was an overhead thing. Having a connection that can max out a gigabit ethernet port is still fairly new territory for me.

[email protected]

There's no shortage of liars and cheats everywhere. I'm unsurprised that a company world either intentionally, or through sheer ignorance, have "antennas" that are little more than aesthetic pieces of plastic.

[email protected]

I think it’s a little more than $500 to get Ethernet ports installed all around your house. Especially if you need to run through fire breaks and insulation. Will have to wait till a remodel before I can get those installed.

That said, I didn’t skimp on my home networking, even though it’s all wireless. I’ve got 4 WiFi 6 APs on PoE with Cat 6 runs thru the attic. I can get 700 Mbs+ download speeds pretty much anywhere in and around the house.

[email protected]

Legit would've commit crimes for 20mbps growing up. And I was one of the lucky ones too

[email protected]

I got a used 10Gbe switch and a thunderbolt 10Gbe adapter for my computer and now I can transfer my videos and photos from my NAS like it's my internal hard drives.

It can also do 2.5Gbe which pretty much future proofs me.

[email protected]

But what if you're gaming downstairs and the router is upstairs and then you have to go upstairs for pizza rolls so you take your gaming laptop upstairs and you're eating right next to the router and so you're just plugged in and then what if you forgot to turn off the oven and your girlfriend is yelling at you "You're going to start a fire! Why can't you remember to turn off the oven? What's wrong with you?" and then you go back downstairs to finish gaming?

[email protected]

If that happens often enough to be worth 43 times more than the cat cable, then it sounds totally justified to me. But also, what if you got a toaster oven for upstairs?

[email protected]

I spend a lot more money on good Ethernet switches. But at least that works and is easier to manage than Wifi.

[email protected]

if that's the latest one that's a great deal. it's usually $800.