5 ms·

Not sure what you mean. I am living in one of the worst place possible for Internet. I have over 400 2.4GHz APs accessible from my apartment. And it was built

Not sure what you mean. I am living in one of the worst place possible for Internet. I have over 400 2.4GHz APs accessible from my apartment. And it was built pre-Internet age with absolutely no forethought. And yet I have perfectly working Internet. Yes, when the network operator installed their AP it absolutely sucked. But I turned it into modem, put on my own pfSense box. Configured traffic shaping to reduce bufferbloat and ensure bandwidth is always reserved for things like zoom calls. Then I put on a decent (Ubiquiti) access point in every other room. I have reduced power of those access points so that they fall off naturally, this helps clients who move about the large apartment to roam. It does not make sense to have the AP radiate much further than the puny phone modem -- it just keeps the modem stuck to that AP while the AP struggles to receive signal from the phone. And so on. I have also upgraded almost all devices to 5GHz. 5GHz has much shorter range but it is actually a benefit -- it means less interference from devices of my neighbours. For security, I have separated VLANs and WLANs (separate for my work, for network management, for my family and their unsafe devices, for some legacy devices like printers and finally for guests). Everybody who visits me notices how well the WiFi works. I don't see how you need to build for "good Internet". "Good Internet" is just function of knowing what you are doing. It may cost a bit more to set up networking like mine. But this is drop in the ocean compared to trying to somehow improving your wifi coverage by chosing more expensive materials to build your house.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
I mean, at the very least, running CAT-6 into every room of your aforementioned apartment and terminating them somewhere sensible with a fiber/cable endpoint wouldn't cost awfully much and would make everything you did here notably easier. Even if it's not used by a given tenant or owner, this stuff like any infrastructure is inherited by the next occupant. Since we got fiber internet, I've not touched a single coaxial line in my home, but when I sell it and move, that cable is still there, ready to be used by whomever buys it. Whether they will or not is obviously their decision to make, but at least this way the option is there. I see no reason why ethernet couldn't work similarly. Every house I've lived in has had a nest of coaxial cable lines in some corner of the basement or other utility area, and most have RJ-11 for phones too. I would also say that your last note: "a function of knowing what you're doing" does unintentionally I think really well at illustrating the problem. I do not have the slightest clue how plumbing works, but my home came designed from stock with working toilets and showers. I also have a fair bit of knowledge about electricity (enough to change outlets and switches anyway) but not enough to really build out circuits, and my home came designed from stock with appropriately placed (mostly) outlets ready to be used. My point being: people shouldn't have to know how their infrastructure works, and I would argue while a new entry and one that could use some standardization, Internet absolutely belongs in that category. Additionally, you're using some pretty top-of-the-line consumer electronics there with Ubuquiti APs. I looked into those some years back and to replace my Google Wifi's that I had at the time would've cost me about $1,500, which, I can afford and did consider, but ultimately never pulled the trigger on and I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if Joe Consumer looked at that price tag and had fit, since bottom-shelf wireless routers on the market do the exact same thing (distribute internet OTA) for like, $70. Now, I don't use bottom shelf personally, I have a mesh network too but mine doesn't allow me to tweak the power of the transmitters nor really do traffic shaping or service prioritization. This is, in my mind, akin to someone saying "there's nothing wrong with the highway, I have a Ferrari and I can get to work in 10 minutes if the cops aren't in the way." No kidding. You've bought one of the best answers to the question at hand, but not everyone can have that. And this is made worse by the fact that there are absolutely tons of shit quality routers built and sold every day that do a bad job of this task, and the only way to avoid that as a customer is knowing a decent amount about network administration so you know what to avoid. If a home fittings company made faucets that worked as badly as many routers out there do, they'd be sued into oblivion if not fined by the FTC for selling lemon products. I think we need more regulations on Internet-adjacent hardware so customers can have a baseline level of expectation that these things will function at the task they're built to accomplish to at least a certain level of reliability.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There are companies making faucets as bad as that. Places like WalMart sell them for cheap ($30). However no builder or professional plumber will touch them - they know that spending $200 on a good faucet is worth it.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

I mean, at the very least, running CAT-6 into every room of your aforementioned apartment and terminating them somewhere sensible with a fiber/cable endpoint wouldn't cost awfully much and would make everything you did here notably easier. Even if it's not used by a given tenant or owner, this stuff like any infrastructure is inherited by the next occupant. Since we got fiber internet, I've not touched a single coaxial line in my home, but when I sell it and move, that cable is still there, ready to be used by whomever buys it. Whether they will or not is obviously their decision to make, but at least this way the option is there. I see no reason why ethernet couldn't work similarly. Every house I've lived in has had a nest of coaxial cable lines in some corner of the basement or other utility area, and most have RJ-11 for phones too. I would also say that your last note: "a function of knowing what you're doing" does unintentionally I think really well at illustrating the problem. I do not have the slightest clue how plumbing works, but my home came designed from stock with working toilets and showers. I also have a fair bit of knowledge about electricity (enough to change outlets and switches anyway) but not enough to really build out circuits, and my home came designed from stock with appropriately placed (mostly) outlets ready to be used. My point being: people shouldn't have to know how their infrastructure works, and I would argue while a new entry and one that could use some standardization, Internet absolutely belongs in that category. Additionally, you're using some pretty top-of-the-line consumer electronics there with Ubuquiti APs. I looked into those some years back and to replace my Google Wifi's that I had at the time would've cost me about $1,500, which, I can afford and did consider, but ultimately never pulled the trigger on and I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if Joe Consumer looked at that price tag and had fit, since bottom-shelf wireless routers on the market do the exact same thing (distribute internet OTA) for like, $70. Now, I don't use bottom shelf personally, I have a mesh network too but mine doesn't allow me to tweak the power of the transmitters nor really do traffic shaping or service prioritization. This is, in my mind, akin to someone saying "there's nothing wrong with the highway, I have a Ferrari and I can get to work in 10 minutes if the cops aren't in the way." No kidding. You've bought one of the best answers to the question at hand, but not everyone can have that. And this is made worse by the fact that there are absolutely tons of shit quality routers built and sold every day that do a bad job of this task, and the only way to avoid that as a customer is knowing a decent amount about network administration so you know what to avoid. If a home fittings company made faucets that worked as badly as many routers out there do, they'd be sued into oblivion if not fined by the FTC for selling lemon products. I think we need more regulations on Internet-adjacent hardware so customers can have a baseline level of expectation that these things will function at the task they're built to accomplish to at least a certain level of reliability.

bluGill 3y ago
There are companies making faucets as bad as that. Places like WalMart sell them for cheap ($30). However no builder or professional plumber will touch them - they know that spending $200 on a good faucet is worth it.