Home Network For Beginners - What You NEED And How To Hook It ALL Up | E01

Beginner's guide to home networking: what devices you need, how to set up internet, mesh Wi-Fi, and tips for optimizing your home network.

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Key Takeaways

Most homes should have at least 25 Mbps internet speed, with 100 Mbps being sufficient for typical streaming and browsing.
Choosing the right cable modem that matches your internet plan speed is crucial for optimal performance.
Mesh Wi-Fi systems are effective for expanding coverage and simplifying network management.
Network security, including firewalls and DHCP servers, is essential to protect your home devices.
Beginner-friendly setup focuses on device connections without diving into advanced configurations.

What the video covers

Introduction to home networking basics and common beginner questions.
Overview of internet service providers and choosing the right internet speed.
Explanation of cable modems, their role, and compatibility considerations.
Discussion on minimum recommended internet speeds for typical home use.
Introduction to mesh Wi-Fi systems and how to expand Wi-Fi coverage.
Details on setting up devices like routers, Wi-Fi hubs, and network storage.
Importance of network security features like firewalls and DHCP servers.
Step-by-step guidance on connecting and organizing home network devices.
Tips on optimizing Wi-Fi placement and preventing hacking.
Encouragement to engage via comments and social media for further questions.

Chapters

What internet speed do I need for a typical home?

Most people should aim for at least 25 Mbps, but 100 Mbps is generally sufficient for streaming, browsing, and everyday use. Higher speeds may be needed for multiple users streaming 4K content simultaneously.

Do I need to rent a modem from my ISP or can I buy my own?

You can either rent a modem from your ISP or purchase your own. Buying your own modem can save money long-term, but make sure it is compatible with your internet plan and supports the speeds you are paying for.

What is a mesh Wi-Fi system and why should I consider one?

A mesh Wi-Fi system uses multiple devices placed around your home to create a single, seamless Wi-Fi network. It helps improve coverage, reduce dead zones, and simplify network management, especially in larger homes.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Over the last year or so, I've been doing more videos talking about home networks. I've been doing a lot of reviews on mesh Wi-Fi systems, building out my home network, and cleaning up and organizing the devices that I have, but I'm noticing

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a lot of people saying where do you even get started with this how do I get to the point of needing to set up a mesh wi-fi system what devices do I need how do I set them up what's the point of

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a lot of people saying, "Where do you even get started with this? How do I get to the point of needing to set up a mesh Wi-Fi system? What devices do I need? How do I set them up? What's the point of

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very beginner based it's going to be very top level we're not going to dive into any of the advanced settings of any of this stuff this is pretty much going to be a networking series on what devices you need how to connect them how

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this network? How do I share my internet? How do I even set up a Wi-Fi?" These are all great questions that I thought I would break out into a home networking series for beginners. This is going to be

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like that so if that is something you're interested in hit the Subscribe button because we will be diving deeper into that in this series I'll put it all in a playlist for you guys to check out as these videos are getting posted also

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very beginner-based. It's going to be very top level. We're not going to dive into any of the advanced settings of any of this stuff. This is pretty much going to be a networking series on what devices you need, how to connect them, how

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that's more long form I will add it to this series and hopefully answer those questions for you guys if it's something quick I will also just respond to your comment too now with all that said where do we start home internet so I guess if

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to get internet to the different devices in your house, and then the series is going to build out into some tips and tricks on where to put that Wi-Fi system, how to increase the speed of your Wi-Fi, how to prevent hackers, different things

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your own find out who provides service to your area personally for me I have a t Fiverr coming to my house right now now depending on where you live there's going to be different speeds offered to you on what you can get for internet I

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like that. So if that is something you're interested in, hit the subscribe button because we will be diving deeper into that in this series. I'll put it all in a playlist for you guys to check out as these videos are getting posted. Also,

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think in today's day and age most people should be able to at least get 25 for me I think probably 100 Megs is pretty good you don't really need to go over 100 Megs it's going to depend on what you're

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comment below and let me know what additional questions you have. If it's something I can answer quick in a short form video, I will be posting those on my Instagram, so go ahead and follow me on Instagram right here. If it's something

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have in your house how many people are inside of your house what kind of stuff you're doing is everyone streaming 4K to their TVs and their bedrooms different things like that then you might want to look at getting over 100 Megs 100 Meg

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that's more long form, I will add it to this series and hopefully answer those questions for you guys. If it's something quick, I will also just respond to your comment too. Now, with all that said, where do we start? Home internet. So I guess if

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bragging rights it's just to say hey I've got a gig connection uh going up so I've got a thousand Meg up and a thousand Meg down do not feel like you need to get that now once you figure out

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we're going over the basics, we should probably start at the very beginning, and that's just getting internet to your house. Now, there are lots of different providers out there that provide different speeds at different prices. You're going to have to look that up on

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now I have a t so they provide a cable modem for me and that's we're going to be taking a look at in my setup but prior to this I had another service that allowed me to rent a cable modem I found

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your own, find out who provides service to your area. Personally, for me, I have AT&T Fiber coming to my house right now. Now, depending on where you live, there's going to be different speeds offered to you on what you can get for internet. I

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you're getting a cable modem make sure that the max speed on it is equivalent to what you are purchasing so if you are getting 500 Meg internet speed to your house make sure that cable modem is capable of that next you're going to

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would say at a minimum you want to try to at least get 25 meg internet speed. So that's going to be 25 meg of download speed to your house. Now, like I said, you may not be able to get that much. I would

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diligence and checking to make sure it's compatible with your setup if your internet service provides provides you with a modem then most likely you're going to be good to go everything's going to be set up on the back end

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think in today's day and age, most people should be able to at least get 25. For me, I think probably 100 megs is pretty good. You don't really need to go over 100 megs. It's going to depend on what you're

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everything configured now I'm not going to be going into any detail for the setup of individual modems because every company is different now once you get your modem set up you have internet coming to your house we have a couple of

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doing in your house, but if you're just streaming Netflix, surfing the web, checking emails, different things like that, what most standard people do, I would say 100 is going to be plenty. Now, depending on how many gadgets you

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master bedroom closet this thing is an absolute rat nest and hopefully we will clarify all of it so it doesn't get too confusing for you but just to start off here's my cable modem right here this is the one that ATT provided I've got a lot

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have in your house, how many people are inside of your house, what kind of stuff you're doing, is everyone streaming 4K to their TVs in their bedrooms, different things like that, then you might want to look at getting over 100 megs. 100 meg,

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internet into the house into the cable modem right here and then I've got four ports back here which we can use for whatever we want now typical cable modems that I have seen only have one extra port on the back but we can get

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300 meg, that's good. I currently have fiber to my house, so I actually have a thousand megs to my house. Do I need a thousand megs? Not at all. The reason I have a thousand megs is purely for

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these wires don't worry about it it's not that big of a deal we can get around that down here we have got one of my Wi-Fi AI connectors this is my Wi-Fi Hub right here and because obviously I'm

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bragging rights. It's just to say, "Hey, I've got a gig connection." So I've got a thousand meg up and a thousand meg down. Do not feel like you need to get that. Now, once you figure out

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cameras that's going around the house but let's go ahead what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull out the cable modem let's connect everything together and help it make more sense okay here is the cable modem with raw unprotected

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the speed that you're going to get to your house, you need to get a cable modem. Now, either your internet service provider or ISP is going to provide that cable modem to you, or you can lease one from them, or you can purchase your own.

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device that is going to not only protect you with a firewall built inside which is going to protect you from being completely Exposed on the internet but it is also going to have something inside of it called a DHCP server and

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Now, I have AT&T, so they provide a cable modem for me, and that's what we're going to be taking a look at in my setup. But prior to this, I had another service that allowed me to rent a cable modem. I found

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automatically set everything up for you it's going to make it so much easier and that would be my recommendation of where to go next now let's take a look at some routers with wireless wi-fi built into it all right we're gonna have a few

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that to be too expensive, and so I ended up buying my own. Now, there are several different cable modems that you can get out there. I will link some of them below, varying in different price ranges. What you're going to want to look at when

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Wi-Fi throughout your house the next option here is to take a look at what is called a mesh wi-fi system now I did a full video on what is mesh Wi-Fi how does it work all of the details in that

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you're getting a cable modem is make sure that the max speed on it is equivalent to what you are purchasing. So if you are getting 500 meg internet speed to your house, make sure that cable modem is capable of that. Next, you're going to

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going to take one of these units right here plug it into the back of your cable modem you're going to get that set up and then the other two units you are going to put somewhere throughout your house that is really going to help with

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want to make sure that that cable modem is compatible with the internet service provider that you choose. So just make sure those two things before you buy it. Like I said, I'll have some listed out below, but also just do your due

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friendly option that we're going to see right here and we do have a few other options on here these are going to get a little bit more expensive if you guys want to reference this is the one that I

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diligence and check to make sure it's compatible with your setup. If your internet service provider provides you with a modem, then most likely you're going to be good to go. Everything's going to be set up on the back end.

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let's go ahead and take these out of the box set this up and show you how to configure the rest of your home network so another big difference that I want to show you is take a look at the back of

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They'll either ship it to you or have a tech come out and install it, and you're done. You don't really have to worry about configuring it. If you purchase your own, you might have to work with a tech through that company to get

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of different stuff into that you can expand that if you want to do that but if we take a look at something like the mesh system right here and flip it around to the back we're only going to

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everything configured. Now, I'm not going to be going into any detail for the setup of individual modems because every company is different. Now, once you get your modem set up, you have internet coming to your house. We have a couple of

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switch like this is that we can plug a cable into here plug the other cable into port number one on this unmanaged switch and that is going to allow us to use the rest of the ports on here so

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different options for expanding that to the rest of the house and getting all of our devices online. So let's take a look at the back of my modem and see how everything is plugged in. All right, here is my current setup in my

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here you can get 16 you can get 24 but you know for my use case I'm just using the eight Port right here all right here's my mock setup before we get it set up in the closet so we've got our

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master bedroom closet. This thing is an absolute rat's nest, and hopefully we will clarify all of it so it doesn't get too confusing for you. But just to start off, here's my cable modem right here. This is the one that AT&T provided. I've got a lot

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firewall our protection everything is going to be plugged into this guy right here now I need some extra ports I need to get to the rest of the house for things that are not going to be connecting to this thing wirelessly so

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of stuff going on in the back of the ports here, a lot of different things plugged in. All we really need to know is that this cable right here is coming in from the street, so this is bringing

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plugged in this is just going to be like my Philips Hue Hub this is going to be another hub for my smart home stuff but you can plug you know whether it's a computer or a laptop or whatever you

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internet into the house into the cable modem right here. And then I've got four ports back here which we can use for whatever we want. Now, typical cable modems that I have seen only have one extra port on the back, but we can get

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like laid out here on the table now let's go to the closet and set it all up all right so here is the real world setup right now you can see the modem right here this black cable is plugged

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around that. Don't worry about it. Just to take a quick look at my current setup right now, I have got a switch up here. I've got all of these network cables coming in. This was pre-wired in the house when I bought it. If you don't have

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is good now I've got another cable coming out this is the blue cable right here where you follow it up this is actually going into my 16 Port switch so it's plugged into port number one the rest of these cables right here are all

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these wires, don't worry about it. It's not that big of a deal. We can get around that. Down here, we have got one of my Wi-Fi AI connectors. This is my Wi-Fi hub right here, and because obviously I'm

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cable extensions I'll show you guys what those look like right here so you can extend the cables if for some reason you're not able to get a full length out of these cables right here but this is what my network looks like now we've got

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playing around with so many different things, we've got another Wi-Fi up here. This is the Google Wi-Fi. I've got some network storage here. We have got an NVR here for my home security system that's recording all the footage for all the

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let's walk through the setup of getting this one specifically set up now this is The Deco X20 I've got the app loaded up right here I've already created an account so let's launch the app this right here is just saying that it can't

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cameras that's going around the house. But let's go ahead. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pull out the cable modem, let's connect everything together, and help it make more sense. Okay, here is the cable modem with raw, unprotected

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look for The Deco X20 so x20x21 I'm gonna click on that now this is just going to walk us through kind of everything we just talked about making sure that your cable modem is ready to go showing you how to plug everything in

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internet coming straight in, shooting out of these ports right here. What do we want to do next? We want to protect ourselves, and what we're going to want to do is get a router. Now, a router is a

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let's see here uh where have you placed this Deco we're going to say we placed it in the main bedroom right there click on next and it's basically just going to go through the process of getting this all set up for you all right so here's

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device that is going to not only protect you with a firewall built inside, which is going to protect you from being completely exposed on the internet, but it is also going to have something inside of it called a DHCP server, and

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click on next and now we need to create a network name and password so for this one right here let's go ahead and we'll create a Steve does test Network and then the password is just going to be Steve does YouTube all one

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what exactly that is going to do is it is going to hand out IP addresses to all your devices. So whether you plug something into that router or you connect wirelessly, if it is a wireless router, then that thing is going to

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to join let's go ahead and join with my phone cool assessing the internet connection for me right now so they make things so much easier now to set up a home network I know this can be intimidating for a

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automatically set everything up for you. It's going to make it so much easier, and that would be my recommendation of where to go next. Now, let's take a look at some routers with wireless Wi-Fi built into it. All right, we're going to have a

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let's go ahead and click on the next right here it says you want to add more decos so I've got two more decos that I want to add because this pack that we bought this is a three pack so what I'm

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gonna do is uh to add more decos onto here it is super easy we're just going to get those connected plugged in and then we can put these around the house that is what I love about a mesh system

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hopefully you checked out that what is mesh Wi-Fi so that way you guys know more about it if not check it out after this video but essentially we're going to take these devices right here and put them around our house you can move them

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wherever you want to they do connect wirelessly to each other but what I like about these two is they have an option for something called a back haul so if like me you do have have network cables running to each room of your house you

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can actually plug those in to the network ports on the wall and plug That Into You Know say the switch so we've got our switch right here you can plug the switch into here get it to those rooms on the wall and it's going to make

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your Wi-Fi even faster now if you don't have ethernet going to the rooms of your house maybe you have an older house maybe you have coax cables so you know those cables that you would plug in your cable TV box well you can actually buy a

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device to convert those into ethernet cables I did an awesome video on that so if you guys want to check that out I will also add that into the playlist of this video right here just to give you

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guys a little bit of an idea of what that is like but if we go back and take a look here at the app we've got our app loaded up it says we're connected to the Steve does test Network this is a really

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cool app I love looking at this app it gives us a lot of different options here you can turn on guest mode so that's going to create a guest Wi-Fi for your friends to connect to so you don't have

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to be handing out your password you can turn on guest Wi-Fi like that you you can connect different devices you can check the speed if we take a look at the top we have got to test internet speed

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we've got Wi-Fi settings down on the bottom there are a few tabs if we click on the more Tab and then let's see here let's go to the advanced Tab and remember that I said that this is also a

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router Now by default this is automatically going to have right here it says DHCP server is automatically going to have that turned on and the cool thing about that is that this is what is going to hand out all of those

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IPS to everything on our Network so you don't have to worry about setting anything of that up this is all going to be very automated if you notice right there like I said it's on by default so you don't have to worry about that the

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next time you bring up your phone or maybe you get like an echo dot or any kind of smart home device that you want to connect to your Wi-Fi this Steve does test network is going to be broadcast so

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it's going to bring up a list and say which one do you want to connect to you're going to pick your network that you created the name for you're going to put in your password and it's going to

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automatically connect and you're going to be good to go so that is kind of the basic rundown for somebody who is very new on this I hope that this video helped making videos like this I always worry about it being too simplistic or

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maybe adding it too much nerdy jargon to it so I hope this was kind of a good blend of those two like I said we are going to be diving deeper into increasing the speed of your home Wi-Fi

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so we're going to be taking some of these mesh networks here we're going to be going over some steps on how to increase the speed for you we're also going to be talking about the best place to be putting mesh Wi-Fi throughout your

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house where you're going to get the best bang for your buck I'll also be diving into the future that I talked about back haul and getting more speed out of your device we'll be talking about that too also another video that I have planned

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is one that is going to help protect your network from hackers so lots going into this video I hope you guys appreciate it if so give it a thumbs up let me know that you like it also remember to comment below and let me

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know what other topics you might want me to talk about in this year anyway hope you guys enjoyed it don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you in the next video [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Topics:home networkmesh Wi-Fiinternet setupcable modemnetwork securityWi-Fi tipsbeginner networkinginternet speedrouter setuphome internet

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