Hmm. I just moved into a new house in SoCal, and I’m not having any of the problems he describes. In fact I’d describe the installation of my symmetric 2gbps fiber connection as very clean, and WiFi propagation has been excellent.

I’m not ecstatic that the router they provided is an Amazon eero, but I could replace that myself if I wanted.

I try not to shit on articles too much because I understand that the vast majority of writers these days are given a prompt and talking points by their editors but…

I have the privilege of knowing how to troubleshoot this stuff on my own largely due to my profession as a tech journalist. To others, this stuff is a foreign language. Knowing how to set up a home internet system is not a skill everyone has, and the complicated steps required to do it properly make moving to a new place more stressful, especially if you work remotely and need the internet to earn a paycheck.

Clearly setting up a home internet system is also not a skill this tech writer has.

This is a solved problem. It is a mesh network. Yes, you can spend insane amounts of money for a ubiquiti solution (and they are nice…). Or you can wait for a sale on a google/amazon solution. Or you can just look into stuff like the tp-link omada system where your access points are 30-40 bucks and can act as both repeaters and extenders, depending on your setup.

Don’t get me wrong, ethernet is always better. But it really is not necessary in the vast majority of use cases. And considering the cost of building or renovating a house, I would not look into drywall alternatives in addition to adding ethernet drops.

Also, if they think THAT networking panel is a mess then… I very much question if they have ever touched an ethernet cable before. I have seen top of the line data/computing centers which were less neatly cabled than that picture.