Will this equipment work? [Choosing the right Hardware]

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hi Guys,
I’m new to the forum, so I do not know if this is the correct place to ask this question, sorry if it’s not.

A family member just moved to a new two-story house, it’s 230 m^2 aprox. All the walls are made of reinforced concrete (so no dry walls).

The requirement is to have seamless roaming in the house. The house was recently fitted with cat6 cable so that helps.
To give more details, There’s fiber in the house with a Huawei modem/router/AP that I will leave in bridge mode so the router and the AP get deactivated.
There are 2 RJ45 ports in the second floor, and 1 in the first floor, all the cables go to a room that will be used as a home office.
To be more clear,
Second floor:
1 port on the master bedroom
1 port on the ceiling in the hallway
First floor:
1 port on the living room area

All the cables run to the home-office room where the fiber is located.

I was wondering if you think this setup would work:


The Router would be placed in the home office.
Router: https://mikrotik.com/product/CRS109-8G-1S-2HnD-IN
there’s an adjacent room to the home office an the router should be able to cover it

Living area (living + dining + kitchen + terrace [open plan, but quiet big] )
Switch AP: https://mikrotik.com/product/RB952Ui-5ac2nD
I would place the switch and connect it through UTP cable to the router
How many square meters would that switch be able to reach?
I’m choosing a switch because probably they’re going to connect more stuff to it (ie game console)

Master bedroom second floor:
AP: https://mikrotik.com/product/cap_ac
It would be wired to the Router and use the gigabit PoE injector to have power

Hallway second floor
AP: https://mikrotik.com/product/cap_ac
It would be wired to the Router and use the gigabit PoE injector to have power, and it will give wifi access to the 2 other rooms in the second floor

Am I in the right track? Do you guys have any suggestions?
Thanks a lot!

2

How fast is the fiber connection?
You should note that the CRS line of devices are primarily SWITCHES with a dummy router function to use e.g. to setup some management connection.
These are not suitable for high-performance routing e.g. for a fast fiber connection.

I know these devices are attractive due to offering a large number of ports, Wifi, and routing all in the same device, but they are not your ideal home router on a fast line.
It is better to consider devices like the RB4011 for that.

3

Thanks for the Reply pe1chl

The fiber is 400mbps down 100mbps up .
Probably I will go for: MikroTik RB4011iGS+5HacQ2HnD-IN as a Router then.

Do you have any recommendation regarding the switch and the AP’s ?

I was wondering If someone has tried de Cap AC, I’ve had bad experiences with other Mikrotik AP’s (dropping connections, fluctuations in speed etc..) but have never tried the Cap AC.


Thanks a lot!

4

I have no personal experience with using those APs but they should be OK for that kind of performance.
The RB952 is a combined router, switch and AP with good overall performance. As you don’t need a router there you could also consider a separate small switch and another cAP AC.

5

Thanks for your input pe1chl !

6

Or use a HAP AC2… it’s a CAP AC with a switch.

7

That is what he proposes. They work fine but maybe he wants to keep the components more similar and/or would have liked a few more ports. Then a cAP AC plus a small switch is an option.
Of course the hAP AC2 has the advantage that it is AC2.

8

Thanks again for all the input.

I haven’t found the hAp Ac2 in my country, but will still searching.