Posted: 4/23/2026 9:44:14 PM EDT
[Last Edit: WrightP][Edited]
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My ISP is AT&T Fiber. I’m stuck with their gateway unless I want to go down the path of spoofing everything. I think I’ll keep it and just put it in pass through mode. My house is single story with a very large middle room that’s probably 60 feel long and has brick wall on each end. The fiber comes into the home on one side and there is no attic space to connect Ethernet from one side to the other. I’m running an Orbi mesh system and it’s been ok but I basically have them setup in AP mode only because I had a lot of double NAT issues. I do not like the ATT router because I have to manually setup port forwarding and other limitations. I do have a Cat 6e run from my office to the ATT router and another into the big room in the middle of the house where an Orbi AP is that connects to another AP on the other end of the house. I’d like to go with a Ubiquiti system or similar. I am planning on using a micro PC and dabbling with a home lap. I was 10GBe between my desktop and the home lap as I will have it setup as a NAS. I assume I need Cloud gateway of some sort and an AP and then another AP that can connect via mesh. I will also want a 10GBe switch in the middle just to connect my desktop and the homelap and I will feed it with a 1GB from the Ubiquiti unit for Internet connections. The AP’s will connect to a cloud gateway or whatever main unit I have. Does anyone have any recommendations? I’m obviously going to get 10GBe NICs in each computer. Can all Ubiquiti AP’s connect to each other like a mesh system? |
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Can your NAS even handle 10gb worth of data transfer? Would 2.5 gig make more sense? It's a lot cheaper while still being faster. I would not run Unifi AP's using mesh. They support it but it's not what they are designed around. If you can they need to be wired in. If you haven't yet I would watch a lot of videos on Unifi setup, and the more recent the better. The security settings have changed in the last year so if you watch something even 2 years old it's probably out of date. The main thing I'd tell people about Unifi is they are consumer routers that blast out a super strong signal from one spot. I have a 3 bedroom house with two XGS AP's and I could use another one inside + an outdoor one in the garage. Besides that if you want to use 6ghz you need more AP's but tune the power/transmit settings especially if you have a lot of dense materials in your house. Part of the issue in my house is the back 1/3rd is an addition with a stone wall that was made into an interior wall. Wifi does not go through glass or dense material like rock/brick very well. If you don't want a rackmount router I would get the UCG fiber. Its not that much more than the smaller ones but the ports on the back are much better. 2 SFP+, 10gig ethernet, and 3 2.5 gig ports. It also is MUCH better about handling things like IDS/IPS. If you are going to go through the trouble and expense of setting this all up I absolutely would do the SFP module clone to get rid of your ATT ONT/router. You cannot put ATT routers in true pass through mode. At some point you will encounter issues because of the ATT router being in the middle with NAT or VPN's not working. |
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@rebel31 My current NAS does not have 10gb but my plan is for a new one that does. 2.5 is definitely more feasible. I can hardwire one AP but due to zero attic space and 18 foot ceiling's there is no way to get a wire to the far side of the house unless I burried it around the house and brought it up from the other side and I don't plan to do that. The second AP on the far side would just be for one TV and two phones but I assume the MESH backhaul has other issues. I realize it will cut down on the bandwidth. There is a lot of brick in my house so I've already had issues getting the wireless spread around. I will absolutely look at the SFP module clone. Is there anything else to look at? Any other brands? I only have 500/500 right now from my ISP but will likely take that up to 1000/1000 or 2000/2000. The most I pull is when I'm connected to an FTP server and on the other end is limits to 32MB/sec which is plenty fast. |
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Originally Posted By WrightP: My ISP is AT&T Fiber. I'm stuck with their gateway unless I want to go down the path of spoofing everything. I think I'll keep it and just put it in pass through mode. My house is single story with a very large middle room that's probably 60 feel long and has brick wall on each end. The fiber comes into the home on one side and there is no attic space to connect Ethernet from one side to the other. I'm running an Orbi mesh system and it's been ok but I basically have them setup in AP mode only because I had a lot of double NAT issues. I do not like the ATT router because I have to manually setup port forwarding and other limitations. I do have a Cat 6e run from my office to the ATT router and another into the big room in the middle of the house where an Orbi AP is that connects to another AP on the other end of the house. I'd like to go with a Ubiquiti system or similar. I am planning on using a micro PC and dabbling with a home lap. I was 10GBe between my desktop and the home lap as I will have it setup as a NAS. I assume I need Cloud gateway of some sort and an AP and then another AP that can connect via mesh. I will also want a 10GBe switch in the middle just to connect my desktop and the homelap and I will feed it with a 1GB from the Ubiquiti unit for Internet connections. The AP's will connect to a cloud gateway or whatever main unit I have. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm obviously going to get 10GBe NICs in each computer. Can all Ubiquiti AP's connect to each other like a mesh system? Edited to add. I have one AP out in my shop that is using a wireless uplink. Not worth it to try to run fiber or copper out to the shop. It's quite a bit slower but it works. I've got a switch and AP in the shop. AP connects via wireless uplink and is powered by the switch. The switch gives me wired network capability in the shop. |
You must play the game. You can't win. You can't break even. You can't quit the game.
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Originally Posted By WrightP: @rebel31 My current NAS does not have 10gb but my plan is for a new one that does. 2.5 is definitely more feasible. I can hardwire one AP but due to zero attic space and 18 foot ceiling's there is no way to get a wire to the far side of the house unless I burried it around the house and brought it up from the other side and I don't plan to do that. The second AP on the far side would just be for one TV and two phones but I assume the MESH backhaul has other issues. I realize it will cut down on the bandwidth. There is a lot of brick in my house so I've already had issues getting the wireless spread around. I will absolutely look at the SFP module clone. Is there anything else to look at? Any other brands? I only have 500/500 right now from my ISP but will likely take that up to 1000/1000 or 2000/2000. The most I pull is when I'm connected to an FTP server and on the other end is limits to 32MB/sec which is plenty fast. I meant to say in my 1st reply that Unifi AP's ARE NOT like consumer AP's that blast a super strong signal. I've seen quite a few people that go from something like an ASUS router/AP to Unifi and are disappointed in the coverage but you have to remember wifi is a 2 way protocol. That said if you are going to run them in mesh I would probably look at something else. Unifi AP's do not run with a dedicated back haul for mesh like your Orbi system does. The performance would likely be a downgrade to what you have now. I also seem to see a lot of people with Unifi networks struggle with having a ton of consumer IoT devices. A lot of those devices have the cheapest janky wifi connectivity out there and Unifi doesn't always play nice with them. Where consumer AP's start to differentiate from prosumer or SMB type equipment is how many clients they can handle. One Unifi AP can connect to ~300-500 client devices. A typical consumer AP will start to struggle when you hit ~30-50 client devices. You also get things like guest network controls and being able to setup a login page. The controller is totally different. Unifi implemented zone based firewall rules which you really have to know how to use correctly, and you have to know what your goal with the network is like VLAN's where some get to the internet and some don't. Can one VLAN talk to another VLAN or is it isolated? |
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I want to see this 60' long room. I'd find a way to run a dedicated cat 6e to the other side and add a POE AP on the other side. There are other options other than going through the attic. Depending on the flooring/base board set up. you might be able to run a flat cable? I did this in a previous house that had carpet. You can get the flat ethernet cables under the baseboard/trim when there is carpet. If it's tile/wood, it makes it harder, but doable. Going with 10Gbe sounds awesome, but can you actually take advantage of it? If your NAS is using mechanical drives, you're not going to see the benefit as mechanical drives basically top out with 2.5Gbe. If it's all flash based, then you will see the benefit. |
| No attic or crawlspace at all? Shit just put those wire hiders on the baseboard and paint to hide or tuck under if you have carpet. Wired backhaul will be so much better than meshed. Interested in the layout as well. |
The plane flew, admit you're wrong and get over it.
Where the fiber comes in: Main room:    In the main room I was able to run a cable to here:  And this is Mesh AP1 in the sketch below. You can see there is no attic space:  House Sketch:  I walked it off and it's about 22 paces from one end of this room to the other which I equate to about 60 feet. |
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Originally Posted By giantpune: When I was a poor renter who couldn't poke holes in walls, I ran cat6 through the house. Around the baseboards. Over the door frames in the hall just held up with thumbtacks. My Wife lets me get away with a lot of shit but this is probably where she would draw the line. |
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Originally Posted By funnelcake: Long as you got a tri or quad-band mesh, should be fine. Went with this and it's wifi 7 with 2.5Gb ethernet ports. I'm only on 500/500 but will probably go up to 1000/1000 at some point.  
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