I'm about to start a building project, which provides the opportunity to run cat6 around the house and relocate my network equipment.
I currently have a Netgear R7800 (running OpenWRT). I live on a private road which will never be furnished with FTTP, so I'm pretty much stuck on FTTC with 25Mbps down and 2.5Mbps up. I currently run the R7800 both as a wireguard server and a client (with some policy-based routing); and that's pretty much as fancy as I get.
In the interests of concealing and wall-mounting, would I be bonkers to swap the R7800 for, say, the MikroTik RB750Gr3 + MikroTik hAP ac lite and flashing them both?
The rationale for (potentially) switching is the more subtle aesthetic, and modularisation; separating the router and WiFi AP (for various upgrade paths later, if I wish).
In terms of performance and long term maybe?
But then again, if you don't plan on getting a ~500mbit+ connection anytime soon the slower MikroTik RB750Gr3 might be a viable option. The R7800 doesn't perform better than that using ethernet due to driver issues and I'm not sure how much love the IPQ8 gets upstream. I'm also a bit unsure about long term support for MT7621 upstream but perhaps someone has more insight than me in that regard.
Thanks. I take from your reply that in many (most?) cases, I'd be taking a (small) backward step, but that given my specific case (no prospect of anything even approaching 500MBit), it might be ok.
I guess the logical related question is: if not the MikroTik kit, then are there any other options? I'm not a big fan of these space-age, look-like-they-fell-off-the-set-of-robot-wars consumer routers, so something bland that I can wall-mount and place out of sight is the principal consideration here. The R7800 has been solid for me, and if it wasn't for the house being remodelled, I'd keep it.
The r7800 is good for 350-400 MBit/s in OpenWrt right now, given your explanation I don't see a reason to replace it. Yes, you should definately put cat-7 wherever possible and prepare for future upgrades, but that doesn't mean you'll have to buy/ install them straight away (at this moment I wouldn't spend huge amounts of money on multiple conceiled/ ceiling 802.11ac APs and rather make do until 802.11ax gets affordable).
Now that somebody's laid it out in those terms, that makes perfect sense. In which case, I'll plan where I want to put the boxes and lay cat7; but then make-do for now and wait for 802.11ax. You've also saved me the hassle of finding a Windows machine to flash the MikroTik kit
CAT7 is not TIA/EIA standard, CAT6A however is so it makes little to no sense going for CAT7 since its more or less "undefined".
Edit: You should also be aware that you don't usually want first gen wifi hardware so you're looking at ~2y+ before 11ax would become viable having the arguments above in mind.
I'm erring towards sticking with what I've got (if it ain't broke...) but adding a switch so that I can install ethernet ports wherever I need them. I can then replace the router and consider options for WiFi hardware at a later date.
From what you've all advised, that sounds like the best way to future-proof myself and giving me options for the future.
