Internet over coax

Our house is not wired with cat5e/6. Wireless can be super fast but I don't want to replace what we have right now. The super fast tri band mesh stuff is still really pricey. That said, it is kind of bummer that my main computer upstairs gets such low internet speeds (~150 mbps). It really is the only thing that needs any more speed and connection stability.

Our network solution right now is Google WiFi. I do love it for ease of use, since my networking literacy is still growing. The main puck downstairs is wired directly to our fiber ONT (optical network terminal), and is in wireless mesh with the upstairs puck. Downstairs gets decent speeds (~300 mbps), but anything upstairs pays the mesh tax, therefore gets about half.

Anything upstairs pays the mesh tax

That's the story so far. I really wished I could just hardwire straight to main hub. That's when I discovered ethernet over coax. The linked article shows the pro and cons between connection solutions. Ethernet was not an option for me (without tearing up the house), but we already have coax in every room. All I had to do was figure out which cable went where, link them up, throw on some coax to ethernet adaptors, and voila!

Lucky to at least have cable wired to every room

I know the smart thing to do would have been to hardline the upstairs backhaul. That way everything on that hub can also benefit. Yeah... maybe another time. Or maybe I'll wait for that tri band mesh upgrade. But since I only bought one pair of coax adaptors, I ended wiring my main desktop directly to the downstairs hub.

Now I get a wired connection of ~350mbps. That's still not our full internet speed, and the slowdown is definitely not because of the coax adapters (tested direct ethernet via laptop). So I'm guessing it's because of this Google WiFi solution. That said, it's still an appreciable improvement. So for now, I'll take that as a win!

You're welcome, Miles! I did this for your future gaming enjoyment!

Remember your ABCs, Always Be Casting!