The other home renovation item to complete earlier this week was installation of our Internet service. I’ve stayed with Cable Internet for more than a decade now, but in our new home transited to Fiber broadband. There’s been an interesting ‘killer’ offer around our island that’s billed itself as the world’s fastest home broadband at 1 Gbps. Not that I’d know what to do with that kind of bandwidth since we don’t watch streaming Internet TV nor do I have any ambition to download the (whole) Internet, but it was a steal for its relatively low asking price. The service provider’s pricing plans are identical in terms of theoretical maximum throughput, but differ in its support and additional features.
What were the harder decisions to make though are in how to ensure that we have Internet access to most if not all parts of our home. I first set up my home wireless network at the turn of the century – early adopter etc. – and then achieved my lifelong dream of surfing while in the toilet LOL, but the needs for such access via Wifi has diminished now that mobile devices are routinely capable of access via mobile data networks. Outside that; my requirements are pretty much the same as my current home:
Main Internet access ‘hubs’ to be in the workroom followed by the living hall’s TV console deck (in case we ever desire Internet TV)
Wifi access in the bedrooms and front balcony, followed by the rest of the house
The problem with consumer level routers though is that they typically work optimally when not having to get round obstacles like walls and other electrical appliances. Our current home has a gazillion things that can progressively weaken the Wifi signals, and that includes full-height wall cabinets, concrete walls, a 3 feet fish-tank, and lots and lots of electrical devices all generating EM waves of their own. We did get by though using a combination of wifi and also Powerline Internet – two technologies on top of wired Internet that I’ll be retaining for our new Minton home.
So, this is what I’m doing for our new home Internet setup:
Wired Cat6 LAN ports in the living hall and both sides of our workroom. The latter required additional cables to be laid by our electrician – he buried these inside our existing walls, or hid them away in our false ceilings.
Wifi router 1 in the living room.
Powerline Internet connecting from workroom into the Master Bedroom
Wifi router 2 in the Master Bedroom
The device setup was actually quite easy, since new homes in Singapore are already have the Opennet Box (or Termination Point) already installed. Ours is located in the junction box just aft the kitchen:
From here, the Internet Service provider is to supply the ONT which functions like the cable modem I’ve been using, and connect it to the Opennet Box. Funnily, the installation technician was uncertain about the process of setting up the home fiber broadband – he confessed that this was his first time installing it even – and I ended up advising him on what to do, what equipment he needed, and what equipment came with the router that I’d chosen. Not impressed. But oh well; it was working by the time he (we) were done, so I didn’t care either way.
As part of the new fiber broadband service, I was given the choice of three routers – the normal one, the one that is a bit more featured, and a third one that has everything and the kitchen sink – the Asus AC68U. The latter’s price difference within the package wasn’t that much compared to the others, it was well-speced and reviewed, and even regarded by one site reviewer as ‘overkill for some’, and another said “too many features for most users”. I’m sure that wasn’t a reference to users like myself, especially since I rely so much on Wifi at home, so easy choice there. This fellow is probably going into the workroom and I’ll see if I can hook it up to our printer for wireless printer later too.
So, Internet services are up in our Minton home ahead of our big move – all is well in the world!
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