It was recently announced that FTTH will soon (finally) be available in my market. The provider coming to town offers rates up to 8g.

I’m upgrading from DSL at <100mbps - really exciting! However I will then face a bit of an issue.

I self host many services over my DSL, and use custom firmware on my router. My DSL modem is in a transparent bridging mode. I like the flexibility and customizability this setup provides.

The new service includes a WiFi 7 router, but that means I’ll also potentially be subject to all the weird things providers like to do, like adding backdoors, opening shared WiFi networks, force deploying different firmware, etc. Plus I won’t be running any kind of service on the router itself, which I do have today (transparent proxy etc). The router I have today is not going to enable me to touch the peak bandwidth available.

What’re the best options to upgrade LAN components so that I can support multi gig internal networking speeds, ensure my self hosted services all function normally, and I take advantage of the bandwidth the ISP upgrade offers? In your personal opinion, is it worth it to invest in upgraded lan components?

Anyone have experience converting from 1G LAN to 2.5 or even 10?

Do I really need 8G FTTH, of course not, but if I ever wanted to get the max out of it, what does that take?

  • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0•2 days ago

    Here’s my opinion:

    • get 1G WAN - it’s a huge upgrade, and you probably won’t notice going much faster unless you’re downloading/uploading a lot of stuff over the internet; it’s probably substantially cheaper
    • consider 2.5G LAN, if it’s not much more expensive than 1G - fast transfers over your LAN are much more likely to be noticed than transfers over the internet
    • put in CAT 6 cables at least, since that’s capable of 10G in case you decide you want it; it’s not much more expensive than 5E (1G capable), and then you won’t need to redo it later; or better yet, run fiber everywhere, though that’s more of a pain

    Then upgrade anything that’s <1G on your LAN, and leave the rest as-is until you actually need it. Chances are, you won’t, and it’s not worth spending the money. Prices for 2.5G and 10G (and higher) will eventually come down, so put it off until you actually need it and you’ll probably save money in the long run.

    In terms of what It takes, I think others gave good insight. Here’s my basic summary:

    • expensive router and switch - copper can do 8G, but you’d probably want fiber if there’s a chance your ISP will offer upgrades
    • start converting to SFP+, since that’s likely what you’ll want when upgrading things in the long run
    • some kind of mesh WiFi network - higher bitrates tend to be at higher frequencies, which have poor penetration; starting out w/ a mesh means it’ll be easier to swap out APs as you increase bitrates/solve signal issues in various rooms
    • run lots of cable - the best mesh is one that’s backed by cable

    It’s going to be expensive supporting anything over 2.5G in an entire network. Honestly, 1G is probably fine, and you can upgrade things more incrementally as you decide to improve speeds between endpoints (big ones are anything that handles high bitrate video).