New Home: Questions on Networking, Hardware, & Setup

Hello all,

Recently purchased a new home, and I'm needing some guidance on setting my network up in the best way possible. So much has changed in the last few years that I am lost on what's best and what's not, so here I am, to have the internet tell me what to do. I'll give you a rundown on what I'm working with and what I'm trying to accomplish, so you can better understand my goals.

I've included a sketch I've made of the home's layout, so you can visualize what I'm working with here. Image: IMG_2362.jpg

The home is 3 beds & 2 baths that is about 2000 sq. ft. on a flat lot with a slab foundation, consisting of one level with an attic space above. There is a large living area to the left of entry, attached to the back of it is an additional room that serves as a poolhouse/bar area that leads to the backyard and the in-ground pool. Descending from the pool is a concrete fire-pit area. The three bedrooms are off to the right of entry, down a hall with a bathroom in between. The kitchen separates the living and sleeping spaces. On the sketch, I have the rooms labeled, and I have highlighted the main connections as well as where the modem currently sits.

I am an avid online gamer, and my wife frequently uses services like Netflix & Hulu while doing her work at the same time that I am online. We also frequently entertain and host guests for sporting events or other TV/internet/media related things like gaming together online. Not only that, I also have smart-home-connected devices such as door locks and security cameras that are connected to the network; and while these aren't using much data, they are still a draw on data/bandwidth. My goal is to ensure that I have the infrastructure in place to handle multiple users on different devices all doing something a little different, without experiencing any lag, buffering, slow speeds, or connection drops - no matter where they are on the property.

Comcast is my ISP, and I currently pay for their 250mbps plan. The modem, which is theirs that I pay monthly to use, is located in the first bedroom down the hallway. I plan to use this room as a multimedia/gaming room, so I had the technician install the modem here, so that I will be able to hard-wire my gaming PC and several gaming consoles directly to the modem/router for the fastest connections. As stated I pay for the 250/s plan currently, but only get about 150/s when hard-wired directly to the modem. The wi-fi signal when standing next to the modem is only 50-75/s on a good day. That speed drops significantly when you leave the room, dropping to about 30/s in the living area, and eventually dropping the connection altogether when near the corners of the house or outside near the pool. This is entirely unacceptable to me to pay for such high speeds only to receive 20-50% of what I pay for/what is provided, and only get it in one room of the house. I will be upgrading to Comcast's 1000mbps plan shortly, and I still expect to only actually get about half that in reality. However, I am here to learn what I can do to actually get the speeds & connections that I expect & pay for!

So, here we are, and let's move on to the questions I have and what this community can do to help. What is the best way to ensure I have whole-home coverage that delivers the most reliable and fastest speeds I can achieve? Do I move the modem to the living room where there is another Co-Ax cable to connect it to, since that's where most people will be? What about my media/gaming room connections if I move it? Do I just plug in a bunch of range extenders into random outlets in various areas? Won't that affect my speeds? Do I leave the modem where it is, and run 50 feet worth of ethernet cable through my walls & ceiling in order to hard-wire a router in another room? If so, won't I see speed losses due to the length of cabling? Do I replace the modem with an aftermarket modem and leave it where it is? Replace and move? Still add another router, with range extenders on top of that? I'm sure you get my point by now, I just need to be able to get the upload & download speeds I expect to game flawlessly while my wife watches netflix in the living room, and a friend of ours is outside by the pool watching a youtube video on his phone - without any of us having a connection issue. I also need to ensure that whatever I do, it's capable of handling gigabit speeds! Last time I wired a network, gigabit speeds was a ways away in the future, now it's here and I don't know if the hardware infrastructure is different. Do I need to ensure that my ethernet cables can handle that speed? I know the current outlets in the walls cannot. So whether it's a modem, router, cables, extenders, etc. they all need to be able to handle that type of speed.

The surface-level research I've done has me thinking that I should get an aftermarket modem that can handle more than what I need, then another high-end router or two that I hard-wire into the modem by running cabling through my walls and ceiling, and risk speeds/connection since that will require a long distance for the data to travel. Then if necessary have range extenders in various places to pick up the slack. But this is why I am here, asking you, as new tech is beyond me. So when it comes to tri-band, 802.11a/c/n , QoS priorities, MU-MIMO, multiple ports, upload/download channels, etc. - I am lost and don't want to end up wasting time & money for things that won't accomplish what I need to accomplish. I've been looking into Netgear's Nighthawk series of products which look promising, but even that lineup is confusing as a lot of the products seem to do the same thing, so it's hard to know what's right for me - again I am clearly just a slightly-above-average consumer that needs consulting.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say. If there is any additional information I can provide to help you in helping me, don't hesitate to ask!