the old tube have about 10mm free, barely passing one cat6.
If you learn to make your own cables, you can get 6-8 unterminated lines through in the same space.
I plan to use the 2.5G between the Office and Living using Cat6.
Sensible; it gives you space for two dedicated 1G links between the two rooms with bandwidth to spare. For instance, a 1G streaming box gets a dedicated link back to the home NAS/Plex/iTunes/whatever server without impacting the server's link out to the Internet.
The idea of the hAP ax was to not only have wifi in the room and the living, but also a local "switch". This way, the 2.4Ghz was mainly to be used by mobile, printer, etc. The TVs will be wired.
If you want a local switch, put in a local switch. I suggest something like a hEX to keep the RouterOS theme going.
I think you'll find that the single hAP ax³ covers the whole apartment at least as well as your original all-2.4 GHz plan. Mixing 802.11ac and 802.11ax as in your second plan may give a measurable improvement at the edges, but for your stated use cases of mobile browsing and printing, will it materially matter?
You speak of the expense of this second plan, but I think we've come to a net-nothing in material cost terms. Your initial plan was to put in:
- 3× hAP ax Lite: $59 = $177 MSRP
- CSS610: $119
- L009: $119
Total: $415 MSRP.
My plan is:
- hAP ax³ as living room router/switch/central WiFI at $139 MSRP
- hEX as smart VLAN-capable switch in the TV room: $59
- CRS310 core switch in the office: $219
Total? Two bucks more than your initial plan, but a lot more capable. You lose dedicated WiFi in each room, but "apartment building" plus "taking over three local channels" equals "low performance" to me, even if you add the 5 GHz band and go all-ax. If you were in a freestanding house with a fair bit of room around you, fine, but as-specified…?
But hey, I'm no WiFi expert. Others may override my opinion.