One of the projects I got completed over the Thanksgiving weekend was installing outside, wireless mesh router. If you might recall, adding this unit was an attempt to add internet to our Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) also known as ‘the apartment’. The theory was that part of our mesh included the ADU and so I needed to have a strong signal between the two buildings.

The lowest box you see on the wall I actually put in in 2017. I have stub outs for conduit so that I could trench to the ADU. I was waiting for better weather (and time, money and desire). Believe it or not, everything is terminated in the box already as well.

Part of my testing included placement and power of the wireless router. I started it much closer to the ADU but then I realized that I have this unused hole in the wall. It would be nice if I could utilize it for part of it’s purpose. Plugging the router into this box put it quite a ways away from electrical source outside. I read that this particular router could be powered using Power over Ethernet (PoE). The DC power runs from the switch over the ethernet cable to the device. That is pretty cool.

I thought that I would also pass this on. I run cable every time I have the option to do so. The majority of my network is Category 5e. Since Category 6 has become the predominant standard, I have switched to running Category 6 wiring when I do new runs. I was under the belief that that Cat 5e was only rated for 100Mb speed but that is actually not true. Cat 5e supports gigabit speed up to 45m runs.

I don’t know if I will ever go back to Category 5e, but it is good information to know. I don’t like putting out temporary or obsolete effort. But, I still find Cat 5e cable significantly cheaper and easier to find. Also, I find Category 3 cable almost impossible to find. You can use either 3, 5 or 6 if you are terminating phone extensions but why pay the premium? And sometimes, I use what I have on hand.

I used to have a big contractor box of Category 5e. I would pull two runs whenever I had to pull one. That gave me the flexibility to have two drops or a even backup capability. I probably won’t ever do that now that those boxes of Category 6 are $250. But, believe you me if I ever do pull wire to the ADU, it will be two Category 6 cable because I want it to be the only time I do it.

Before I leave this topic today, I want to go back to PoE. You need to look at your devices power requirements before selecting a switch. My mesh router requires 17W. The switch I picked provides 65W power. But, you have to divide the total output by the port number. The switch specs say that each port can provide up to 18W of power with a 65W maximum. This means that the switch I picked worked with the specs required.

I did make one mistake. I was looking at price so the switch I purchased is only a 10/100 switch. I cant take advantage of that Cat 6 wire that I ran. This brings me to the last fact in today’s story. At least with my mesh router system, the devices communicate wirelessly (this is what works for me in the first place). They do have ethernet ports on them and the purpose of those ports is for backhaul.

What this means is that those devices are not on an island. They still need to see signal of the master router and the stronger the better. But, if you have a strong connection, you can increase your wireless experience by having a wired backhaul. Users are not limited to hopping router to router for internet but can go straight to the source via the cable. This means that the range isn’t extended but the reliability and bandwidth is.

End Your Programming Routine: I have had this one banked for a while now. As life kept pushing us around, I kept pushing this back because I knew it was something I could do without a lot of effort. It was kind of like my testing of this outdoor unit. I just needed to plug things in and check the signal but other, more important things came up. The testing took about a month to complete, not because it was hard or time consuming, I just needed to make it a priority.