CenturyLink gigabit fiber and WiFi
April 6, 2020 12:03 PM Subscribe
1. What's the easiest way to fix a dead spot that's far away from my router, but near an ethernet cable in the wall?
2. What's the best wifi/mesh setup to get the most out of our gigabit fiber?
I have fiber to my home, which is pretty cool. They gave me two boxes to make the internet work: the ONT, where fiber goes in and an ethernet cable comes out, and a zyxel C3000Z modem/router with wifi and four ethernet ports. The two live in a little crawl space under our front stairs, aka "the server closet." The few wired speed tests I've run have made my inner child VERY happy. However, WiFi from the 3000Z is lovely if you're close to it but rapidly gets worse with distance. The room where our kids are supposed to do their online classwork has the worst connectivity, and an Amazon Fire stick in that room won't connect at all because the speed is too slow.
I also have pre-wired the house for CAT6, but haven't had time to put jacks on the ends of the cables yet.* There are cables in each room, and all the other ends lead to the server closet. I have a patch panel (still in its box) and a bunch of patch cables, but I don't have a switch to connect the patch panel to yet, because I figured I'd get that when I knew about all the other networking gear I wanted. One set of wires is directly behind the TV.
I have an Asus RT-N56U lying around that used to be my regular router. A short term solution that used that device in conjunction with the C3000Z and perhaps the ethernet would be helpful until I can save up for the best solution so I can watch Picard on my fire stick. Is there something simple I can do with what I have to fix that dead zone? I should have time to finish the jacks in the near future, and I could potentially only connect the ones in the TV room to my router until I've purchased a switch.
Now long term I really want fast internet everywhere, not just by the TV and near the closet. My hope had been to replace the C3000Z with a mesh router and ethernet backhaul. However, CL's internet connection is a little funky uses PPPOE with a user/pass that I don't know (but is apparently not hard to get from CL support) and a tagged VLAN. I don't know what these things mean. However, my searches on the internet tell me that while the C3000Z is quite fast at handling this setup, most consumer routers cannot process the traffic fast enough to keep up and speeds are drastically reduced. [Google WiFi, orbi, and Eero doesn't even support it]. And if I keep the existing router... don't I lose the powers of the mesh? (Not a networking expert here!) I've also read that a smart switch might help (glad I didn't buy one yet!). Anyway... what hardware should I start saving up for that will get me the best results without costing an arm and a leg?
* we just moved in after an extensive remodel and are still living in a forest of boxes
I have fiber to my home, which is pretty cool. They gave me two boxes to make the internet work: the ONT, where fiber goes in and an ethernet cable comes out, and a zyxel C3000Z modem/router with wifi and four ethernet ports. The two live in a little crawl space under our front stairs, aka "the server closet." The few wired speed tests I've run have made my inner child VERY happy. However, WiFi from the 3000Z is lovely if you're close to it but rapidly gets worse with distance. The room where our kids are supposed to do their online classwork has the worst connectivity, and an Amazon Fire stick in that room won't connect at all because the speed is too slow.
I also have pre-wired the house for CAT6, but haven't had time to put jacks on the ends of the cables yet.* There are cables in each room, and all the other ends lead to the server closet. I have a patch panel (still in its box) and a bunch of patch cables, but I don't have a switch to connect the patch panel to yet, because I figured I'd get that when I knew about all the other networking gear I wanted. One set of wires is directly behind the TV.
I have an Asus RT-N56U lying around that used to be my regular router. A short term solution that used that device in conjunction with the C3000Z and perhaps the ethernet would be helpful until I can save up for the best solution so I can watch Picard on my fire stick. Is there something simple I can do with what I have to fix that dead zone? I should have time to finish the jacks in the near future, and I could potentially only connect the ones in the TV room to my router until I've purchased a switch.
Now long term I really want fast internet everywhere, not just by the TV and near the closet. My hope had been to replace the C3000Z with a mesh router and ethernet backhaul. However, CL's internet connection is a little funky uses PPPOE with a user/pass that I don't know (but is apparently not hard to get from CL support) and a tagged VLAN. I don't know what these things mean. However, my searches on the internet tell me that while the C3000Z is quite fast at handling this setup, most consumer routers cannot process the traffic fast enough to keep up and speeds are drastically reduced. [Google WiFi, orbi, and Eero doesn't even support it]. And if I keep the existing router... don't I lose the powers of the mesh? (Not a networking expert here!) I've also read that a smart switch might help (glad I didn't buy one yet!). Anyway... what hardware should I start saving up for that will get me the best results without costing an arm and a leg?
* we just moved in after an extensive remodel and are still living in a forest of boxes
Best answer: Your WiFi is only occasionally and under more or less nearly ideal conditions going to give you more than 100-200MBPS. Just terminate the Ethernet line that goes between your router and the dead zone for now.
From there, the asus will need to be configured as a wireless access point. This may need you to set a static IP address, or make it fetch its address from dhcp. And you may need to turn off the dhcp server on the asus. But both are probably automatic with the mode switch. Then plug the asus in to the Ethernet line back to your router and you're approximately golden.
posted by wotsac at 12:23 PM on April 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
From there, the asus will need to be configured as a wireless access point. This may need you to set a static IP address, or make it fetch its address from dhcp. And you may need to turn off the dhcp server on the asus. But both are probably automatic with the mode switch. Then plug the asus in to the Ethernet line back to your router and you're approximately golden.
posted by wotsac at 12:23 PM on April 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
(I actually have the gigabit / pppoe / vlan config at home. Long term, you may want to do something like get a couple of Ubiquiti access points, and turn off the WiFi on your router, or get more creative. I can hold forth at some length. But for now just get something in your dead spot, and you'll be ok.
posted by wotsac at 12:27 PM on April 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by wotsac at 12:27 PM on April 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Yeah, put a jack on the one ethernet line (even on both ends if you don't want to do the patch panel yet). Patch that into your existing router. Plug your spare AP into the new line and configure it in bridging mode with the same SSID as your existing network. Bridging mode will turn off all of the DHCP/NAT stuff and basically turn it into just an ethernet-wireless device. (Basically the same thing that your ONT does for fiber-ethernet). The 4 ports on your router will not have the vlan tagging stuff to worry about.
If you got a really fancy switch... You could configure it so that two of the ports are connected to each other and the other remaining ports are connected to each other. Then you *could* have the switch to the vlan stuff and use any router that can do the PPOE regardless of its vlan capabilities. Then you'd wire one of the routers ethernet jacks into the big bank of ports on the switch and then those to the patch panel for distribution.
I have no comment on consumer switches, routers, or APs.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:19 PM on April 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
If you got a really fancy switch... You could configure it so that two of the ports are connected to each other and the other remaining ports are connected to each other. Then you *could* have the switch to the vlan stuff and use any router that can do the PPOE regardless of its vlan capabilities. Then you'd wire one of the routers ethernet jacks into the big bank of ports on the switch and then those to the patch panel for distribution.
I have no comment on consumer switches, routers, or APs.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:19 PM on April 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
There are inexpensive gigabit routers out there. E.g. https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Dual-Band-Gigabit-Router-F9K1113/dp/B008982LD4
posted by Obscure Reference at 2:21 PM on April 6, 2020
posted by Obscure Reference at 2:21 PM on April 6, 2020
Important note: there are a lot of routers that have some gigabit ethernet ports on the back. Not as many that can route at gigabit speed between the wan and the lan, and making pppoe on a vlan go at gigabit speeds isn't entirely easy for all of them.
posted by wotsac at 3:17 PM on April 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by wotsac at 3:17 PM on April 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Totally forgot that the Asus was my OLD old router, it's actually a Netgear ac-1750. I made my first ever punch into the patch panel and wired the other side with a keystone jack, then connected the two routers together and set the Netgear as an AP. Trivially easy and I'm in business. Next step is to start saving for Ubiquiti gear. 😁
posted by rouftop at 11:59 PM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by rouftop at 11:59 PM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
I found pulling ethernet through my house to be too difficult, so I ended up with a Google WiFi solution. It's fine but not nearly fast enough to take advantage of the gigabit fiber connection we have. Then again, it's rare that I need anything even approaching that speed.
posted by kdar at 12:20 PM on April 6, 2020 [1 favorite]