Originally Posted by
EniGma1987
Since you are building the house, you have a golden oportunity to make where you live absolutely amazing for any computer type network now and in the future. Plan out and have the builder (or do it yourself) run Ethernet cable drops to every room in the house. Think about wat 2 locations in each room might have a desk at some point, not just 1 location but think of 2 possible ones. You want to leave yourself options for down the line and if the wife wants to re-arrange things. Run Cat6A S/STP cable (double shielded, a shield around each pair of wires as well as a shield around the whole bundle). Or, if Cat8 is availabl;e by the time the cable needs to be run then use Cat8 instead. If you go with Cat6A, you can use 10gigabit speeds everywhere in your house and you dont have to deal with wifi crap for your computers. You can keep the wifi stricktly for phones, tablets, and laptops. If you go with Cat8 cable, you may be able to reach speeds of 100gigabit to some areas of the house depending on how the spec comes out! Definitely a minimum of 40gigabit everywhere in the house though.
Also, you may want to run 2-3 Ehternet cables to the same location in some areas. For instance, I ran 3 cables to each location I knew I was going to have a TV. This lets me plug in a Roku (or other streaming device) direct hardwired for great 4k streaming performance, and lets me plug in a gaming console and the TV itself if I need to. I dont have to add a switch in at each location this way, I just have a big switch in the network closet that evgerything plugs into. It also gives some redundance in case a cable goes bad.
You can also utilize these instead of a standard keystone jack and wall plate:
https://inwall.ubnt.com/
They give you a wired outlet still and provide wifi access. So run your wires everywhere, and place 5 of those in wall devices throughout the house and you will have the best wired and wireless you can get, and the wireless will be fairly well hidden and out of sight.
As for router, you can basically use any router to replace the default Verizon one. You dont use a modem with fios in the same way you would be used to with cable. The verizon fiber comes to their "ONT" and gets turned into an Ethernet connection. You just plug an Ethernet cable between the ONT and your router and set up the WAN with the same settings their router was using. You can do this at any time once the installation is done and you dont even need to call them or anything.
If you never want to see their router at all, you can have your own beforehand and when the technician comes out to turn on the service and do the tests, have them configure the WAN section of your router instead of using theirs.
Either way, their router shouldnt cost you anything on your bill. Unless they changed that recently, it used to be actually free. No monthly thing like the modem fee from cable companies. At work we use an ASUS RT-AC87U in both our buildings, they work great with Merlin-WRT firmware. I went with these because they had great performance for the time and the firmware I use gets quick security patches. I would recommend basically any router that can run Merlin-WRT, and anything at the level of the 87U or higher will push gigabit speeds just fine. I usually got around 950mbps with the 87U, which is basically gigabit speed minus the overhead of Ethernet.