Recommendation for new home set up

[frederick_kuo]

Like many people here, I moved into a Lennar home that comes equipped with a Ruckus ICX 7150-c12p switch, and 3 Ruckus R510 access points.  I need your help in figuring out how to best set up and wire up my equipment.

The house gets fiber from the outside and the modem is actually supplied by the cable company that stays with the house.  Currently I am subscribed to Cox (150mbps).  From the outside/fiber modem, they ran the ethernet cable into the house where it goes into a Cox supplied gateway (which stays with the house regardless of service provider) and that goes into the ICX.  From the ICX, 3 cables run to each of the R510.

Not realizing all this when I bought the house, I also bought from Costco two new routers, Netgear RAX 45, which is actually pretty awesome.  Since moving in, by just plugging in the ethernet cable into my Netgear router, I actually get whole house wifi coverage even though I got 3 floors!  By the way, yes, I disconnected the Cox-supplied gateway and put it away.

So now, here is where I'm stuck.....

- should I still go ahead and disable the wifi on my router and use the ICX/R510 instead?  why or why not?

- I have read in these forums where the ICX or the R510's can be used in a router mode?  Should I consider that?  why or why not?

- in my other house, I use old modems as AP, run ethernet cables to the main router, and they automatically broadcast the SSID of the main router.  Can I do the same for the R510's?  I currently see 2 SSID's: one from my router and one from the AP/R510's.  Why aren't the R510's automatically taking on the SSID of my router, given that they are connected to the ICX and then in turn to the router?

Thank you!!

[larry_speth]

Your Netgear Rax router is WiFi 6 so can support the newest wireless speeds. The R510 and the Rax45 both have 2 radios broadcasting the SSID's.  Each SSID was defined during setup on the Rax and R510s. It is best to have only one set of radios so either shutoff wireless in the Netgear router or unplug the R510s. Shutoff the R510s first and test if you have complete coverage in your house via the Netgear. The Netgear router has a easier interface to control wireless than the R510s. The ICX managed router is for networking pros who are used to command line control using a console. The newer Lennar smart homes are using Amazon Eero routers and APs probably because they're easier for homeowners to manage and the cozy relation between Lennar and Amazon. My comments are from a Lennar homeowner not a networking professional. 

[frederick_kuo]

Thank you, this is helpful!

Is it possible to plug the R510's into my Netgear instead of the switch?

In other words, in my old house, the set up is this:

new router broadcasting SSID <=> other old routers set up as AP, so automatically broadcasting the SSID of the new router.

Is it possible to do this:

Netgear Rax broadcasting SSID <=> R510 broadcasting Netgear's SSID but at the slower speed.

My thought is that the R510 can help extend the wifi coverage, though at a slower speed, while I can still take advantage of the faster speed of the Netgear Rax in most part of the house.

What do you think?

[larry_speth]

The R510s are probably using POE (power over ethernet) connections and drawing their power from the switch. The netgear router doesn't have POE so you can't plug the R510s into your Netgear router unless you provide a separate power source to each R510. The speed advantage of the Netgear router is that it support 802.11ax which is a faster wireless protocol. You would need devices that also support 802.11ax. Not so many exist yet. Most would recommend either having the R510 in use with the wireless section of your Netgear router turned off. Your R510 are probably set up with one of them as the master access point on which your SSID's are defined and the other R510s are slaves to it.  Another issue I ran into was that Amazon service rep had the R510 DHCP service turned on as well as my router. I found in the log many errors about duplicate DHCP requests. It was recommended that I let the router do DHCP service and to turn off DHCP in the R510. Now runs better.

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[frederick_kuo]

Thanks again, this is very helpful!  You are right, the R510's are POE, and I completely forgot about that.  Also appreciate the comment on DHCP in the R510, I will double check.

I had actually purchased TWO of the Netgear Rax routers from Costco, thinking that I'll use one as the router and the other as a AP.  Looks like I may end up returning one of them back to Costco.

I think I'll go with what you recommended and just use the R510 for now and turn off my wifi on the Netgear router.