squazee 0 Report post Posted November 30, 2018 (edited) I am buying a resale flat and have some questions about network coverage, hope those more knowledgeable can help out. Unit is about 15 years old, so it is like the newer blocks which are taller, more cramped and with more units (hence more wifi interference problems). I uploaded the floorplan of a similar unit below. Currently, the Opennet Termination Point is near the red dot. I would like to have both wifi coverage as well as wired access in all bedrooms + living room. For wifi access, I would prefer to have one router only without any mesh/bridge/repeaters for ease of troubleshooting. Based on the floorplan, i would think that the best location for the router is where the green dot is, to provide coverage to the whole house (there might be weaker signal in kitchen because of the stupid bomb shelter but that I can live with). I can mount the router high up on the wall, or even just stick it to the exposed aircon trunking which will need to run through the hallway. I have also identified four spots for wired access, in blue dots. However, I am not sure how to run all the cabling to my desired location, i hope you guys can help me with these questions: 1) Is it possible to place the router in the green area when the termination point is in the red area? I know i would probably need to get an electrician to open up electrical sockets near the green area. I also need to run concealed trunking from the red to green area. Either I place the ONT at the red area, then run a cat5e/cat6 cable to the green area, or i run a concealed fiber line from red to green, then put ONT + router in the green area. Leaning towards the second option so that all equipment is in the same area. Any other pros and cons for both options? Is running fiber line more expensive than running cat5e/cat6 line? 2) Once the router is in place at the green area, i would need to run cat5e/6 cables from the green area to the blue areas where I want LAN points right? Can these cables be concealed in the wall when doing reno, or must they be run outside the wall on a raceway? Any disadvantage to concealed cable besides cost? Can we choose to run the network cables with the electrical cables to save hacking/plastering cost during reno? If the blue areas are structural beams (shaded black), means cannot run concealed cabling? Appreciate any advice, thanks! Edited November 30, 2018 by squazee Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
snoozee 97 Report post Posted November 30, 2018 technically you are not allowed to do concealed wiring yourself by hacking the walls. unless you are doing a false ceiling or L-box where the wiring is concealed inside than is ok. the green dot location is good for the router. but do note that you will need to provide a power point for the router at that location as well unless you are getting a wireless access point which can run on POE which will mean you will need to buy a POE switch. if you want the ONT to be at the same location, then another power point there as well. if your switch for the wired points is going to be there, means another power socket as well. running Cat6 cable should be cheaper than fiber optics. it is not recommended to run network cable together with power cables due to possible electrical interference from the power cables to the network cables. but if your cat6 cables have shielding in them, then it should be ok. HDB floor plan indicates structural beams and columns. beams will only be at the ceiling area and anything below the beam will just be just normal walls. from your floor plan, can't really confirm if they are just beams or columns. either way, you can't hack the beams and columns. my suggestion is for you to just keep the ONT with the fiber termination point and have all the Cat6 cables run to that location. if you want, run another set of power point and Cat6 cable to the green dot location for your wireless router/AP. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
