At the center of the house
Lighting, music, TVs, cameras, the doorbell, the car in the garage — they all lean on the same network. Make it strong, and everything around it just works.
Speed vs. design
Your internet provider sets the ceiling. The network inside the house decides what every room actually gets.
The usual fix
When the Wi-Fi struggles, the usual answer is to upgrade the internet plan. Think of your provider as the on-ramp and your home network as the highway. A wider on-ramp doesn’t help when the highway runs out halfway down the hall.
For most homes, a plan in the 300 to 500 Mbps range is plenty. Past that, the plan is rarely what’s holding things back. Here’s the math on how much internet speed you need.
What we do
We start with the floor plan: what the walls, floors, and appliances will block, which devices never move, and where people actually use their phones. Then we wire what we can and place access points where the house needs them.
The result is the same connection in the back bedroom as next to the router, and a network that holds up when everyone is home at once.
Coverage, planned
Access points go where the floor plan needs them, not where a square-footage rule says. We model coverage on your drawings, account for what each wall and floor will block, and place every access point on purpose.
Here’s one home, before and after. Red is the strongest signal.
Backup internet
Bay Area outages are common: a storm, a cut line, a fallen tree. A second connection only helps if it doesn’t fail for the same reason, so we pair one wired provider with one wireless provider, such as Starlink or 5G.
A dual-WAN router watches both. When the main line drops, the backup takes over on its own, and most people never notice. Two independent lines turn about 88 hours of downtime a year into less than one.
Paying for two providers isn’t a backup by itself. It has to be set up to fail over.
What runs on it
Most of the technology in a home quietly depends on one connection.
Keypads keep working on their own, but the app, voice control, remote access, and anything that ties lights and shades to the rest of the house depend on the network.
Streaming services, grouped rooms, and the app on your phone all ride the network. Wired players keep rooms in sync and keep music from cutting out.
A single 4K stream uses about 25 Mbps. We wire every TV that doesn’t move, so movie night never waits on Wi-Fi.
Twenty cameras are a steady 100 Mbps. Cameras get their own wired runs, so recording never competes with the rest of the house.
Doorbells sit at the edge of the house, often behind stucco or metal. Coverage at the front door is planned, not hoped for.
Chargers and cars pull schedules and updates from the garage, a room full of metal that most networks forget. We cover it on purpose.
Phones are how most people run the lights, music, and cameras. They should hand off between access points without a hiccup as you walk through the house.
Home offices get a wired connection. Calls stay clear, and large uploads and cloud backups run without slowing down the rest of the house.
How we build it
In 28 years of home technology work, most of the Wi-Fi problems we’re called about come down to the same few decisions. We make them on purpose.
TVs, speakers, desks, and cameras get their own ethernet runs, with their Wi-Fi switched off. That leaves the air for the phones and laptops that actually move.
We look for what the house will block — floors, metal, kitchens, garages, laundry rooms — and design around it. Each floor gets its own coverage, and we don’t add more access points than the house needs, because too many cause problems of their own.
Every access point gets an unbroken cable back to the same switch. Mesh and extenders are a last resort, because each wireless hop adds lag and dropped connections.
Commercial-grade equipment in a labeled rack, with the drawings kept on file. When something needs attention years from now, we know exactly what’s there.
Projects
Open walls are the cheapest time to run cable. We plan access points, camera runs, and the equipment rack with your builder, so the network is built in rather than added on.
More floors and more square footage don’t call for a faster plan. They call for a better-planned network, from the main house to the guest house and the yard.
A second provider on separate infrastructure, set up to take over automatically when the first one fails.
When the walls are open, we pull extra ethernet for later. When they’re closed, we work with the wiring you have and fill the gaps with well-placed access points.
And whatever we find in the equipment closet, we leave it labeled, dressed, and documented.
Serving
From our clients
A few words from recent projects.
“Very professional, knowledgeable and reliable! Also very tidy! Made the whole process painless!”
Shannon Alten
SoundVision
“…Loren did a very through walkthrough of our new house, didn’t try to sell me on anything I wasn’t looking for, spec’d and priced out the job very reasonably. The work was done exactly as defined, and we’ve…”
John Berkley
SoundVision
“…They worked closely with the contractors from the beginning. They are very professional, efficient and deliver quality work. Very dependable, and with great knowledge in AV. Excellent shop.”
Eric Chen
SoundVision
“The best audiovisual company out there, period! From start to finish they made the process easy and we ended up with a fantastic Smart Home! Thanks to Scott, Brian, Albert, David and the rest of the team,…”
Captainloz
SoundVision
“…Loren did a thorough assessment and his technicians installed new equipment, cleaned up the old wiring, and our WiFi is excellent in every room. They came back a week later to make sure everything was…”
David Fariello
SoundVision
“…The process could not have gone more smoothly. JP and Emil were professional, efficient, friendly, and extremely helpful and patient running us through the paces of using the system. We are delighted!”
William Hartman
SoundVision
FAQ
Guides
Start with the foundation
Tell us about the house, the internet you have today, and where things fall short. We’ll design a network the rest of your home can count on.
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