I love speed and consistency.
I hate WiFi.
Ok, I mean honestly, it works 99% of the time as I would like. But there are still massive areas of improvements that can be made.
I am lucky enough to be in an area with fiber internet.
I have beautiful 1000 Mbps download and upload speed (I can recently actually upgrade to 2000 or 5000). I also have a child or two, or me, that enjoy playing online video games, and a TV that is consistently streaming 4K video.
People might say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
But I don’t just want ok, I want great. I want to install Ethernet throughout my 1980s house.
Getting Started
I have a Micro Center in my area and was able to find the Ubiquiti products I needed. I have been eyeing Ubiquiti for a while, and I was excited to get it setup.
I got a Dream Machine Pro Max and a 24 port Ethernet switch with POE. I also purchased a POE Doorbell because our old doorbell breaking was the impetus for all of this.
The issues came faster than I imagined. I put had drill bits that weren’t long enough, not strong enough. I had to put multiple holes in walls and joists.
Only the doorbell wasn’t fully installed because it requires a POE chime to be installed as well. My current doorbell is actually on the second floor and I needed to run wire there.
I then started drilling through fire blocks and questioning my life decisions.
I then crawled up in the attic and found things I didn’t want to find. I kept my focus on wiring. It took my dozens of hours with the tools I had. I cut squares through walls, even a couple of times necessarily.
I finally accepted that I didn’t need to run homeruns to every room upstairs. I just needed one home run to a closet. I of course then needed to add an outlet to that closet. Just another item on the todo list.
I then bought more Ubiquiti gear that I didn’t need and then returned that gear to buy a different switch so I could have 10Gbps to as many devices as possible. I then learned that basically nothing even supports 10Gbps. My brand new top-of-the-line PC’s ethernet is only 5Gbps. Gaming consoles and streaming boxes max out a 1Gbps.
But I was future proofing myself and I kept moving forward and was able to finally install an access point on the ceiling of our loft. It was a moment of glory. I walked around our entire house and still maintained signal. I then did a speed test and found out that my speeds went from 150/150 to 750/750. I knew WIFI was killing our speed, but didn’t realize how much.
It was the WIFI that gave me the confidence to finish the job.
