Ask HN: How to set up home wireless for reliable WFH

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24252399

by wegs • 6 years ago

1 6 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I have a wifi network at home, with my cable provider's highest tier of service. I have a nice wifi routers. My cable provider sometimes has outages. As with many city homes, there are many overlapping networks, and I do run into wifi issues on the other end of the home.

I'd like reliable, robust internet. Ideally, I would have:

1) Cheap cable service and some kind of cheap backup services (e.g. DSL) as a seamless fallback

2) Some kind of mesh network which covered the whole home with reliable wifi

I am interested in having a secure router, which won't get compromised tomorrow, and which firewalls the house. I am uninterested in having a cloud router, which spies on me, and sends off my internal data to Google or some company in China.

Any recommendations on how to set something like this up?

I don't need a ton of bandwidth. I do need reliable ssh connections which stay up and have low latency.

pwg2• 6 years ago

As with many city homes, there are many overlapping networks, and I do run into wifi issues on the other end of the home.
I'd like reliable, robust internet.
Any recommendations on how to set something like this up?

For at least the WiFi issues, the answer is: don't use WiFi. Use Ethernet cables and you will have reliable, robust connections. Which means (exclusive of a comcast outage) "reliable ssh connections which stay up and have low latency".

I am interested in having a secure router,

Building your own from a PC, plural ethernet cards, and Linux is one way to know exactly what the router is, and is not, doing. It is also not going to become obsolete tomorrow because the maker no longer releases firmware upgrades for it. However you are also taking on the effort of upgrading things yourself as necessary to maintain security.

wegs2• 6 years ago

For at least the WiFi issues, the answer is: don't use WiFi. Use Ethernet cables and you will have reliable, robust connections. Which means (exclusive of a comcast outage) "reliable ssh connections which stay up and have low latency".

I don't think I'm allowed to punch holes in the walls as would be needed to run Ethernet.

As a point of curiosity: Typical wifi is now faster than typical ethernet. I did benchmarks. Although both my computer and router advertise gigabit, they typically negotiate to 100M. I tried swapping cables, so it's not just random cable issues. Wifi gives consistently higher speeds than ethernet. Of course, 100M is plenty, and as you point out, does give better reliability.

However you are also taking on the effort of upgrading things yourself as necessary to maintain security.

That's my concern. Cost of maintenance becomes astronomical. I'm not a sysadmin by trade, and I'd need to stay on top of zero-days and similar. Plug-and-forget is nice.

I'm comfortable with the middle ground of trusting the vendor, so long as they say they're not monitoring things and they're reasonably credible. Thing is, most vendors seem to advertise cell phone apps, Alexa integration, and other stuff which necessitates sending my privates all over the web.

stephenr• 6 years ago

You don’t have to punch holes in walls.

Edit to clarify: most houses I’ve lived in, the internal doors could easily fit an Ethernet cable under them when closed. It’s not pretty but if it’s mostly routed along walls behind furniture you’ll likely not notice it that much.

100mbit is not “typical” for new, non bargain-basement equipment in 2020.

If they aren’t connecting at gigabit reliably one of the three things (router/switch, computer, Ethernet cable) either not rated for gigabit or is faulty.

I had some similar symptoms with an isp provided Huawei fttp ont+router. I ended up plugging the computer (along with a network a3 printer) into a little desktop gigabit switch and it’s all been peachy since then.

The moral of the story is that isp provided devices are usually worse than bargain basement because you aren’t even getting the savings.

If possible I’d either replace it, or if you’re on eg docsis (aka cable) and can’t find a reliable one aftermarket, put their device in bridge mode, and run a good quality router of your own.

bartvk• 6 years ago

Just a question: you wouldn't happen to have coaxial cable in the house, right? If so, you could use an adapter to run ethernet over it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008C1JC4O/

I agree with the other poster, if you want reliability then there is no substitute for ethernet. Anything else will simply have lower reliability.

That said, I'd personally try HomePlug (ethernet over powerline) solution first. I was not able to get that stable and have tried two generations of the technology.

If it works -- fine, if not, I'd try mesh products like Eero next. They're owned by Amazon though, which I personally wouldn't like. I did hear some good reviews on the ATP.fm podcast, who usually are quite critical.

Ask HN: How to set up home wireless for reliable WFH

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