[Bilyclub]

Originally Posted by jrref

Just to clarify, the white SmartNid which is the Optical Network Terminator And the Router should be located in the data cabinet in the garage. The main WiFi pod is the white square thin box hard wired to it. Where is this main WiFi Pod located? And do you have a 2nd smaller box which is a remote WiFi Pod?

No, the installer set the white square box up in a bedroom. I moved it to the centrally located living room. I call it a router because there are 4 spots to plug stuff in. No other pods.

[jrref]

Originally Posted by Bilyclub

No, the installer set the white square box up in a bedroom. I moved it to the centrally located living room. I call it a router because there are 4 spots to plug stuff in. No other pods.

Thanks for the information.
The Main WiFi7 Pod includes an ethernet hub which is providing those ports. The Routing occurs in the SmartNid installed in the white data cabinet in the garage. The SmartNid also has two ethernet ports.

From my experience, most of the Quantum Tech's are very competent when doing the install but in some cases they don't install the WiFi pod in the most optimal location which is why I created this thread.

In most homes circa 2012 or newer the most centralized location to install the main Wifi pod is in the kitchen unless your home was built with an ethernet jack in the livingroom area. The only homes I've seen with this livingroom area jack are when the homeowners requested it at build time or they got an electrician to run an ethernet cable after the fact. The kitchen always has a power outlet and hard wire connection to the white data cabinet in the garage. Below is a picture of how It should be installed if you choose this location. When installing it in this location, most homes will not need any additional remote pods. If you have a larger home, then you can add an additional remote pod to get full coverage. I've re-worked several Quantum installs for my friends and neighbors like this and they all are very stable and work well.

When installing this main pod in a bedroom, you will always need additional remote wifi pods to get full coverage throughout your home.

I'm glad you were able to move the Wifi pod to a more central location. When you did this are you now getting good coverage?

[jrref]

Originally Posted by MorTech

Thank you for this! You are most helpful!

Yeah...The option was for a phone line jack to be installed in the living room...that was literally an option on the home spec sheet that probably not many people checked. They wired 4 wires of the cat5 8-wire at the phone jacks and in the white cabinet.

I wonder if the cat5 they pulled will handle 10gbs at that length...I guess it really doesn't matter.

Always remember - When you can't figure it out, "Factory Reset" is your friend

Interesting you mentioned this. From the homes I've seen here in the Villages, the Cat5E runs are usually 50-75 feet at the most. With larger homes they will be a little longer. Cat5E and above can handle different data rates depending on how long the run is. At spec, Cat5E can handle up to 1Gbs but it's been tested to work at 2.5Gbs and even 5Gbs with shorter lengths. I did an experiment where I set up an OpenSpeedTest server in my home to test the speed of my wired internal network and was able to get 8.5Gbs over an installed Cat5E cable running from one of my bedrooms converted to an office to the data cabinet in the garage. In addition, If you don't have ethernet cabling where you want it and you don't want to hire and pay an electrician to run a line, you can get a TP-Link or Orbi Mesh system which can give you near wire speeds wirelessly using their dedicated wireless "backhaul" system. I have an Netgear Orbi to get near wired speeds to my home theater system in my livingroom area. You can also get a Multimedia Over Coax Moca device to run ethernet over your existing coax in your home. I tried this too and it worked fine up to 2 Gbs if you get the right adaptor. Just depends on what you want to accomplish but I though this information would be interesting and maybe useful.

[DARFAP]

Originally Posted by jrref

Concerning the Pods that Quantum uses, the older WiFi6 pods were built and licensed by another company who makes and sells them. The new WiFi7 pods, Quantum had them either built specifically for them or have some arrangement where they own the device making it cheaper which is why I believe they are sending WiFi7 pods out to their existing customers. This is what a tech relayed to me. The new iPhone16 use WiFi7. Whats nice about WiFi7 is the protocol is much more efficient when you are using lots of devices and there are lots of throughput improvements too complex to discuss here. Good reading if you google WiFi7 or search YouTube videos.

My tech told me they don't do the small pods any more. We still get good coverage throughout our house. Speed test shows 950mb to the house, but only 90 ish for down/up load from the router for wifi.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by jrref

Interesting you mentioned this. From the homes I've seen here in the Villages, the Cat5E runs are usually 50-75 feet at the most. With larger homes they will be a little longer. Cat5E and above can handle different data rates depending on how long the run is. At spec, Cat5E can handle up to 1Gbs but it's been tested to work at 2.5Gbs and even 5Gbs with shorter lengths. I did an experiment where I set up an OpenSpeedTest server in my home to test the speed of my wired internal network and was able to get 8.5Gbs over an installed Cat5E cable running from one of my bedrooms converted to an office to the data cabinet in the garage. In addition, If you don't have ethernet cabling where you want it and you don't want to hire and pay an electrician to run a line, you can get a TP-Link or Orbi Mesh system which can give you near wire speeds wirelessly using their dedicated wireless "backhaul" system. I have an Netgear Orbi to get near wired speeds to my home theater system in my livingroom area. You can also get a Multimedia Over Coax Moca device to run ethernet over your existing coax in your home. I tried this too and it worked fine up to 2 Gbs if you get the right adaptor. Just depends on what you want to accomplish but I though this information would be interesting and maybe useful.

Great information from a professional on here willing to help others publicly. This is what i love about TOTV web site.

Our custom build in 2019 had spec'd out no phone system wiring and all ethernet connected wiring at the room outlets. We had to call them back the second day to get the correct wiring connectors made in every outlet in the house. We spec'd an ethernet outlet in the ceiling in the center of the house, and they got that one right, as it was non standard. I was seriously surprised that they didn't get the connections correct as part of the build spec. Most likely someone didn't read the fine print and just did the normal routine.

So the smart house concept here in TV is not something that has been well designed into the standard house features. So new buyers please spec what you can about the wiring and check ASAP you take ownership, as the internet is now a modern day requirement for living.

[jrref]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

Great information from a professional on here willing to help others publicly. This is what i love about TOTV web site.

Our custom build in 2019 had spec'd out no phone system wiring and all ethernet connected wiring at the room outlets. We had to call them back the second day to get the correct wiring connectors made in every outlet in the house. We spec'd an ethernet outlet in the ceiling in the center of the house, and they got that one right, as it was non standard. I was seriously surprised that they didn't get the connections correct as part of the build spec. Most likely someone didn't read the fine print and just did the normal routine.

So the smart house concept here in TV is not something that has been well designed into the standard house features. So new buyers please spec what you can about the wiring and check ASAP you take ownership, as the internet is now a modern day requirement for living.

I'm not 100% sure but I think the "Smart Home" concept here in the Village's new builds means they install ethernet cabling to all your rooms and an ethernet hub connecting all these cables in the data cabinent in the garage to your internet connection. If you didn't get the "package", Centric Fiber will install a hub and terminate everything for you at an additional cost. With today's WiFi mesh systems I don't feel you need every room wired but it's nice to have if you want to hard wire a computer in your office or the TV in your livingroom. I think the wifi thermostat and irregation controller are now standard on all new builds. But beware, when I visited the new models down south recently, some data cabinets are wired nicely and some not. Below is an example of bad and good installs. If your's looks like the Bad one, get them to come back and install everything correctly. You can see the ethernet hub isn't even mounted. It's just laying on top of the irregation controller. The "good" install is my data cabinet where I have the Quantum SmartNid on top, Rachio Irregation controller, temperature sensor, and a battery backup so my internet is still running during a power outage for a little while.

[jrref]

Originally Posted by DARFAP

My tech told me they don't do the small pods any more. We still get good coverage throughout our house. Speed test shows 950mb to the house, but only 90 ish for down/up load from the router for wifi.

Quantum was having problems with the Pods linking a couple months ago which is why they didn't want to install the extender pods. But now the firmware has been fixed and everything works well so it shouldn't be an issue.

When you do a speed test, the speed you get will be dependent on which device you are testing with. If you have an older phone it may only use the 2.4Ghz band and 90 ish is about all you are going to get. Newer phones that use the 5 and 6 Ghz bands will go almost full speed if you are in the same room as the Wifi device. Also always use this speed test with the CenturyLink Orlando server as the target.
Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

[DARFAP]

Originally Posted by jrref

Quantum was having problems with the Pods linking a couple months ago which is why they didn't want to install the extender pods. But now the firmware has been fixed and everything works well so it shouldn't be an issue.

When you do a speed test, the speed you get will be dependent on which device you are testing with. If you have an older phone it may only use the 2.4Ghz band and 90 ish is about all you are going to get. Newer phones that use the 5 and 6 Ghz bands will go almost full speed if you are in the same room as the Wifi device. Also always use this speed test with the CenturyLink Orlando server as the target.
Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Using iPhone 14. This is fairly new, yes? I have my smart TV connected by LAN using adapters over the electrical lines in the house. Haven't figured out how to speed test this.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by jrref

and a battery backup so my internet is still running during a power outage for a little while.

holy Crap! i can't believe you got a UPS in there! Can you tell me what model that is?

I put in two wiring cabinets to easily fit everything it without squeezing everything in and then having to replace something that's broken and the replacement is larger and doesn't fit. .

Most impressive. .

[jrref]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

holy Crap! i can't believe you got a UPS in there! Can you tell me what model that is?

I put in two wiring cabinets to easily fit everything it without squeezing everything in and then having to replace something that's broken and the replacement is larger and doesn't fit. .

Most impressive. .

This is the largest unit that I was able to fit in there with all my equipment. It provides about an hour of backup power for the internet and the Rachio irrigation controller. The blue outlet strips I got at Home Depot.
Amazon.com

[jrref]

Originally Posted by DARFAP

Using iPhone 14. This is fairly new, yes? I have my smart TV connected by LAN using adapters over the electrical lines in the house. Haven't figured out how to speed test this.

Yes, the iPhone 14 should be fine to test with. Not sure why you are getting slow wifi speeds. When you plug in your laptop directly into the SmartNid do you get the correct speeds or something close? I'm assuming you rebooted the wifi pod?

[MorTech]

Nice! Did you replace the Hunter controller just so you could get all that to fit in there?...LOL

I have a UPS in the livingroom for my cable modem, Emby/NAS server and MagicJack. Never even thought of putting a UPS in that cabinet. Good you have a heat sensor...Does it cut all power when it triggers?

[jrref]

Originally Posted by MorTech

Nice! Did you replace the Hunter controller just so you could get all that to fit in there?...LOL

I have a UPS in the livingroom for my cable modem, Emby/NAS server and MagicJack. Never even thought of putting a UPS in that cabinet. Good you have a heat sensor...Does it cut all power when it triggers?

One of the first things I did when I moved into my house was to rip out that Hunter Irrigation controller and replace it with a Rachio controller.

I installed the battery backup so when we get those random couple second power glitches or a short powe outage, my internet and everything in that data cabinet would remain running. You can get this UPS on Amazon or a slightly smaller one that will fit from home depot.

The temperature sensor is used to alert me by text if the temperature goes above 100 degrees in the cabinet. With the small fans, it usually never gets that hot. I have a HomeSeer home automation system installed in my home that monitors temperature, water leaks, controls lights etc...

[DARFAP]

Originally Posted by jrref

Yes, the iPhone 14 should be fine to test with. Not sure why you are getting slow wifi speeds. When you plug in your laptop directly into the SmartNid do you get the correct speeds or something close? I'm assuming you rebooted the wifi pod?

Both of our laptops (brand new) are wifi only. I have rebooted the pod several times. I figured out how to do a speed test with the wire connected TV. 90mbs is the best I get, regardless.

[jrref]

Originally Posted by DARFAP

Both of our laptops (brand new) are wifi only. I have rebooted the pod several times. I figured out how to do a speed test with the wire connected TV. 90mbs is the best I get, regardless.

OK then I would call Quantum support and have a tech come out and investigate. Something is not right. Maybe the pods need to be put in a different spot? Please let us know what happens.

In the mean time, can you answer some questions:
What Village do you live in?
Did they install the old smaller Wifi6 pods or the new larger WiFi7 Pods?
Where did they install the pods?
Are you using your own router?
How are these electric line devices installed?