[jrref]

Several Villagers have reached out to me asking how to get good Internet coverage in a large home here in the Villages.

For a Villa up to the size of most Designer homes, most current WiFi devices, especially one of the new WiFi 7 devices should give you adequate coverage throughout your home If installed correctly. That means installing the main WiFi device as high as possible and in a location as central in your home as possible to limit the number of obstructions as possible. In most cases extender devices are not necessary.

If you have one of the larger Designer or Premier homes then a single WiFi device generally will not surfice. In these cases, an Access Point or Mesh WiFi system will be necessary. Access Point systems such as from Ubiquiti for example can be expensive because they require hard wired connections in your home where you place the devices and you need someone with the technical knowledge to install, configure and maintain the system. For a DIYer with some technical knowledge, these systems can be fun to deploy and will work well. For the rest who have limited technical knowledge, WiFi Mesh systems such as Amazon EERO, Netgear Orbi and TP-Link Deco systems can be a solution since you only need one wired connection to the main router then the rest of the equipment is connected wirelessly.

All this said, what do Internet providers here in the Villages provide?

Spectrum and Xfinity both have new WiFi7 devices that they call "advanced networking". They are single unit systems that have complex antenna arrays to maximize coverage. This advanced networking is an additional cost unless you subscribe to the highest package. They seem to work very well.

Verizon and T-Mobile fixed wireless also provide single unit WiFi solutions. These work incredibly well but are still limited to a single device.

Quantum Fiber provides a Mesh WiFi system consisting of a main and extender devices but they only give you one extender now for free. Additional extenders have an added cost.

Centric Fiber provices a single WiFi device solution and extenders are available for an additional cost.

Given all this information, when you are considering an Internet provider that's available in your Village, make sure you think about the WiFi and or wired distribution of the internet service you are getting in your home because this will make the difference of you being satisified with the service or not.

My opinion on the topic is if you can use the equipment from the Internet provider then go with that. If you can't because you have a large home, then consider implementing you own WiFi system. Be aware, if you want to use your own WiFi system, most if not all internet providers will install the fiber termination or modem then it will be your responsibility to connect it to your equipment and make sure it works. Recently, I helped a Villager with a large Premier home with a professionally installed WiFi system connect to Quantum Fiber. I needed to do some pre-wiring in order for the Quantum Tech to connect the fiber service to the customer's system.

There are some companies such as Galaxy Home Solutions and some other small tech companies that can help install a professional WiFi system in your home with all the wiring if needed but be prepared for a one time fairly large expense. I'm also available to help to enable connecting to an existing system, help with deploying a Mesh WiFi system or for helping anyone looking to deploy a system themselves.

I hope this information helps when considering an Internet provider and not forgetting about your home WiFi set-up to get good coverage in your home for a "once and done" experience.

[JRcorvette]

Owning your own Mesh Router is always the best way to go. We can receive internet anywhere in the house or out in our yard. Those all in one modems are never as good.

[thelegges]

What is your definition of large home? Premiers start around 2300sf the largest we looked at was 4700sf. So where is the cut point

[Bill14564]

Router placement makes a big difference. The router has no idea how large the home is and is not impressed by large numbers. The router’s transmitter reaches a certain distance regardless of the size of the home.

My router is in a corner of my 2000sqft home. I get good reception (no speed loss) everywhere in my home including the far corner of my garage. If my home was 500sqft larger I would move my router towards the center of my home and expect the same good speeds.

If a central location is not possible then a mesh can help. If a wired connection away from the router is necessary then a mesh can help. If the property is large and there is a desire to cover the entire area the a mesh can help. If cool new technology is important then a mesh can help.

But there are trade offs . A mesh does require another piece of equipment, makes for another point of failure, requires some configuration, and will eventually require an upgrade. Get one because you need one or because you want one but not because the kid at Best Buy wants to sell you one.

[jrref]

Generally, most current WiFi 6 and 7 router/WiFi devices will cover 2000 sqft. easily as long as there are a minimal amount of obstructions that the WiFi signal has to pass through. When I talk about obstructions I mean, walls, doors, glass sliders, appliances such as refrigerators or laundry, etc.. that block and or reflect the signal. Also, if you have a stick built home vs a block or cement home, the WiFi signal will travel further because the building materials don't block as much of the WiFi signal as compared with other building materials. Genereally, the "ideal" spot for your main WiFi device is on the top of your kitchen cabinets since this is the highest and most central location of most homes here in the Villages and you will get the largest coverage when it's placed in this location. Again, there are exceptions.

Many feel a home that's 3,000 sqft and larger to be considered "large" but you need to look at your WiFi device's specifications to see what it's coverage is rated at. With current router technology they are all using newer antenna and beam-forming technology many also include power amplifiers that will adjust for the best coverage. Some like the Orbi and TP-link also have separate radio's dedicated to a wireless backhaul system so the mesh works optimally and doesn't interfere with the main WiFi connections. The more capable the WiFi device the more expensive it will be. Fortunately, WiFi standards are changing very slowly with WiFi 7 just now almost finalized. It will probably be several years until WiFi 8 is available and right now it's designed for more reliability and the speed throughput should be the same. The point is if you are going to invest in a new WiFi mesh system, purchasing a more expensive system will probably last you many years without any need to upgrade. At least that's what we expect according to all the news reports on the subject.

[CarlR33]

I can get internet coverage anywhere there is a live plug, LOL, for WiFi coverage a mesh system is helpful.

[bobeaston]

Our 2200 SqFt "Lantana" home had barely adequate coverage with the router Spectrum was including 2-3 years ago. Finding just the right spot for optimum coverage wasn't very successful. Perhaps a tall bookshelf in the middle of the great room, where we didn't want one would have worked.

Our solution was a pair of Orbi mesh routers. Price today is about $250, and they can be easily installed by anyone who usually follows DIY instructions. For most of us, no need to hire an installer. Now, we have full coverage inside and outside to the far corners of our lot.

BTW, installation instructions for any router you purchase can be found online. Check them out to decide if you need help installing.

[rsmurano]

Some clarification. No single router will cover a home in the villages adequately unless it’s a studio with no walls. A mesh network is not a mesh network unless you are using more than 1 mesh router. Never use a WiFi 6 mesh router, that’s old technology, the minimum mesh router to buy is the WiFi 6e or above, these provide a proprietary backhaul connection between routers with speeds up to 2.5Gbps. Also, galaxy, the geek squad, xfinity, spectrum, quantum, or most of these companies don’t know how to install a WiFi network inside your house. There solution is 1 router and maybe a couple repeaters which you shouldn’t use.

For good WiFi coverage in a home, here are some examples: my 2400 sq ft home I use 4 6e mesh routers, with 2 of them wired and 2 using the proprietary 6e backhaul connection. My whole house is automated so I need coverage to my outside WiFi grill and all the devices in my garage. I can go into any room and get 800Mb WiFi speed and in each room with a router, I also have a 5 port switch connected to it so I hook up every tv/dvd/Apple TV/roku device to this switch which allows these devices to think they have wired connections instead of the 2.4ghz WiFi, which the wired connection gives you much faster speeds.

In my prior house of 5500sg ft, I also used 5 routers but every room had cat6 cable and I had a 16 port switch in the wiring closet. So every computer had 1Gb speed and the routers were all wired so I had the max WiFi speed.

For a friends house here, we used 5 6e mesh routers, all using the proprietary backhaul connection between routers and he gets good coverage everywhere.

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by rsmurano

Some clarification. No single router will cover a home in the villages adequately unless it’s a studio with no walls.

Never say never...............I have a single router which covers the house, lanai, garage and outside cameras. Just a beefed-up router from Best Buy. No issues.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by rsmurano

Some clarification. No single router will cover a home in the villages adequately unless it’s a studio with no walls.

Originally Posted by dewilson58

Never say never...............I have a single router which covers the house, lanai, garage and outside cameras. Just a beefed-up router from Best Buy. No issues.

And I have measured my speeds standing next to my single router from T-Mobile and at the far corners of my house, including the far corner of my garage, with no loss of speed.

[Ptmcbriz]

Our Spectrum (latest and strongest router) covers our 2450 square feet. Although it didn’t seem like we needed it, we did have Spectrum put an extender out on the lanai so we didn’t have any issues in the pool cage. We have 30 smart devices in the house, garage, and lanai hooked into the WiFi and never seem to have any issues with signal.

[asianthree]

Spectrum free router in our small Premiere of 2959sf climate control, works everywhere inside the home, plus garage and the lanai, with zero problems.

Wifi coverage with no problems at the outskirts of the pool, 35’ from the lanai, which is 16’ from house sliders. We can stream rocket launches in our front yard, 30’ from the garage.

Originally we thought we would need extenders, but so far no reason to add.

We have 3 TVs, one laptop, 3 iPads, printer, 3 phones, 2 robots, thermostats, Pool Equipment, 7 wifi appliances, 8 cameras, 8 Alexa’s. Streaming hasn’t been an issue even when we have company with 6 more devices.

[Romad]

The Orbi mesh routers connected to a Quantum modem work great, especially the 970. They're not cheap, but they work quite well.

[jrref]

Originally Posted by Romad

The Orbi mesh routers connected to a Quantum modem work great, especially the 970. They're not cheap, but they work quite well.

That's what I have in my home, 2600 sqft. If you have the money, Netgear Orbi is probably one of the best DIY "mesh" systems you can buy.
Why?

1) It has a separate wireless backhaul that in my home gives me near wired speeds after testing with OpenSpeedTest on a server in my house. This means no need to run more ethernet cables to rooms where you don't have them and it theoretically it has 10GB throughput so it will be current for many years.
2) Optionally, if you purchase the yearly maintenance coverage which isn't expensive, they include anti-virus software for the router and your computers using Bitdefender. This also covers unlimited tech support. Again, this is optional since most have their favorite security software.
3) So far, due to a mistake I made, their tech support has been very good and I've never had any issues with the system. Once set up, it just works.

If you don't want to spend the money on the 970, you can get the 770 system at a significantly cheaper price and it will work fine as well.

[MandoMan]

Originally Posted by jrref

Several Villagers have reached out to me asking how to get good Internet coverage in a large home here in the Villages.

For a Villa up to the size of most Designer homes, most current WiFi devices, especially one of the new WiFi 7 devices should give you adequate coverage throughout your home If installed correctly. That means installing the main WiFi device as high as possible and in a location as central in your home as possible to limit the number of obstructions as possible. In most cases extender devices are not necessary.

If you have one of the larger Designer or Premier homes then a single WiFi device generally will not surfice. In these cases, an Access Point or Mesh WiFi system will be necessary. Access Point systems such as from Ubiquiti for example can be expensive because they require hard wired connections in your home where you place the devices and you need someone with the technical knowledge to install, configure and maintain the system. For a DIYer with some technical knowledge, these systems can be fun to deploy and will work well. For the rest who have limited technical knowledge, WiFi Mesh systems such as Amazon EERO, Netgear Orbi and TP-Link Deco systems can be a solution since you only need one wired connection to the main router then the rest of the equipment is connected wirelessly.

All this said, what do Internet providers here in the Villages provide?

Spectrum and Xfinity both have new WiFi7 devices that they call "advanced networking". They are single unit systems that have complex antenna arrays to maximize coverage. This advanced networking is an additional cost unless you subscribe to the highest package. They seem to work very well.

Verizon and T-Mobile fixed wireless also provide single unit WiFi solutions. These work incredibly well but are still limited to a single device.

Quantum Fiber provides a Mesh WiFi system consisting of a main and extender devices but they only give you one extender now for free. Additional extenders have an added cost.

Centric Fiber provices a single WiFi device solution and extenders are available for an additional cost.

Given all this information, when you are considering an Internet provider that's available in your Village, make sure you think about the WiFi and or wired distribution of the internet service you are getting in your home because this will make the difference of you being satisified with the service or not.

My opinion on the topic is if you can use the equipment from the Internet provider then go with that. If you can't because you have a large home, then consider implementing you own WiFi system. Be aware, if you want to use your own WiFi system, most if not all internet providers will install the fiber termination or modem then it will be your responsibility to connect it to your equipment and make sure it works. Recently, I helped a Villager with a large Premier home with a professionally installed WiFi system connect to Quantum Fiber. I needed to do some pre-wiring in order for the Quantum Tech to connect the fiber service to the customer's system.

There are some companies such as Galaxy Home Solutions and some other small tech companies that can help install a professional WiFi system in your home with all the wiring if needed but be prepared for a one time fairly large expense. I'm also available to help to enable connecting to an existing system, help with deploying a Mesh WiFi system or for helping anyone looking to deploy a system themselves.

I hope this information helps when considering an Internet provider and not forgetting about your home WiFi set-up to get good coverage in your home for a "once and done" experience.

Good answer. Thanks. When I moved here, I got Verizon WiFi with a lot of extra bandwidth. I had a 1600 square foot house. I put the router 7’ in the air in the living room just outside the master bedroom door. However, I did a lot of work in my office (the guest room), and I didn’t get good reception there. It seems the wifi signals had a hard time passing through several walls. I bought a coverage extender that simply plugged into an outlet at the other side of the living room near the door to the guest room, and that solved the problem.