There is no need to relocate the socket, just relocate the WiFi access point(s). If the router is in a poor location just disable the WiFi in the router and backhaul the access points with actual ethernet.

With careful planning I can cover my entire house with a good WiFi signal with a single access point. However it is located on a ceiling and powered using PoE, backhauled with Cat6a cable.

A properly planned install with the WiFi access points placed at optimum locations backhauled with ethernet will be much more reliable than mucking about with mesh systems. WiFi is here for the long haul, investing today in providing the infrastructure for a quality solution (aka ethernet backhaul) is a sound investment. It's not like in 5 years time you are not going to want WiFi anymore.

Many of my friends would have major domestic hassles running cables and affixing �nasty technology� to the ceiling.

A complete no brainer in a commercial office.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Not everyone can relocate, given the costs Openreach charge for relocating the socket. I also thought that stations reduced power the closer they were to the AP?

If your home has ethernet cabling installed around the house you can put the modem and router wherever there's an Ethernet socket as long as there's an Ethernet socket near the master BT faceplate socket supplying the DSL signal and you've connected the master socket DSL output to that nearby Ethernet socket, which is then connected to an ethernet socket (via the patch panel) in another part of the house where you've plugged in your modem or router.

Of course. But plenty of people rent, and are not permitted to make changes to walls, and have rental agreements that prevent tacking cables to skirting boards. If you own, have money, and time, you can do a really neat structured cabling installation with RJ45 wall points behind the TV etc. One of my friends has turned his loft into an IT room with patch panel, and cable modem etc. I think this is the exception rather than the rule.

I think it may just be the right thing to bite the bullet and try and get cat6 put in.

Just to clarify my current wifi router an apple AirPort Extreme is cabled on the middle floor of the 3 storey, in a central location. With a cat5 cable crudely under the carpet.

The walls are breeze block and therefore, despite this central location, 5ghz struggles in the corners. I had tried an Orbi solution previously but speed gains across wifi were minimal for some reason. 2.4gh is just too congested which is why I'm very keen for strong 5ghz everywhere.

I naively thought with a dedicated cat6 backhaul of over 1Gbps this would somehow solve the issue.

Cat6 cabling is a pain. But, having read this thread, maybe worth persevering with. I have an airing cupboard on the middle floor which sits directly under a similar cupboard on the top floor so I could hide the cabling in these cupboards between floors. The middle floor cupboard also happens to be next to the room with the WAN connection so easy job there.

So this will only work if somehow the installer can hide the cables in these cupboards and the middle floor cupboard

1) routes a cable through the floor for positioning in the hall ceiling below
2) routes a cable up the cupboard for a middle floor ceiling
3) routes a cable up the cupboard into the cupboard above and into the top floor ceiling

I just have no idea if an installer can somehow thread a pick a cable through the floor (joists etc)

These will all be POE from a switch and probably be Ubiquiti or maybe TP-Link POE AC wifi APs

In reply to a post by jchamier:

One of my friends has turned his loft into an IT room with patch panel, and cable modem etc. I think this is the exception rather than the rule.

Unless your friend lives somewhere where summer temperatures are relatively cool, I�m not sure having IT gear in the loft is a good idea, unless there are cooling fans up there. I have a digital thermometer in the loft of my Home Counties home which reports max temperatures just over 40 degrees centigrade in July/August, though that said, I do have a pair of cat5e cables up there (which I�ve yet to terminate in an RJ45 faceplate) so I guess anything plugged into them in future will need have their operating environment specs checked beforehand.

From personal experience the Apple Airport units had significantly lower floor space coverage than competitors. Replacing with an ASUS AC68U recommended. It now seems obvious why Apple gave up the Airport range.

Yes it wouldn't be my choice either!

Lets reinforce this point.

First understand how Wifi works:
1. Spectrum is contended. Only 1 device, client or AP can talk on a specific channel, and they do this by a mechanism called Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CCMA/CA). Not only does a device have to wait for other devices in your home, but any neighbours that are using the same channel too (within specific dB noise parameters).
2. Mesh wifi will require a dedicated channel, preferably a wide channel to do 'backhaul'. This means a large chunk of the capacity of the AP is dedicated to backhaul, while the other half is dedicated to clients. So effectively total bandwidth is halved, though as you'll never see max Wifi PHY bandwidth, it's not really a big problem, and why Mesh systems 'work OK'.
3. Clients that have a weak signal will use significantly more airtime since bandwidth has to be reduced. Wifi performs at the speed of the worst client of the network.

For more info you can read quite a good guide here: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/how-ars-test...

Now with Ethernet backhaul:
- APs can run on independent clear channels, which means you can make use of even more spectrum for clients, and if you have 3 APs in 2.4GHz with 20MHz channels and about 5 in 5GHz with 80MHz channels you can get full spectrum coverage of the entire wifi spectrum.
- Because backhaul is handled by Ethernet, you're not lopping off a significant amount of radios in APs to handle backhaul. It's entirely devoted to clients.
- This can be tuned for capacity (100s to 1000s of clients) or performance (wider channels)
- There is no interference on Ethernet backhaul, and with a switched backhaul, you have clear point-to-point uninterfered-with gigabit+ pure bandwidth. Let the switches and routers handle traffic, and APs solely for bridging radio and Ethernet. Really the biggest problem you have with Ethernet backhaul is mitigating broadcast and multicast (another issue entirely).

As for Wifi 6 or Wifi 5, remember the point that Wifi will work at the speed of the slowest device. If you have a Wifi 6 (802.11ax) network, but one Wifi 3 (802.11g) device, then all those Wifi 6 devices have to operate at Wifi 3 speeds for that specific channel.

This is why we try to segregate spectrum and put old devices on 2.4GHz on a small 20MHz channel and then have all our shiny stuff on 80MHz channels in the 5GHz superhighway.

So if you want the best, invest in putting CAT6 or 7 to every room, and have an AP on the lowest power possible in each room covering different channels and giving a very hot coverage in the room, and very cold coverage outside the room. That way, client devices will roam from one AP to the other, and always choose to pick the strongest signal.

For the same reason a mesh system even though you're sacrificing half the bandwidth will still be better than a Big Box parked in the corner of a house serving everything, which is the worst option.

There are many other factors like DFS (Wifi kit has to give way to radar), and other quirks about RF that matter, but the basic points are as above. Ethernet will ALWAYS win as backhaul. Same reasons in the 5G vs FTTP argument: it's no contest.

and some good WiFi 6 testing of the new (expensive) routers:
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-re...

Plus the problem that the new feature of WiFi 6 is not actually enabled on most of the new routers:
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-fe...

Ethernet always wins, but most people's broadband is slower than the performance they can get through WiFi. This will change as more people get 500 Mbps or faster connections. Poor N or AC wifi often can handle 80 Mbps which is the fastest FTTC.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 15-Jan-20 18:04:10)