Simple SOHO Network Design Advice

Product Discussion
1

Hello Everyone.

This is my first post- thanks in advance for any advice or guidance you can offer.

I’m looking for design guidance for a simple SOHO network. I want to use the Pepwave Surf SOHO MK3, but I’m a little concerned about coverage.

So my basic question is, should I be thinking about using a couple of WAPs feeding a wired router (maybe the Balance 20), or instead adding wireless extenders to the Surf SOHO MK3 if the need arises?

NOTE 1: this is for a midwestern suburban house, two levels, about 1,500 sq ft per level; 50MBPS ISP service, which pretty much all of the demand in our house with two adults working from home, and two teenagers who are determined to stream everything that has ever been put on the internet.

NOTE 2: For reference, regarding admin stuff, I am an avid ‘digital’ hobbyist who has a bajillion ‘networking’ classes for my job, but they’ve mostly been cursory. At the higher level I have the ‘ECNA’ certification from Extreme Networks, but I really don’t configure a lot of switches. I’m not afraid of manuals, love learning, and I am very interested in digital security.

Again, thanks for any thoughts!

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Hi and welcome to the forum!
I would always recommend proper wired APs over plugin wifi extenders. Peplink have some easy to manage options https://www.peplink.com/products/enterprise-access-point/pepwave-ap-one/ or use whatever your favourite brand might be.

In my house I have a mixture of Pepwave AP One Enterprises and ubiquiti AC Pro. I prefer the AP One because I can manage it and my balance one in IC2 very easily and I get all the real time and historic bandwidth data in one place.

I have used and installed WIFI extenders and in particular the TPlink powerline ones (and needed to support them). They work very well when they work but seem to need quite regular rebooting and / or pairing when they stop working.

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Thanks for the reply Martin.

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