.png&w=96&q=75){kind=small}
Executive Continuity Residence
Fios + Starlink Failover • Four WiFi 7 Zones • Commissioned While the Owner Was Overseas
A continuity network for a three-story Lorton, Virginia residence, designed and commissioned while the owner was overseas. Verizon Fios primary with Starlink held in standby, four WiFi 7 access points on dedicated runs, a wall-mounted UniFi core on protected power, and a 20-page infrastructure guide written for the family and for whoever services the system next.
The owner would be overseas for the installation, so the system had to be built, commissioned, and explained without them in the room. Orbit Tech delivered Fios-plus-Starlink failover, four WiFi 7 zones, a wall-mounted core on protected power, secure remote access, and a guide that lets anyone at the property — or the next technician — run the system from the document alone.
Owner Overseas During Installation • Family at the Property • Designated Site Contact
Timeline: Commissioned August 13, 2026
Installed with the owner overseas and a designated site contact on site
Crew: 1 technician
The Orbit ProtocolThe Scenario
The owner was leaving the country within the week, and the system would be installed and commissioned while they were away, with a designated site contact at the property. The brief was not headline speed. It was a stable, documented network the family could use every day, that the owner could reach securely from abroad where the local network permitted, and that nobody at the property would need technical knowledge to keep running.
Challenge Identified
Nobody who would live with the system had watched it being built. Every decision had to survive without the installer or the owner present: which outlet restarts the gateway, which device not to touch, what an expected behavior looks like versus a fault. Coverage had to hold across three floors, an attached garage, and the rear outdoor area, each absorbing signal differently, and remote access had to work without exposing anything to the open internet.
Solution Design
A UniFi Dream Machine SE runs routing, firewall, and local recording from a wall-mounted rack, with Verizon Fios 1 Gbps on the primary WAN and Starlink on the second, held in failover-only standby. A 10 Gbps fiber link carries the core to a USW Pro Max 16 PoE switch, and every endpoint has its own cable back to it: three U7 Pro access points on the main floor, second floor, and garage, a U7 Outdoor at the rear living area, two G5 Turret Ultra cameras recording locally to the gateway, and a 2.5 GbE switch downstream in the office. A metered UniFi Power Distribution Pro and a CyberPower pure sine-wave UPS carry the rack, and UniFi Teleport gives the owner a private route in with no port forwarding.
Infrastructure Topology
Primary WAN · 1 Gbps
Backup WAN · Standby
Gateway · Dual-WAN · Local Recording
1500VA Pure Sine Wave
Metered · Switched Outlets
10 Gbps Fiber Uplink
Office · Downstream
Main · 2nd Floor · Garage
Rear Outdoor Area
Locally Recorded · PoE
Fios and Starlink feed a UDM SE held in failover-only mode; a 10 Gbps fiber link carries the core to a 16-port PoE switch that powers each access point and camera over its own cable, with a 2.5 GbE switch downstream in the office.
Deliverables
Quantified Improvement
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Internet path | Fios only, no standby service | Fios primary, Starlink automatic failover |
| Reaching the system from abroad | No secure route in | UniFi Teleport, nothing exposed to the open internet |
| System record | None | 20-page guide, labeled rack, outlet and port schedule |
| Capacity in reserve | N/A | 8 switch ports, 141 W PoE, 226 addresses |
Away while the property still has to run?
A continuity system can be designed, installed, and handed over to a site contact while you are traveling, with remote access and full documentation waiting when you return.
Schedule an Infrastructure AssessmentMethodology Applied
Every deployment follows the same four-phase field process so the finished system reflects planning and documentation, not on-site improvisation.
Terrain & RF Survey
The review established a three-story finished home of about 4,320 sq ft with an attached garage and rear outdoor living area, a single Verizon Fios line, and a hard constraint: the owner would be overseas for the entire installation. Access-point zones were planned floor by floor with the garage wall and floor assemblies in mind, and a site contact was designated to confirm mounting points within the accepted zones.
Architecture Design
Continuity over headline speed. Fios as the primary WAN with Starlink integrated in failover-only standby, one wall-mounted equipment location, every access point and camera on its own cable so a fault stays local, metered and battery-backed rack power, and UniFi Teleport for remote reach without port forwarding. The design assumed that nobody who lives with the system saw it built.
Precision Deployment
The rack, patch panel, brush panel, and power chain went in first, followed by home-run cabling to four access points, two cameras, and a downstream office switch, each patched to a numbered switch port. The UDM SE was brought up with both WANs, the 10 Gbps fiber link to the switch was verified, and the site contact received the walkthrough at handoff.
Sovereignty Transfer
The owner received a 20-page infrastructure guide: a first-response table, a restart order tied to labeled PDU outlets, what is normal versus a fault, coverage and gaps by zone, the outlet schedule, full port assignment, spare capacity, and an open-items register — plus a quick-reference card for the household. The owner holds the primary UniFi account; Orbit Tech holds a separate, revocable support account.
Equipment Architecture
UDM-SE
Wall-mount rack · routing, firewall, local recording · Fios WAN1, Starlink WAN2
16-port · 10 Gbps SFP+ uplink
Wall-mount rack · 8 of 16 ports in use
2.5 GbE downstream switch
Home office
WiFi 7 · 2.5 GbE
Main floor, second floor, garage
WiFi 7 · outdoor-rated
Rear exterior · outdoor living area
Fiber · 1 Gbps
Primary WAN
Backup WAN · failover-only
Standby · no traffic while Fios is healthy
Patch panel, brush panel, labeled leads
Single documented equipment location
USP PDU Pro · switched, metered
Rack · outlets labeled to the guide
CP1500PFCRM2U · 1500VA
Rack base
2K · recorded locally to a 4 TB drive in the gateway
Side garage, rear elevation
Measurable Results
At commissioning Fios measured 99.67% availability with about 5 ms round-trip latency, and Starlink about 44 ms — observed figures for this line, not commitments. Every device, port, and outlet was verified against the management console and recorded in the guide, and eight switch ports, 141 W of PoE budget, and 226 addresses remain in reserve. Items still to close were written into the open-items register in the guide rather than left to memory.
The guide was written on the assumption that the person who built the system will not be in the room when it is needed.
Installation Gallery
The core as handed over: patch panel, 16-port PoE switch, UDM SE, metered power distribution, and UPS in one wall-mount enclosure
Every patch lead dressed and labeled so the rack reads the same as the guide
Eight ports in use, eight held in reserve; the gateway and switch share a 10 Gbps fiber link
Individually switched and metered outlets, backed by a pure sine-wave UPS
This deployment applies architecture documented across our service methodology:
Services Deployed
Equipment Manifest
- UniFi Dream Machine SE
- UniFi USW Pro Max 16 PoE
- UniFi USW Flex 2.5G 5
- UniFi U7 Pro ×3
- UniFi U7 Outdoor ×1
- Starlink (backup WAN)
- UniFi Power Distribution Pro
- CyberPower CP1500PFCRM2U UPS
- UniFi G5 Turret Ultra ×2
Related Services
Related Case Studies
Your Property Deserves Engineered Infrastructure
If your property resembles this deployment, the next step is assessing it correctly before more money is spent on disconnected fixes.
Every deployment begins with a property assessment. Tell us how the property is built, where service breaks down, and what has to stay online, and we'll design the system around those facts.