802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 - Networking / POE Question

[DookSucks]

I am going to hardwire my house because it's a series of Faraday cages that kill signal.

I am not going to spring for Cat-8. 10gb 6E should be fine for a long, long time.

I want to use POE, and I know POE on WiFi-6 requires more juice than the power output of many existing switches.

So, I want to ask a few questions in the event anyone here knows:

1) Which system / devices would you recommend?
2) Which switches / power supplies would you recommend?

I have a large, chopped up home that is composed of reinforced concrete, plaster walls and real (not the modern crap) stucco. I'm going to need 6 access points (including base router) to get full coverage and adequate speeds for what my wife and I need for WFH and day to day home usage.

 

[techwarrior]

I want to use POE, and I know POE on WiFi-6 requires more juice than the power output of many existing switches.

I assume you are suggesting you want to push power over ethernet to WiFi access points in a variety of rooms?

Start with the Access Points you want to use. If they support POE, it will state somewhere in the tech specs which POE protocol it requires. IEEE designates 802.3 for defining POE:

802.3af is the original POE spec, providing up to 15.4 W per device.
802.3at followed in about 2009, bumped max power to about 30W /device.
802.3bt is the newest standard, permitting up to 55 (Type 3), or 90-100W (Type 4) /device.

The power requirements of a switch would need to specify total power the switch can provide to all of the POE devices collectively, and which standard it follows.

Say for example, you want to run 5 Access Points, each will probably require at least 802.3at, but more likely, 802.3bt. Likely, each AP will require 30-50W. so 150 - 250W total output from the switch.

Most low end 8-16 port POE switches support 15W/device, 55W total. Stepping up to 'at' switches, you might find 150W or better on a 12 or 24 port switch, but it will cost a fair bit more than the low end ones.

If that power requirement is too high for a single switch, you can offload power sourcing to a second switch. The distance is also a factor, power will be lost to resistance over distances, typically 100m or 300ft.

 

[2984839]

802.3at should be fine IMO. Aruba says their 500 series APs use a max of 11w: https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP500Series.pdf

The Ruckus R730 "worst case" figure is 23.8w: https://www.commscope.com/globalassets/digizuite/61777-ds-ruckus-r730.pdf

These are very high end APs and probably will consume more power than most others. Ubiquiti's Unifi 6 stuff seems like it works with 802.3af: https://evanmccann.net/blog/2020/5/unifi-wifi-6-lite

With a switch that can handle 100w combined output, you'd likely be able to comfortably run 5 APs off of it, unless you go nuts and start bolting Ruckus R730s all over the house.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Good advice so far. You need the spec of the AP. To be safe, you can build to the greatest possible demand...but that will be overkill for many options.

If I were wiring a difficult building today, I would look at these wall units. Both AP and a wired port...pretty slick.