02·NET

Network & Connectivity

Fiber to the home, a UniFi gateway, managed PoE switches, and access points — all wired, all conveying with the house.

956 N Noble Loop · Showing Edition · Rev A · Aug 2026

At a glance

A professional-grade UniFi network on fiber to the home, wired for 100% Power-over-Ethernet. It powers WiFi, the cameras/doorbell, and the smart-home devices. It stays with the house. The internet itself is dual-WAN: CenturyLink fiber as the primary line with an automatic T-Mobile 5G backup — a mature, professional-grade setup where a fiber outage is something the network quietly rides through, not something you have to manage.

Where: Everything except the access points lives in one closet — the closet of the former office (now a bedroom), right next to the media room: the UniFi controller, all the switches, the firewall/gateway, the fiber termination and its ethernet handoff, and the termination for the backup 5G connection. The steam shower generator shares that same closet. Access points are mounted around the house (ceilings/walls).
Must know: If the internet goes down, the fix is almost always at the fiber box (ONT) or the gateway — see Troubleshooting, which now also covers the automatic 5G failover. Changing the WiFi name/password is a 2-minute app task — see App & account.
Status: Everything installed and operating. Ownership transfer options documented below.

UniFi network topology: ISP to gateway to a US-48 PoE switch, smaller switches, and access points. — The home’s actual UniFi topology — gateway, switches, and access points.

Location: upper floor — network gear.

2Everyday use

For 90% of daily life you never touch the network — it just works. The two things you will actually do are: get a device on WiFi, and hand out guest WiFi.

Get a device on WiFi

On your phone/laptop, open WiFi settings and pick the house network name (SSID).
Enter the WiFi password from the sealed credentials sheet.
That’s it — the same password works everywhere in the house and yard; the access points hand you off automatically as you move.

The WiFi network name and passwordSealed credentials sheet · handed over at closing

Guest WiFi

There is a separate guest network that gives visitors internet without touching your devices, cameras, or smart-home gear. Hand guests the guest network name and password (also on the credentials sheet) rather than your main one.

The one rule

Leave the gear in the closet powered on and plugged into the same ports. Almost every “internet problem” is either the internet provider’s side or a single unplugged cable — not the equipment being wrong.

Why the internet basically doesn’t go down

This house has two independent internet connections — CenturyLink fiber and a T-Mobile 5G line — with the gateway set to switch to the backup automatically if the fiber drops. In everyday terms: a fiber outage that would knock most houses offline for hours here is usually just a few seconds of blip while the gateway swaps over. See Troubleshooting for how to tell which one you’re on.

3App & account

The network is managed with the UniFi app (iOS/Android) and the web dashboard. Everyday tasks — rename WiFi, change the password, see who’s connected, run a speed test — are all in the app.

Change the WiFi name or password

Open the UniFi app and sign in (the site admin account is on the credentials sheet).
Go to Settings → WiFi and pick the network.
Edit the name or password and save. Devices will need the new password re-entered once.

Account transfer on day one

The network controller is tied to a UniFi (Ubiquiti SSO) account. Two clean ways to make it yours are documented in the Deep dive: console ownership transfer (keeps every setting) or factory-reset-and-re-adopt (a fresh start you own end to end). The seller’s account is removed either way.

The UniFi (Ubiquiti SSO) admin loginSealed credentials sheet · handed over at closing

4Maintenance

Firmware: UniFi gear self-updates on a schedule; no action needed. After a big update, a 2-minute check that WiFi and cameras are back is worth it.
Dust: once or twice a year, make sure the closet gear has airflow and isn’t boxed in by storage. The PoE switch runs warm — that’s normal.
Reboots: almost never needed. If you do reboot, power the gateway back up first, then switches, then wait for access points to come back on their own.

Before you unplug anything

Take a photo of the current cabling first. Ports are chosen deliberately (PoE budget, uplinks). A photo turns “which cable went where?” into a 10-second answer.

5Troubleshooting

Symptom	First checks	When to escalate
Pages load, but the internet feels slower or “different”	This is the normal sign that the automatic failover has kicked in and you’re temporarily riding the T-Mobile 5G backup instead of fiber — everything still works, just not at gigabit fiber speed. Check the UniFi app/dashboard — exact screen to confirm at walkthrough to see which WAN is currently active.	Still on the 5G backup more than a day after a known fiber outage should be resolved → call CenturyLink about the fiber line.
No internet at all, whole house	Rare — it means both the fiber and the 5G backup are down at once. Look at the fiber box (ONT) lights and the gateway. If the ONT shows an alarm/red light, that’s CenturyLink’s side — call them. If the ONT looks normal, power-cycle the gateway.	Both WANs down after a reboot → call CenturyLink about fiber, and check the T-Mobile account/line status too.
WiFi weak in one spot	Confirm the nearest access point has its light on. A single AP offline drops coverage in its area only.	AP dark with the cable seated → it’s a PoE/switch-port issue (Deep dive).
One device won’t connect	Forget the network on that device and rejoin with the password from the credentials sheet. Reboot the device.	Multiple devices failing at once → treat as a network-wide issue above.
Cameras/doorbell offline	These are PoE or WiFi devices on this network — if the whole network is down, fix that first. Otherwise power-cycle the specific device.	Persistent single-device dropouts → see the Security & access page (to come).

Don’t factory-reset in a panic

A factory reset of the gateway or a switch erases the configuration this house depends on. It is a deliberate ownership-transfer step (Deep dive), not a troubleshooting step. Reboots are safe; resets are not.

6Specs & identity

Core network gear
Internet service	Dual-WAN: CenturyLink fiber (primary) + T-Mobile 5G (automatic backup)
Primary — CenturyLink fiber	Symmetric (“synchronous”) gigabit — the same speed uploading as downloading
Backup — T-Mobile 5G	$20/month cellular line; the gateway fails over to it automatically if the fiber drops, and fails back once fiber returns
Failover configuration (thresholds, WAN priority, etc.)	owner's edition
ONT (fiber box) location	owner's edition
5G backup termination location	owner's edition
Where the gear lives	One closet — the former office/now-bedroom closet next to the media room — holds the controller, every switch, the gateway, the fiber termination, and the 5G backup termination. The steam shower generator shares this closet.
Controller	owner's edition
Gateway	UniFi Security Gateway USG-XG-8 (per the topology diagram)
Gateway serial / MAC	owner's edition
Core switch	UniFi US-48-PoE (48-port PoE)
Secondary switches	UniFi US-8 + an office switch
Switch serials / MACs	owner's edition
Access points	UniFi U7 Pro, AC-Pro, AC-HD
AP mount locations	owner's edition
Wiring	100% Power-over-Ethernet; gear in the network closet
Management IP / subnet	owner's edition
WiFi network name (SSID)	on the credentials sheet
WiFi password	see credentials sheet
Guest WiFi password	see credentials sheet
UniFi admin login	see credentials sheet

Why serials and config are hidden here

In the showing edition, identity and configuration rows collapse to “owner’s edition.” They’re in the buyer’s copy in full — you need them for warranty and support. Passwords never appear in any edition; they’re on the sealed credentials sheet.

Known Ethernet drops (partial — full map to gather)
Media room — projector	owner's edition
Media room — screen wall	owner's edition
Media room — console (hardwired)	owner's edition
Which switch port each lands on	owner's edition

Two new drops found during the media-room photo pass

The projector and screen-wall drops above turned up while photographing the media room, not from a dedicated network survey — a reminder that the full room-by-room drop map (Deep dive) is still a to-gather item, not a finished inventory.

7Documents & links

Official manuals and product pages for each device are archived locally in the buyer’s edition (offline copies) and linked to the manufacturer below. These are the pages a new owner or their IT person will actually want.

UniFi — Ubiquiti support & downloads
Firmware, guides, and the UniFi app downloads.
UniFi Security Gateway (USG) documentation
Gateway setup and adoption references.
UniFi — Transfer ownership of a console
The clean “make it yours without losing settings” path (see Deep dive).
UniFi community forum
Genuinely useful for model-specific questions.
UniFi Security Gateway XG-8 — datasheet (PDF)
Official dl.ubnt.com. Exact match.
UniFi Security Gateway XG-8 — quick start guide (PDF)
Official dl.ubnt.com. Exact match.
UniFi Switch US-48-PoE — quick start guide (PDF)
Official dl.ubnt.com; covers the US-48-500W/750W PoE variants.
UniFi AP AC Pro — quick start guide (PDF)
Official dl.ubnt.com. Exact match.
UniFi AP AC HD — datasheet (PDF)
Official dl.ubnt.com. Exact match.

The UniFi AP U7 Pro’s datasheet could not be archived — every dl.ui.com link for it resolves to a JS-rendered viewer with no static PDF served, and archive.org lookups were rate-limited during the gathering pass. Worth a manual retry later.

To archive (Phase B)

Download the USG-XG-8, US-48-PoE, US-8, U7 Pro, AC-Pro, and AC-HD datasheets/quick-start PDFs into the local documents library so the manual works with no internet.

Section 8Technical reference ExpandCollapse

The engineering layer — for a buyer's technician, or a curious owner.

Written for the buyer’s network person. If that’s you: this is a standard UniFi single-site deployment, cleanly wired, and it will feel immediately familiar.

Topology

UniFi throughput and PoE utilization view. — Live throughput and PoE load across the switches.

Owner's edition

Full details in the owner's edition — serial numbers, configuration and identity details continue in the complete manual, handed to the buyer at closing.

Dual-WAN: CenturyLink fiber + T-Mobile 5G failover

This is a real dual-WAN setup, not a single connection with a phone as a spare: CenturyLink fiber (symmetric gigabit) terminates in the network closet as WAN1, and a T-Mobile 5G line ($20/month) terminates in the same closet as WAN2. The gateway is configured to detect a fiber outage and switch to the 5G line automatically, then switch back once fiber is healthy again.

Owner's edition

Full details in the owner's edition — serial numbers, configuration and identity details continue in the complete manual, handed to the buyer at closing.

What this means day to day: a fiber outage is usually a non-event. Streaming, WiFi, the cameras — everything simply keeps working over the 5G backup, generally without anyone noticing anything beyond a brief blip during the switch. If the connection ever feels slower than usual, that’s the tell that you’re temporarily on the 5G line rather than fiber (see Troubleshooting for how to check).

The T-Mobile line is a separate monthly service

The $20/month T-Mobile 5G backup is billed on its own, separately from the CenturyLink fiber plan. It’s the seller’s account today. A new owner can take over that line and keep the automatic failover, or drop it and run on fiber alone — either is a reasonable choice, and it’s the buyer’s call. The account-transfer mechanics for making that decision live on the account-transfer runbook, not here.

PoE budget — the thing to respect

The whole house is PoE: access points, cameras, and the doorbell all draw their power from the switch ports. That’s elegant, but it means the switch’s PoE budget is a real, finite resource.

Before adding a PoE device, check the switch’s remaining PoE headroom in the UniFi dashboard (the throughput view above shows current load).
AC-HD access points are relatively hungry (802.3at/PoE+). Don’t assume a port that ran an AC-Lite will run an AC-HD.
If you add high-draw devices, you may need PoE+ on that port or a small dedicated injector rather than overcommitting the switch.

Adoption & reset paths (for a new owner)

Owner's edition

Full details in the owner's edition — serial numbers, configuration and identity details continue in the complete manual, handed to the buyer at closing.

Recommendation

Take the console transfer unless you have a specific reason to rebuild. It keeps a working house working. Reserve factory-reset for when a from-scratch, provably-clean configuration matters more than convenience.

Reset mechanics

Owner's edition

Full details in the owner's edition — serial numbers, configuration and identity details continue in the complete manual, handed to the buyer at closing.

What to gather to finish this page

Owner's edition

Full details in the owner's edition — serial numbers, configuration and identity details continue in the complete manual, handed to the buyer at closing.