Okay… I am asking for a setup recommendation but I think I have a bit of a unique situation. I owned occupy a top/bottom duplex. Each floor is about 900 sqft. I’ve got gigabit or fiber coming into the basement. The floors are hardwood with carpet and the walls are plaster. Fishing new wires would be difficult but I don’t believe impossible.
Currently I live on the first floor and a tenant on the second. When he moves out I am going to turn that unit into a mid-term rental (think traveling nurses) so I will need to provide internet but will of course want it “separate”.
I don’t really want an over the top professional set up. I’d love to get as close to 1gbps as possible on both floors. Please explain like I’m 14 and provide models or links. I’m guessing APs are going to be the way to go but would love to hear some different thoughts. TIA
Start from scratch and do it right the first time. Feed enters home in Basement/Utilities/Comms area. In that area is the main switch where all runs terminate to with at bare minimum 2 jacks at each location but 3 is preferred. 2 allow a router to be placed anywhere, 1 for WAN and 1 for Lan back to switch then a 3rd for an additional device at that location direct to main switch. Extra runs are easy if you’re already there pulling wires.
Plan runs for at least 2 locations on opposite sides of the rooms for best layout options. So cables don’t have to span doorways windows etc.
Then when cabling is in place a managed switch and router VLANS can be used to separate. Or a 2nd physical switch for the tenant and a VLANS capable router with a port separated to the tenant switch. Then in the tenant space they have the option to plug a router in or you can provide an AP for Wi-Fi. But that will all give you maximum stability, capacity and security.
A vlan router can be as simple as a Thin Client, miniPC or open router appliance with multi port NIC added as needed running OpnSense OpenWRT etc. Those units can be used for anywhere between $25-150 normally and software is free NIC’s are cheap