lightning storm

I have never had a Wi-Fi outage or any issue related to Wi-Fi playing movies or music even with Wi-Fi 5 technology, which is up to 7 now. I live in a large apartment building in a signal dense neighborhood, there are over 30 networks to choose from when I search for one;

@hifidream  - Those are very good outcomes indeed!  I have been in similar situations and myself and my neighbors were constantly faced with Wifi buffering issues unless we actively attempted to find unused channels.

My advice is still the same, if in doubt at all use a Wifi Analyzer (free!) for your laptop or phone and look not just at signal strength but also channel congestion and try to pick out a channel with the least number of competing signals.  This by the way has also led me to discover that my Wifi router here at home was just spontaneously going offline.  Time for a new one. 

This is also an excellent tool to use to ensure your router placement was optional.  Did I mention they are free?  

@hifidream 

Wifi streaming is safest for your devices but may not be ideal depending on your neighbors and other factors.  My experience, as someone who not only streams but also needs a reliable network connection for work is that Ethernet is still the king of reliability.  If my PC or TV stop being able to stream I know it’s not my wifi. 

The use of a free wifi analyzer for your phone or tablet can always help you decide on the ideal configuration, not just in terms of signal strength but also picking out the least congested channels in your neighborhood as well as helping you decide where to put your router. 

Also, even if you opt for 100% wifi inside your home put your modem/router on a surge protector to reduce the chance of an incoming surge hitting your power lines and causing secondary damage through that path. 

Welp, somehow things always get muddled.  For the record, I recommend the use of an outdoor coaxial surge protector mounted ON the grounding block. 

A grounding block is required for any coaxial cables entering a home from the outside, whether from the cable TV provider, an FM or TV or Dish antenna as well. These ensure the ground potential of your antennas stays at the same reference level as the rest of your home outlets so you don’t have the possibility that ground on your antenna is hundreds of volts different than the house ground.   This was probably installed by your cable/Internet provider already.  

A coaxial surge protector is there for cases when an electrical surge is present on the inner wire, diverting that excess voltage and current to ground before entering your home, which is why it’s best on the outside and on the grounding block itself.   They are imperfect but they do limit the fallout radius of a lightning surge.   Sometimes these are installed by the cable TV / Internet providers but usually inside on the modem. 

For further reading check out sites devoted to ham radio operators.  

If you have an antenna mounted in the attic a ground block is not required. 

I’m pretty sure he meant more than one earth connection to the electrical grounding system of the house. (From mother earth to the inside of the house and back out of the house to mother earth.)

Nope. 

Lightning strikes from coax or network connections aren’t necessarily from ground to ground.  They seek ground potential, but they are not necessarily carried in by the ground conductors. 

What the tech was referring to is that lightning potential seeks a path to ground, and will find the lowest insulated point to go through.  

This is a reason why I specifically do NOT recommend grounding Ethernet "surge protectors."  Best to deny a surge a path via isolators than to allow a low voltage current path which may also convert common mode to differential and enable the passing of a surge downstream. 

In the case of an outside surge coming in from other than the power lines, the series mode protectors have the edge as instead of encouraging the surge path they deny it, but only on the hot wire I believe.  

@hifidream  - I'm curious.  What, if any, coax protection did you have at the time?  We had a significant near by strike here when I moved (2021 I think) that took out the cable provider's equipment and every single modem in my small subdivision.  I used an outdoor gas discharge protector.  While I did lose the modem, the Wifi router it was attached to and all the gear attached to it directly was not affected. 

The Internet is filled with stories about lightning coming in via the cable modem and taking out entire HT systems via burned out Ethernet ports. 

Most Internet users rely 100% on Wifi, but for those of us who use it professionally or just don’t like to have Wifi problems we wire all our big gear up.  Our work computer, TV, music streamer, etc. and so I take a paranoid approach.   Using Ethernet is great for reliability but also leaves us more exposed to incoming surges.  

I use an external coaxial surge protector with gas discharge tube.   Internally I air gap the modem and router with fiber/Ethernet converters and at the end of long runs I use Ethernet isolators (not surge protectors) which are tested to UL 60-601

Even when lightning does not directly strike a power line the magnetic pulse is picked up by every cable nearby, from high tension lines to your house wiring, antenna cables and Internet provider's wiring.  

We don’t always know when a surge will come down the line so having a good surge protector is essential IMHO, but even then I would absolutely recommend unplugging when you know a big storm is coming through.  Sometimes I even turn off my HVAC and range as well, despite having a whole house surge protector.