From Wires to Wi-Fi: How is Your Network Designed?

Re:Zero − Starting WiFi Life in My First House

When I was studying away from home, I had to endure many years of inconvenient internet while renting. Sometimes, the telephone jacks were covered by renovations, making VDSL unusable. Other times, PON wasn't available in the area, so I had to use Cable or ADSL. Even my neighbor's wireless signal was stronger than my own due to interference.

Before moving in my first house, I confirmed with the ISP that PON could be installed in the area. The hardworking technician pulled the fiber from the street to my house, making me the first PON user in the community.

After previous bad experiences, I decided to install the modem in the central area (The orange one: CHT), between the 2nd and 3rd floors, from where the network radiates to all parts of the house.

Modern houses are well thought out, with Cat.6 cables throughout and two network jacks in each room, one for daily use and another for direct connection to the TV or Multimedia on Demand, which saves a lot of trouble.

However, with eight network jacks in four rooms on the 3rd and 4th floors, the PON Modem's ports weren't enough, so I had to get a switch.

Following Zyxel's recommendations, I chose the GS1915-8EP switch, which has 8 PoE ports.

For the AP, I selected the affordable and effective NWA50AX. Thanks to Black Friday deals, credit card rewards, I got several units at a great price, ensuring coverage on every floor.

For the outdoor area on the 1st floor, I used the waterproof NWA55AXE, allowing me to work and surf the internet while enjoying the view outside.

According to FCC data and some YouTuber tests, the NWA55AXE has the best long-distance performance among budget Thin APs, meaning I only need to place the AP at the center of each floor for decent performance in the farthest areas. For the 1st-floor outdoor leisure area, I chose the NWA55AXE, a more powerful and waterproof version of the NWA50AX.

[Setup]
Modem: DASAN H660WM
Switch: GS1915-8EP
APs: 3x NWA50AX
1x NWA55AXE

Thanks to Nebula's simplicity and ease of use, adding three machines to the network was quick with the QR code in the packaging.

Smart homes are trendy, so I wanted WiFi coverage in every corner to use voice commands.

Each room has smart bulbs, appliances, air conditioning, Google Nest speakers, and temperature and humidity sensors. For monitoring home electricity usage, I installed a monitor in the distribution box for real-time viewing.

Finally, I integrated all the 35 appliances with Google Home.

Initially, I considered using Mesh, but as IoT devices increased, and given the affordability of NWA50AX, I opted for a complete Zyxel solution.

After using more than one year, I'm very satisfied with the setup. 😍

Recently, I discovered the NWA50AX Pro, which offers stronger signals, 3x3 antennas, supports 5GHz 160MHz bandwidth, and even has upgraded 2.5Gbps network jacks!

Moreover, there’s the SCR50AXE, an advanced security router that combines firewall, wireless AP, and router functions, all managed on the Nebula platform.

If I were to redesign the setup after six months, I might choose the SCR50AXE and NWA50AX Pro.

I think now is the right time to install the NWA50AX Pro.
Thank you all for watching. 😄

If one day I have more and more IoT devices at home... If one day I open my own studio... If one day I have hundreds of thousands of connections per second when my internet is down... These are all still just fantasies.

Now I have over a dozen or twenty IPs running on home devices. If I want to upgrade my home equipment further, requiring stability, affordability, centralized management, remote configuration, and professional online assistance from genuine Taiwanese manufacturers (maybe even unlocking Hakka or Hokkien language support), then choosing ZyXEL would be a good option. After all, I've used their firewalls before, so let's try their cheapest commercial-grade package.

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[Firewall] USG FLEX 50
First, you need a firewall, mainly for Router functionality and VPN connections, which also supports LTE/3G Card (USB)... You can use the traditional local configuration interface or hand it over to the Nebula ecosystem for cloud management. After taking over, you can directly control the device from anywhere with internet access.

[PoE Switch] GS1915-8EP
There's something that becomes addictive once you use it, and that's PoE (Power over Ethernet), plug-and-play. LACP link aggregation also supports VLAN, which might be useful someday. I never thought about spending extra money on PoE before, wondering what's so good about it. But once you have two devices, you'll want to upgrade all devices to PoE, not wanting to use those ugly power adapters plugged in everywhere.

[WiFi AP] NWA50AX (FCC:I8811AXAP22A)
The most basic 2x2 WiFi 6, with PoE, also comes with a traditional power adapter, and the accessories are very thoughtful. Letting Nebula take over is really convenient, especially if you have two or more AP devices. You can clearly feel the advantages of intelligent RF power & channel allocation and easy initial setup, especially for large homes that can't be covered by a single AP. You must buy a series that supports cloud management.



The speed is at the most basic level, with RF Link Speed of 1201Mbps, and actual maximum speed of about 7xxMbps, which is not bad. The main improvement I feel is in compatibility. Some home-grade old devices have poor compatibility, either unable to connect or prone to disconnection. This commercial-grade one is noticeably more stable.

Use Notebook to measure speed.

Use mobile phone to measure speed.

[WiFi AP] NWA55AXE (FCC:I8811AXAP22AO)
If you have a village or farm... If you need protection against wind, rain, and dust, the IP55 rating can withstand harsh outdoor environments (don't actually play with water though). External detachable omnidirectional antenna design (officially not recommended to replace). Nebula can still take over, manage and adjust power and channels, upgrade firmware, and schedule without problems.

This one only has a PoE option, but it comes with a PoE power supply that converts a regular network signal cable to a PoE cable, for those who haven't invested in a PoE switch yet, which is really thoughtful.

Other specifications are almost identical to the NWA50AX, not much to say since they're brothers. Considering the need for a backyard, the antenna flexibility is high, feeling like you can extend or replace it with high-gain outdoor antennas at will. Isn't there a lot of room for modification…

This is the traditional local WEB configuration interface. If you have ten devices, you'll have ten IPs to configure, which can be messy.

Below is everything controlled by Nebula cloud management, isn't it cool?

What if you encounter problems? Authorize an engineer to look at the entire structure online, and they'll quickly find the problem.

You can also download the Nebula APP to configure, just scan the QR Code to add devices.

They give you an RS-232 cable, which looks like you can directly input CLI commands, but you probably won't need it for now, so keep it safe.

There's no problem one WiFi 6 AP can't solve; if there is, use two... and so on. The only limit is how much money you have to buy them.

This is the first ZyXEL device I knew, as old as my account.

If you have any questions about using the product, you can always find answers in the forum, and the R&D team is also very willing to help users solve problems. This is the biggest advantage of the Zyxel brand.

Server racks have always been a dream for gamers, right?
I purchased a 15U rack around the end of March (2024)
and after a lot of trouble, I finally managed to organize my home network into the rack.
Unfortunately, due to the various living spaces and clutter of my family members,
and the fact that my old house doesn't have enough space for routing cables,
as well as my lack of proper tools and ladders,
I can only route the cables by using cable ties or simply leaving them exposed.

Here's a summary of the network equipment mentioned in the conversation:
ISP (Taiwan)：Chunghwa Telecom FTTH 500M/500M
ONT：Nokia G-040W-Q
Firewall：USG FLEX 200H
Switch：GS1915-24EP、XMG1915-10EP
AP ：NWA50AX、NWA50AX PRO、NWA210AX、WAX300H
UPS：APC EASY UPS BV650-TW

(An additional network with a different public IP address was set up using the spare equipment for testing purposes.)

Let's take a quick look at the USG FLEX 200H firewall. This firewall utilizes Zyxel's new uOS operating system, which is a significant departure from the previous interface. It features two 2.5GbE network ports (P1 and P2). During the initial setup, it is mandatory to connect the P1 port to the ONT (Nokia G-040W-Q) for configuration. Once the setup is complete, each port can be customized to serve different purposes. Given the internet speed of 500/500 Mbps, 1GbE ports are sufficient, and hence, both 2.5GbE ports are currently configured as LAN ports.

Let's showcase the floor plan of the house.

The server rack is located in a "room on the third floor." Previously, the PoE devices on the first and second floors were powered by the GS1915-8EP in the room on the second floor. Now, they will be powered by the GS1915-24EP in the room on the third floor. The cables need to be extended, so information socket type junction boxes are used for the extension.

Also, since I'm not a professional electrician, I don't have multiple bundles of network cables to pull up together. I can only roughly estimate the length of the cables needed, cut them, and then pull them up together. (It's really tiring to pull them up myself without teammates...)

During the cabling process, since many devices were already installed on the ceiling, I was too lazy to remove them, which would require temporarily disconnecting them from the network. So, I took out a spare ZyXEL NWA1123AC v3, plugged it in, and enabled the Smart Mesh feature in Nebula to get through this time.

Perform a simple test after cabling is complete.

Bought cable covers to hide the mess.

I also bought 32AWG CAT6A cables for cabling inside the server rack.The thickness is only about 1/3 that of a regular Cat6 cable.It is easier to bend inside the server rack.

Tidying up is complete.

2.5G (PoE) devices are directly connected to the XMG1915-10EP, while optical ports are utilized to connect to the NAS and workstation using DAC (Direct Attach Copper) cables and multimode fiber optic cables, respectively. The workstation employs a separate ZYXEL XGN100F switch for its network connection.

Using OpenSpeedtest to test, the 10G connection between the NAS and PC is almost at full speed.

Setting up iSCSI on the NAS's SSD (non-RAID, Intel SSD 660p 512G) and connecting to the PC using iSCSI. Yields decent speeds and is perfectly fine for installing games.

The GS1915-24EP switch handles devices with speeds below 1G. PoE ports on this switch also power devices like security cameras. Thanks to cloud management, cameras can be remotely power cycled from an app when they malfunction, making troubleshooting very convenient.

By pairing the GS1915-24EP switch with the WAX300H access point and configuring VLANs, IPTV can be delivered over a single cable.

This is a preliminary configuration for my home network. I've been thinking about purchasing the NWA130BE since its price seems quite reasonable.
Here's the ZYXEL Nebula topology diagram. It seems there might be a mistake in the current topology. Both switches should be connected to the firewall.