**Wireless Access Points: Understanding the Limitations and Best Practices**

As technology continues to evolve, wireless access points have become increasingly important for home and business networks. However, with the latest standards like 802.11ax, it's essential to understand the limitations of older systems and choose the right equipment for your specific needs.

In our last discussion, we touched on the topic of wireless access points, but let's dive deeper into the world of Wi-Fi networking. As you browse through the offerings from big box stores like Best Buy, you may be tempted by their affordable prices. However, it's crucial to know what you're getting and whether it's suitable for your scenario.

The problem is that many wireless access points sold in these stores are outdated and lack the features of newer systems like 802.11ax. These older systems can lead to performance issues, dropped connections, and poor coverage. For example, a three-pack of wireless access points for under $200 may seem like a good deal, but it's essential to understand that this is not a long-term solution.

As you move from the prosumer level to small business networks, you'll find that these limitations become more apparent. The Euro specifications of these systems often state that they can cover up to 1,000 square feet, but in reality, they may only be able to reach half of that distance. Instead of relying on a single access point to cover an entire area, consider using multiple access points with less power and range to ensure better coverage for all devices.

This counterintuitive approach is essential when designing a wireless network. By having multiple access points spread throughout the area, you can create a mesh network that provides reliable coverage for every device. This approach may seem more expensive upfront, but it's often more cost-effective in the long run.

**Choosing the Right Wireless Access Point**

When selecting a wireless access point, consider your specific needs and the size of your space. If you have an older building or construction materials like brick and plaster, you'll need to take extra precautions to ensure reliable coverage. Cast iron plumbing can also interfere with Wi-Fi signals, so it's essential to plan accordingly.

In modern construction, Wi-Fi signals tend to travel well through walls and ceilings, but it's still crucial to think three-dimensionally when placing your access points. Consider the layout of your space, including any obstacles or challenges that may impact signal strength.

**Powering Your Wireless Access Point**

One of the biggest advantages of wireless access points is their ability to be powered using Power over Ethernet (PoE). This feature eliminates the need for a separate power source, allowing you to mount your access point anywhere in your space without worrying about cables or outlets. With PoE, you can create a more flexible and efficient network that's better suited to your needs.

**Testing Your Wireless Network**

After installing your new wireless access points, it's essential to test your network thoroughly. Use your phone or other devices to scan for coverage and identify any areas where the signal is weak or non-existent. By testing your network regularly, you can ensure that your access points are placed in the optimal locations and that you're getting the best possible performance.

**Introduction to Switches: The Next Step in Network Development**

As we've explored wireless access points, it's time to introduce a new piece of equipment that's often overlooked but essential for creating a robust network: switches. A switch is a crucial component of any network, and it plays a vital role in directing traffic between devices.

In our next discussion, we'll delve deeper into the world of switches, exploring their features, benefits, and how they can enhance your network. We'll also cover common misconceptions about switches and provide expert advice on choosing the right switch for your specific needs.

By understanding the limitations of wireless access points and taking a more strategic approach to networking, you can create a robust and efficient network that meets all your devices' needs. Whether you're building a home network or expanding an existing business system, we'll be here to guide you every step of the way.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to the level 099 videos this is our second video dealing with the wireless access point or as some people call it the WAP which you guys maybe have heard before with our other what what as we covered in the first video the wireless access point or WAP is one of the easiest to upgrade things that you can upgrade but why why upgrade why add multiple access points well if you're in your home or you have a dead zone or you need better coverage or you're in your underground bunker you may need wireless access points the people before you may have installed a faraday cage to prevent any kind of RF signals from entering and you have to add an access point inside the RF Cage if you really want some wireless access coverage with more wireless access points you also can browse a lot faster than you would normally so maybe you're Doom scrolling on Twitter at all hours or maybe you're binge watching videos from your favorite YouTubers at all hours or maybe you're reading some fan fiction late at night about the tragedy of the twin sons of Dior and Maya throws and the guilt he feels because they've been trapped in the forest and it's winter and they're going to die out there a good wireless access point is also going to help you with reliability modern mesh networks can automatically switch channels and control all of that maybe not such a big deal for those of us in rural neighborhoods but if you're in an apartment or the eventual pods that we're all going to be living in it's going to be critical you don't want to conflict with your neighbors Control software might be one of the more annoying Parts about a modern Wireless setup and it might seem like something that you really don't need but it really can help a lot with all these little adjustments and the automatic stuff it can make it a lot easier to set this up especially for a beginner ah but before you run out and buy the first WAP that you see you're going to need to uh plan consider the number of devices and not just people in your home and then think about what those devices use the Wi-Fi for so you might be thinking of things like your phones your television your refrigerator your toaster your Hatsune Miku hologram all these things need to be connected not just one or two devices you'll also need to consider the size of your property basically do you need a mesh one easy way to know if you need a mesh is if you don't have maximum signal strength everywhere or at least everywhere you want maximum signal strength if you go in the bunker and all the radio ends up being dead you're probably going to need another access point of that area now it is normal for your signal to vary somewhat from place to place it's just that you don't want the signal to drop out you always want it to be fast and reliable and if you want better signal in certain spots and I'm talking about five bars here five bars basically everywhere and I mean absolutely everywhere you may be at better off adding multiple access points instead of trying to get one super access point that's going to cover everything encryption is very important for wireless and there is no way you can go and run wireless that you don't need encryption even if you live in the middle of nowhere you never know who is sniffing your wireless signal you have to encrypt it's not something you can just ignore and finally if you're in an apartment building and they provide Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi with setup with your apartment generally that's not secure especially if everybody shares the same Wi-Fi password you'll want to see about getting a hardwired connection and running your own network in this setup each person could have their own SSID that means you're all going to connect to a differently named wireless network you can have your own password and in your Control software you can see who's using what on the wireless network this is great for multi-family households or if you're living with roommates you may also want a special wireless network for your Internet of Things devices you can't have Alexa spying on you all the time one thing you got to consider is your internal network is your internal Network fast enough to run the latest wireless access points if your internal network is not great or you're not sure stay tuned to this series because we're going to talk about that in another video once you've identified your requirements you're ready to start shopping we've talked about a lot of things that were super super Advanced even just a few years ago things like mesh controlled access multiple SS IDs but not all equipment sold today supports that kind of thing especially not stuff that comes from your ISP and a lot of consumer grade stuff won't have that either I'm gonna throw some buzzwords at you here and these are the things that you're going to look for when you're looking for your wireless equipment first one is Wi-Fi six now if you're watching this in the future that might be different Wireless standards change pretty quick but Wi-Fi 6 is kind of a marketing speak for one of the 802.11 standards and you want that minimum for this setup you also want to look for Poe or power ethernet that lets you run the power through the Ethernet cable so you don't have to have a power source near your access points which is very convenient and mesh mesh we've already talked about it lets you run multiple access points it deals with them automatically you definitely want that if you are going to run more than one access point or you might want to in the future if you don't run mesh it's gonna be hard to upgrade this later without replacing everything you kind of want to avoid the common stuff maybe the stuff you find at a big box store because that stuff might spy on you it might be garbage it's definitely going to be overpriced all this means you're probably going to want to go to a place like Best Buy as opposed to walmart.com and this might be sensitive but it's probably going to get us demonetized because of Google but don't buy Chinese equipment if you can avoid it if you don't know why you shouldn't buy Chinese equipment you should read more news or you should watch the level one news as you start to browse Best Buy and you look at the things that are available on the website there's some things to keep in mind the first is what is the wireless backhaul technology how is it actually going to do what it purports to do on this Best Buy website there's ero and Netgear and Google nest and some other ones and so like if we take a quick look at tp-link tp-link actually has some pretty honest uh probably the most honest write-up of the bunch as to what they do and it talks about mesh Wi-Fi and you know it kind of explains it in terms of their products but what it doesn't really cover is these these mesh Wi-Fi access points you know the one that's plugged into your router that one's wired in but what about these other ones are they just Standalone you give them power and then they'll connect to each other and that'll sort of work and you can kind of see that in this diagram here it's like here's your central unit that's connected there and then you've got these other you know quote-unquote Deco units but ultimately the back haul from one to the other is a wireless connection not a wired connection that's always inferior if you can possibly have a wired connection to each thing that's participating in your mesh Network or that's providing the mesh Network then that's going to be a much better experience because it doesn't have to rely on the backhaul uh there's also Wi-Fi six and so you can use the six gigahertz Spectrum in the latest versions of Wi-Fi 6 and Beyond so in addition to 2.4 and 5 gigahertz there's also six gigahertz the other thing you can look for in the specifications is how many square feet does this cover and all of them you know try to give you a thing to estimate that but it sounds like that you have these really enormous houses and then it'll work it's like oh up to 6 500 square feet for a 1500 square foot home check out the M5 for 1500 square foot home use The Deco X20 these are wild overestimates if you have a lot of devices you know there's four people living in your house and everybody's got three or four devices plus you've got iot things then that range really really comes down but the Google Nest uh the Google Nest at least the AC 2200 as we see there's a lot of downsides to it I mean one it's got a built-in microphone and a smart speaker and it's got all these you know Google features and it's like can I just have this without that but even if you don't care about that it does support the 802.11s mesh standard which is not well adopted and well compatible across across Brands but again this I don't want to get into that too much because this video is not meant to be that technical but it also tops out at 802.11 AC it doesn't even do 802.11 ax or it hasn't been updated to support 802.11ax this is still you know the same system from 2019 so it's basically obsolete in late 2022. and that this might sound like I'm saying don't buy these but really I'm just saying understand the limitations because there's other stuff on the market that'll do this and then when you move from the you know prosumer up to the more small business you you mostly get these features and if you dig into the Euro specifications you know their square footage rating is like these will cover this much square footage is actually lower but that's not actually a bad thing because remember the strategy here is kind of counterintuitive instead of having one access point that's going to cover an ungodly amount of square feet you're actually using multiple access points that have less power and less range to cover more devices that works out better for everybody it's like having somebody in another room yelling into a megaphone while you're trying to have a quiet conversation in another room you don't really want the the access point that's capable of the megaphone you know screaming whereas on a college campus maybe that would make sense from a wireless standpoint so as you browse through the offerings from your big box store they're not terrible but know what the limitations are of the offering and know if it's appropriate for your scenario because the costs can be attractive I mean a three pack for you know under two three hundred dollars this is a completely different price class than what you get from the small business thing and especially if you if you have a situation where you're wired at home or you can wire in the other access points and you find a system that will use that as the back hall as opposed to a wireless connection then hey you'll be a lot better off but you can look for the newer Wireless standards 802.11 a c a x especially if you can get ax because it's 20 22. everything should pretty much be ax at this point then you'll be a lot better off for you know the three to five year term I would go so far as to say that the stuff that you get at Best Buy is a is a two to three year solution and the commercial stuff is more like a five-year solution as well so maybe take that into consideration when you're doing the Apples to Apples cost comparison once you got your new equipment you want to get started right away plug everything up right but you actually have another step you're going to need to plan where you want to put your access point now if your access point is on your all-in-one it's right next to your computer or wherever the the internet comes into your home that's probably not the best place for it you want to do some exploring and find the best place for it now for some of our friends you'll need to consider what your building is made out of I mean brick and plaster and older construction materials if you have cast iron Plumbing all that is going to interfere with your wireless signal that may contribute to the need to have multiple access points and build a mesh modern Construction generally Wi-Fi signals go through the floor and ceiling pretty well you gotta also think three-dimensionally what's above us what's below us where's the access point in three-dimensional space from where you are it's a fun exercise think about those things and play in your network you'll also need a good Cat6 cable and not one from 1985. Cat6 from 1985. fake cables you may also be wondering how am I going to power this new wireless access point well with something like power over ethernet you don't have to worry about that at all this opens up a lot of options for location once you've finished your installation now you got to test everything you can't skip this step but the good news is that you've already got the tool for that I mean you guys have got phones right because that's what you're going to be using to test you can take your phone you can get an app you can go everywhere and your coverage area and see what the signal is and if you find any place that's dead you're going to need to move either add an access point or move some around so hopefully we've encouraged you to replace your wireless access point with something a little less terrible and not intimidated you too much or you know not just an access point but the access point part of your network which was shoved in something that didn't need to be shoved in and now we're going to introduce a new piece of equipment that you're going to have to get and if you got an all-in-one you probably never even thought about this piece before it's the switch not the Nintendo con right not that kind no we'll see you guys next time let us know what your questions are bye-bye see ya thank youhello welcome back to the level 099 videos this is our second video dealing with the wireless access point or as some people call it the WAP which you guys maybe have heard before with our other what what as we covered in the first video the wireless access point or WAP is one of the easiest to upgrade things that you can upgrade but why why upgrade why add multiple access points well if you're in your home or you have a dead zone or you need better coverage or you're in your underground bunker you may need wireless access points the people before you may have installed a faraday cage to prevent any kind of RF signals from entering and you have to add an access point inside the RF Cage if you really want some wireless access coverage with more wireless access points you also can browse a lot faster than you would normally so maybe you're Doom scrolling on Twitter at all hours or maybe you're binge watching videos from your favorite YouTubers at all hours or maybe you're reading some fan fiction late at night about the tragedy of the twin sons of Dior and Maya throws and the guilt he feels because they've been trapped in the forest and it's winter and they're going to die out there a good wireless access point is also going to help you with reliability modern mesh networks can automatically switch channels and control all of that maybe not such a big deal for those of us in rural neighborhoods but if you're in an apartment or the eventual pods that we're all going to be living in it's going to be critical you don't want to conflict with your neighbors Control software might be one of the more annoying Parts about a modern Wireless setup and it might seem like something that you really don't need but it really can help a lot with all these little adjustments and the automatic stuff it can make it a lot easier to set this up especially for a beginner ah but before you run out and buy the first WAP that you see you're going to need to uh plan consider the number of devices and not just people in your home and then think about what those devices use the Wi-Fi for so you might be thinking of things like your phones your television your refrigerator your toaster your Hatsune Miku hologram all these things need to be connected not just one or two devices you'll also need to consider the size of your property basically do you need a mesh one easy way to know if you need a mesh is if you don't have maximum signal strength everywhere or at least everywhere you want maximum signal strength if you go in the bunker and all the radio ends up being dead you're probably going to need another access point of that area now it is normal for your signal to vary somewhat from place to place it's just that you don't want the signal to drop out you always want it to be fast and reliable and if you want better signal in certain spots and I'm talking about five bars here five bars basically everywhere and I mean absolutely everywhere you may be at better off adding multiple access points instead of trying to get one super access point that's going to cover everything encryption is very important for wireless and there is no way you can go and run wireless that you don't need encryption even if you live in the middle of nowhere you never know who is sniffing your wireless signal you have to encrypt it's not something you can just ignore and finally if you're in an apartment building and they provide Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi with setup with your apartment generally that's not secure especially if everybody shares the same Wi-Fi password you'll want to see about getting a hardwired connection and running your own network in this setup each person could have their own SSID that means you're all going to connect to a differently named wireless network you can have your own password and in your Control software you can see who's using what on the wireless network this is great for multi-family households or if you're living with roommates you may also want a special wireless network for your Internet of Things devices you can't have Alexa spying on you all the time one thing you got to consider is your internal network is your internal Network fast enough to run the latest wireless access points if your internal network is not great or you're not sure stay tuned to this series because we're going to talk about that in another video once you've identified your requirements you're ready to start shopping we've talked about a lot of things that were super super Advanced even just a few years ago things like mesh controlled access multiple SS IDs but not all equipment sold today supports that kind of thing especially not stuff that comes from your ISP and a lot of consumer grade stuff won't have that either I'm gonna throw some buzzwords at you here and these are the things that you're going to look for when you're looking for your wireless equipment first one is Wi-Fi six now if you're watching this in the future that might be different Wireless standards change pretty quick but Wi-Fi 6 is kind of a marketing speak for one of the 802.11 standards and you want that minimum for this setup you also want to look for Poe or power ethernet that lets you run the power through the Ethernet cable so you don't have to have a power source near your access points which is very convenient and mesh mesh we've already talked about it lets you run multiple access points it deals with them automatically you definitely want that if you are going to run more than one access point or you might want to in the future if you don't run mesh it's gonna be hard to upgrade this later without replacing everything you kind of want to avoid the common stuff maybe the stuff you find at a big box store because that stuff might spy on you it might be garbage it's definitely going to be overpriced all this means you're probably going to want to go to a place like Best Buy as opposed to walmart.com and this might be sensitive but it's probably going to get us demonetized because of Google but don't buy Chinese equipment if you can avoid it if you don't know why you shouldn't buy Chinese equipment you should read more news or you should watch the level one news as you start to browse Best Buy and you look at the things that are available on the website there's some things to keep in mind the first is what is the wireless backhaul technology how is it actually going to do what it purports to do on this Best Buy website there's ero and Netgear and Google nest and some other ones and so like if we take a quick look at tp-link tp-link actually has some pretty honest uh probably the most honest write-up of the bunch as to what they do and it talks about mesh Wi-Fi and you know it kind of explains it in terms of their products but what it doesn't really cover is these these mesh Wi-Fi access points you know the one that's plugged into your router that one's wired in but what about these other ones are they just Standalone you give them power and then they'll connect to each other and that'll sort of work and you can kind of see that in this diagram here it's like here's your central unit that's connected there and then you've got these other you know quote-unquote Deco units but ultimately the back haul from one to the other is a wireless connection not a wired connection that's always inferior if you can possibly have a wired connection to each thing that's participating in your mesh Network or that's providing the mesh Network then that's going to be a much better experience because it doesn't have to rely on the backhaul uh there's also Wi-Fi six and so you can use the six gigahertz Spectrum in the latest versions of Wi-Fi 6 and Beyond so in addition to 2.4 and 5 gigahertz there's also six gigahertz the other thing you can look for in the specifications is how many square feet does this cover and all of them you know try to give you a thing to estimate that but it sounds like that you have these really enormous houses and then it'll work it's like oh up to 6 500 square feet for a 1500 square foot home check out the M5 for 1500 square foot home use The Deco X20 these are wild overestimates if you have a lot of devices you know there's four people living in your house and everybody's got three or four devices plus you've got iot things then that range really really comes down but the Google Nest uh the Google Nest at least the AC 2200 as we see there's a lot of downsides to it I mean one it's got a built-in microphone and a smart speaker and it's got all these you know Google features and it's like can I just have this without that but even if you don't care about that it does support the 802.11s mesh standard which is not well adopted and well compatible across across Brands but again this I don't want to get into that too much because this video is not meant to be that technical but it also tops out at 802.11 AC it doesn't even do 802.11 ax or it hasn't been updated to support 802.11ax this is still you know the same system from 2019 so it's basically obsolete in late 2022. and that this might sound like I'm saying don't buy these but really I'm just saying understand the limitations because there's other stuff on the market that'll do this and then when you move from the you know prosumer up to the more small business you you mostly get these features and if you dig into the Euro specifications you know their square footage rating is like these will cover this much square footage is actually lower but that's not actually a bad thing because remember the strategy here is kind of counterintuitive instead of having one access point that's going to cover an ungodly amount of square feet you're actually using multiple access points that have less power and less range to cover more devices that works out better for everybody it's like having somebody in another room yelling into a megaphone while you're trying to have a quiet conversation in another room you don't really want the the access point that's capable of the megaphone you know screaming whereas on a college campus maybe that would make sense from a wireless standpoint so as you browse through the offerings from your big box store they're not terrible but know what the limitations are of the offering and know if it's appropriate for your scenario because the costs can be attractive I mean a three pack for you know under two three hundred dollars this is a completely different price class than what you get from the small business thing and especially if you if you have a situation where you're wired at home or you can wire in the other access points and you find a system that will use that as the back hall as opposed to a wireless connection then hey you'll be a lot better off but you can look for the newer Wireless standards 802.11 a c a x especially if you can get ax because it's 20 22. everything should pretty much be ax at this point then you'll be a lot better off for you know the three to five year term I would go so far as to say that the stuff that you get at Best Buy is a is a two to three year solution and the commercial stuff is more like a five-year solution as well so maybe take that into consideration when you're doing the Apples to Apples cost comparison once you got your new equipment you want to get started right away plug everything up right but you actually have another step you're going to need to plan where you want to put your access point now if your access point is on your all-in-one it's right next to your computer or wherever the the internet comes into your home that's probably not the best place for it you want to do some exploring and find the best place for it now for some of our friends you'll need to consider what your building is made out of I mean brick and plaster and older construction materials if you have cast iron Plumbing all that is going to interfere with your wireless signal that may contribute to the need to have multiple access points and build a mesh modern Construction generally Wi-Fi signals go through the floor and ceiling pretty well you gotta also think three-dimensionally what's above us what's below us where's the access point in three-dimensional space from where you are it's a fun exercise think about those things and play in your network you'll also need a good Cat6 cable and not one from 1985. Cat6 from 1985. fake cables you may also be wondering how am I going to power this new wireless access point well with something like power over ethernet you don't have to worry about that at all this opens up a lot of options for location once you've finished your installation now you got to test everything you can't skip this step but the good news is that you've already got the tool for that I mean you guys have got phones right because that's what you're going to be using to test you can take your phone you can get an app you can go everywhere and your coverage area and see what the signal is and if you find any place that's dead you're going to need to move either add an access point or move some around so hopefully we've encouraged you to replace your wireless access point with something a little less terrible and not intimidated you too much or you know not just an access point but the access point part of your network which was shoved in something that didn't need to be shoved in and now we're going to introduce a new piece of equipment that you're going to have to get and if you got an all-in-one you probably never even thought about this piece before it's the switch not the Nintendo con right not that kind no we'll see you guys next time let us know what your questions are bye-bye see ya thank you\n"