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> The real solution is to plan for having a low-power access point in every room. This is too expensive, how about a correct placement of a one router and refu

> The real solution is to plan for having a low-power access point in every room. This is too expensive, how about a correct placement of a one router and refusing to use a vacuum cleaner with spyware? > If anything, I’d want my future home to have WiFi-blocking walls You have no choice since anything except some nasty plastics does this, even wood according to the article.

vlmutolo 3y ago
The most expensive Unifi in-wall AP is $170. Even if you had ten of them, that’s only $1700. If you’re building a house, that’s not that expensive for making basic infrastructure work well.
- Auracle 3y ago
  That $1700 will be somewhat outdated in 5 years, and definitely outdated in 10.
  - wl 3y ago
    The conduit used to run the Cat6 or fiber to those APs will probably still be useful in 40 years.
    - northrup 3y ago
      THIS! The fact that of all the things we regulate in housing construction by codes, and how we’re turning to view the Internet as a fundamental access need, you’d think we’d be more prescriptive with “in order to make maintenance of this communication medium flexible and future proof, all communication cables in homes should be ran in conduit.”
    - madamelic 3y ago
      Yep. When I was growing up 15 years ago, my dad wired the house with Cat6. I am now a homeowner and wiring my house with Cat6. 10Gbps at 55m (180ft) is plenty for residential when the top-end residential internet offerings cap out around 1Gbps. Unless you have a buzzing internal network, you are wasting your money going above Cat6/Cat6a imo. Cat7 is no speed increase over Cat6, only distance and cross-talk improvements. Cat8 is rated at 4x Cat6 for throughput and costs 3x more than Cat6 (~$530 per 1k ft vs $170 per 1k feet). There's no reason to buy a Lambo if the speed limit is 35 mph.
      - bluGill 3y ago
        You are lucky, my first network was RG58 (coax), and my second was cat-3 cable (10baseT). They didn't age well. I switch to cat-5 as soon as it was an option and luckily that has aged better.
        madamelic 3y ago
        Indeed I am. I grew up on the cutting edge of tech for sure thanks to my dad. I don't remember a time without internet nor (relatively) fast internet. When I got into a serious relationship, it was a culture shock to find out how others lived tech-wise growing up. I embarassed myself accidentally in my first apartment when I was mistook an RJ11 for an RJ45 from a distance when I commented to the agent about it having ethernet. I knew what RJ11 were, I just forgot that ethernet wasn't a normal thing to have. I remember finally getting permission to touch the home server rack in my sophomore year of my CS degree. That was a milestone.
      - jpc0 3y ago
        Cat 7 doesn't exist as a standard, it is marketing. The highest current standard is Cat6a and is overkill. Install Cat 6 and if you need any speeds higher than 2.5G install SM fiber and eat the little extra cost. Even Cat6a doing 10G within the standards distance is flaky, there are far too many factors that will degrade it.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Are you sure? My B+G access points still work with modern equipment - they are slow, but they work (I need to get them to a recycler as I don't use them). Newer standards are diminishing returns - older equipment is likely to be good enough far into the future just because it is unlikely anything will really need faster.
    - OJFord 3y ago
      GP said 'outdated', not non-functional. Your 802.11b/g APs are outdated, like you say 'they are slow' - i.e. you've become accustomed to newer faster models.
      - bluGill 3y ago
        True, but I'm not convinced that modern network gear will become outdated. It is fast enough in general so it is hard to think of why everyone should rush to wifi-next anymore.
        OJFord 3y ago
        Time will tell! So far in networks in general we've increased the size of data we're interested in moving at roughly the same rate as we've increased the throughput available. It's repeatedly been 'fast enough', and then not.
bdavbdav 3y ago
Many countries houses have brick internal and external (ours (UK) is - apart from one or two internal stud walls). How do you place a router so that it hits a 4/5 bed house with brick walls? Airtime contention is a big thing - anything with low signal takes a disproportionately large amount of airtime to carry the same amount of data. You might be able to do it, but everything will suffer (even things close to the AP/router). We’ve got 4 UniFi APs inside, one outside, and there are still some devices with poor antenna design that are clinging on.
sand500 3y ago
What if we switched to higher less penetrating frequencies? We are now on 6GHZ and there is even a spec for wifi over 50GHz.
semi-extrinsic 3y ago
Wood and drywall is essentially transparent for 2.4 GHz at least. https://www.nist.gov/publications/electromagnetic-signal-attenuation-construction-materials https://www.nist.gov/publications/electromagnetic-signal-att...
- thfuran 3y ago
  Low e windows are basically impassible force fields though.
pixl97 3y ago
>This is too expensive, how about a correct placement of a one router Because this has it's own set of limits. Especially if you're the in tech living in suburbs type that doesn't have a tiny house. I had Cat 6 dropped to the TVs/media devices because I don't want constant streaming devices "using up all the wifi". The offices where computers are have network drops too. This leaves a few wifi units around the house to service truly mobile things like phones and the assorted device that uses wifi that doesn't make sense to network. If you're going to try to fed 2+ TVs across a sizeable house with a bunch of other wifi capable devices off a single wifi router don't be surprised when your latency is high and or your speed suck.

vlmutolo 3y ago

The most expensive Unifi in-wall AP is $170. Even if you had ten of them, that’s only $1700. If you’re building a house, that’s not that expensive for making basic infrastructure work well.

Auracle 3y ago
That $1700 will be somewhat outdated in 5 years, and definitely outdated in 10.
- wl 3y ago
  The conduit used to run the Cat6 or fiber to those APs will probably still be useful in 40 years.
  - northrup 3y ago
    THIS! The fact that of all the things we regulate in housing construction by codes, and how we’re turning to view the Internet as a fundamental access need, you’d think we’d be more prescriptive with “in order to make maintenance of this communication medium flexible and future proof, all communication cables in homes should be ran in conduit.”
  - madamelic 3y ago
    Yep. When I was growing up 15 years ago, my dad wired the house with Cat6. I am now a homeowner and wiring my house with Cat6. 10Gbps at 55m (180ft) is plenty for residential when the top-end residential internet offerings cap out around 1Gbps. Unless you have a buzzing internal network, you are wasting your money going above Cat6/Cat6a imo. Cat7 is no speed increase over Cat6, only distance and cross-talk improvements. Cat8 is rated at 4x Cat6 for throughput and costs 3x more than Cat6 (~$530 per 1k ft vs $170 per 1k feet). There's no reason to buy a Lambo if the speed limit is 35 mph.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      You are lucky, my first network was RG58 (coax), and my second was cat-3 cable (10baseT). They didn't age well. I switch to cat-5 as soon as it was an option and luckily that has aged better.
      - madamelic 3y ago
        Indeed I am. I grew up on the cutting edge of tech for sure thanks to my dad. I don't remember a time without internet nor (relatively) fast internet. When I got into a serious relationship, it was a culture shock to find out how others lived tech-wise growing up. I embarassed myself accidentally in my first apartment when I was mistook an RJ11 for an RJ45 from a distance when I commented to the agent about it having ethernet. I knew what RJ11 were, I just forgot that ethernet wasn't a normal thing to have. I remember finally getting permission to touch the home server rack in my sophomore year of my CS degree. That was a milestone.
    - jpc0 3y ago
      Cat 7 doesn't exist as a standard, it is marketing. The highest current standard is Cat6a and is overkill. Install Cat 6 and if you need any speeds higher than 2.5G install SM fiber and eat the little extra cost. Even Cat6a doing 10G within the standards distance is flaky, there are far too many factors that will degrade it.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Are you sure? My B+G access points still work with modern equipment - they are slow, but they work (I need to get them to a recycler as I don't use them). Newer standards are diminishing returns - older equipment is likely to be good enough far into the future just because it is unlikely anything will really need faster.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    GP said 'outdated', not non-functional. Your 802.11b/g APs are outdated, like you say 'they are slow' - i.e. you've become accustomed to newer faster models.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      True, but I'm not convinced that modern network gear will become outdated. It is fast enough in general so it is hard to think of why everyone should rush to wifi-next anymore.
      - OJFord 3y ago
        Time will tell! So far in networks in general we've increased the size of data we're interested in moving at roughly the same rate as we've increased the throughput available. It's repeatedly been 'fast enough', and then not.

bdavbdav 3y ago

Many countries houses have brick internal and external (ours (UK) is - apart from one or two internal stud walls). How do you place a router so that it hits a 4/5 bed house with brick walls? Airtime contention is a big thing - anything with low signal takes a disproportionately large amount of airtime to carry the same amount of data. You might be able to do it, but everything will suffer (even things close to the AP/router). We’ve got 4 UniFi APs inside, one outside, and there are still some devices with poor antenna design that are clinging on.

sand500 3y ago

What if we switched to higher less penetrating frequencies? We are now on 6GHZ and there is even a spec for wifi over 50GHz.

semi-extrinsic 3y ago

Wood and drywall is essentially transparent for 2.4 GHz at least. https://www.nist.gov/publications/electromagnetic-signal-attenuation-construction-materials https://www.nist.gov/publications/electromagnetic-signal-att...

thfuran 3y ago
Low e windows are basically impassible force fields though.

pixl97 3y ago

>This is too expensive, how about a correct placement of a one router Because this has it's own set of limits. Especially if you're the in tech living in suburbs type that doesn't have a tiny house. I had Cat 6 dropped to the TVs/media devices because I don't want constant streaming devices "using up all the wifi". The offices where computers are have network drops too. This leaves a few wifi units around the house to service truly mobile things like phones and the assorted device that uses wifi that doesn't make sense to network. If you're going to try to fed 2+ TVs across a sizeable house with a bunch of other wifi capable devices off a single wifi router don't be surprised when your latency is high and or your speed suck.