Article: Stability and Performance from Access Networks

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One relatively minor change technically inclined folks can make to their home network to nudge in the direction of simplification and reliability is to start by separating the wired and wireless functionality. 

 

This can achieve several things:

 

1 - Chris rightly identified the escalating pain of managing access to today's gadgets and by separating WiFi you also separate the WiFi passwords from the router.

 

2 - You offload the WiFi processing overhead from the all in one home router to dedicated device(s)

 

3 - you gain the ability to place your access point(s) independently to improve coverage.

 

The cost need not be prohibitive, and I've found the improvement across these areas to be substantial in a 3 story 3300 sf house, using affordable Ubiquiti access points. 

 

Chances are good that most people will never need to go beyond a consumer class router, other than disabling its built in WiFi.

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26 minutes ago, mrvco said:

the stakes are bit higher (and the "IT calls" angrier )

 

No doubt about that!  Having cut the cable TV cord about 5 years ago, network stability gained a whole new level of importance! That's also when my desire to make WiFi passwords independent of routers started to grow.

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34 minutes ago, ChrisG said:

I'm struggling to understand what else they did for you to charge you an additional $8000.

 

 

While I can't address this question directly, and it's an entirely reasonable question, I believe it falls into an area where we're seeing end users struggle increasingly with a concept of value.

 

Value in relation to physical items is something that we're all more accustomed to assessing, and even in this realm I'm sure there are very few of us who've not faced friends or family ready to send us of for a stretch at the funny farm for what we spend on cables!  

 

When it comes to intangibles such as software or services, a lot of us start to struggle with the "well, I can do that myself ..." comparisons. It's true - many of us can do these things ourselves, with varying degrees of competence. Then there's the opportunity cost of the other things we might be doing with our time and decisions about bringing work home with us etc. There's also being the home IT department - a role once adopted that's very hard to escape.

 

It seems unlikely that a company offering solutions like the one reviewed is seeking highly price conscious customers (like me) and instead, is focussed on delivering very high levels of service and reliability, along with the required expertise, to a target happy to pay for it. As soon as I saw so much Cisco involved I knew I was too cheap for a solution like this! For anyone else like me, there's Ubiquiti Networks

 

 

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4 hours ago, eternaloptimist said:

$13,000... USD.... Holy Batman!!!

I remain to be convinced that a home network needs hardware at this price point.

Wow, just wow.

 

No kidding!  However, as your home network spreads its tentacles through every aspect of daily life what were once annoying issues take on a much magnified significance.  When your home office becomes more of a necessity than a convenience and if you live in a property with infrastructure that's challenging ...

 

I only see this as a growth area. The $13k end of the spectrum are the bespoke trailblazers. And lest we hold high faith in hardware manufacturers magic to create a solution, never forget that every time they create something idiot proof, nature creates a newer better idiot!

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10 hours ago, esldude said:

+1 on the Ubiquiti gear.  Pretty nice stuff nicely priced for home network tinkering types.  I do wish their forum was more welcoming to newbies asking questions however.  Not always a friendly crowd.

 

Chances are good that unless you're doing something really complex, the question has been asked before. In this respect, a careful Google search will often find what you need, and in many cases all you need to do is cut and paste within SSH.   Don't forget to save configurations before making changes and save the commands you use in a text file for future reference.

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2 hours ago, ChrisG said:

So, at $150/hour, that's 53 hours of consulting to review the questionnaire

 

Chris made it sound as if ongoing support is included as well, though I don't recall this being called out in great detail. 

 

If a finger-in-the-air assumption of a five year life is assumed for the network to remain up to task, based on typical alarm companies monthly monitoring charges of around $35, add at least $2,275 to the calculation for ongoing support over that five years.