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Home-Office Continuity Network
Comcast + Starlink Failover • 48-Port PoE Core • Every Endpoint Home-Run to the Basement Rack
A work-from-home continuity network for an occupied, finished home in Partlow, Virginia. Comcast primary with Starlink installed as the automatic backup path, four WiFi 7 access points, and a 12U basement cabinet where every access point, camera, and doorbell terminates on its own cable. Installed August 21, 2026 and verified against the management console three days later.
A household that works from home full time needed a network that stays up when the primary line does not. Orbit Tech installed Starlink as an automatic backup behind Comcast, four WiFi 7 access points, and a 12U basement cabinet where every endpoint terminates on its own cable — then documented the whole system so it can be serviced by someone who did not build it.
Full-Time Remote-Work Household • Occupied Finished Home • Basement Core Requested
Partlow, VA
Occupied finished home with basement
Spotsylvania County
Timeline: Installed August 21, 2026
Verified against the management console August 24, 2026
Crew: 1 technician
The Orbit ProtocolThe Scenario
The household supports full-time remote work, so the network had to do more than provide fast wireless. It needed a planned second internet path, consistent coverage as people move through the home, and an equipment core organized enough to be serviced without guesswork. The home was occupied and finished — walls closed, attic access available — and the owner asked for the core to live in the basement.
Challenge Identified
A single Comcast line carried every work call, and there was no central point where cabling, switching, and protected power came together. Cable routes had to respect a finished interior, the Starlink backup needed a clear view of the sky and a clean path into the basement, and the whole system had to fail over on its own — without anyone at home touching a plug.
Solution Design
The system was built around a 12U wall-mount cabinet in the basement. A UniFi Dream Machine SE runs the network with Comcast on the primary WAN port and Starlink — supplied, mounted, activated, and integrated by Orbit Tech — on the second, held in failover-only standby. A 10 Gbps fiber link feeds a USW Pro Max 48 PoE switch, and every endpoint runs home to it on a dedicated cable: three U7 Pro access points in the office, living room, and basement, a U7 Outdoor at the rear, three G5 Turret Ultra cameras, a doorbell station, and its chime. A metered UniFi Power Distribution Pro and a CyberPower pure sine-wave UPS carry the rack, and thirteen of forty-eight switch ports are in use, leaving thirty-five for future wired points.
Infrastructure Topology
Primary WAN
Backup WAN · Standby
Gateway · Dual-WAN · Local Recording
1500VA Pure Sine Wave
Metered · Switched Outlets
10 Gbps Fiber Uplink
Office · Living Room · Basement
Rear Exterior
Locally Recorded · PoE
Front Entry + PoE Chime
Comcast and Starlink feed a UDM SE held in failover-only mode; a 10 Gbps fiber link carries the core to a 48-port PoE switch that powers every access point, camera, and the doorbell over its own home-run cable.
Deliverables
Quantified Improvement
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Internet path | Comcast only, no standby service | Comcast primary, Starlink automatic failover |
| Equipment core | No central home-run point | 12U basement cabinet with labeled patch panel |
| Rack power | No protected power chain | Metered PDU + 1500VA pure sine-wave UPS |
| Ports in reserve | N/A | 35 of 48 PoE ports free for future wired points |
Working from home on a single internet line?
A second path, protected rack power, and hardwired coverage are planned as one system, then commissioned with a controlled failover test before handoff.
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 confirmed an occupied, finished home with attic access, a single Comcast line, and an owner request for the equipment core in the basement. Access-point positions were planned against the office, living room, basement, and rear exterior, and the Starlink mount was planned for clear sky and a clean cable path down to the rack.
Architecture Design
Continuity first: Comcast as the primary WAN with Starlink integrated as a failover-only backup, a 12U basement cabinet as the single home-run point, a 48-port PoE core sized for future wired rooms rather than the current count, and metered, battery-backed rack power. Every endpoint was given its own cable so a fault stays with that device.
Precision Deployment
The cabinet, patch panel, brush panel, and power chain went in first, then the home-run cabling to four access points, three cameras, the doorbell, and its chime, terminated and patched to numbered switch ports. Starlink was mounted, activated, and integrated on the second WAN port, and the system was brought up and tested before handoff.
Sovereignty Transfer
The owner received a network guide with a first-response table, restart steps, an outlet schedule, and the full equipment and port record, verified against the management console on August 24, 2026. The owner holds the primary UniFi account; Orbit Tech holds a separate, revocable administrator account for support.
Equipment Architecture
UDM-SE
Basement cabinet · routing, firewall, local recording · Comcast WAN1, Starlink WAN2
48-port · 10 Gbps SFP+ uplink
Basement cabinet · 13 of 48 ports in use
WiFi 7
Office, living room, basement
WiFi 7 · outdoor-rated
Rear exterior
Primary WAN
Carries all traffic under normal conditions
Backup WAN · failover-only
Supplied, installed, and integrated · no traffic while Comcast is healthy
Locking glass door · rack fan
Basement
USP PDU Pro · switched, metered
Cabinet · 5 of 20 AC outlets in use
CP1500PFCRM2U · 1500VA
Cabinet base
PoE · recorded locally on the gateway
Front, back, garage
Front entry · chime inside
Measurable Results
At commissioning, Comcast measured 100% availability over the sampled period at roughly a tenth of its capacity at peak, and Starlink was connected, tested, and left on standby — observations for this line, not commitments. Every device, port, and outlet was verified against the management console on August 24, 2026 and recorded in the owner guide. The rack draws about 193 W across five metered outlets, and 35 switch ports, 11 PDU outlets, and the patch panel remain open for the next wired point.
Thirty-five switch ports, eleven PDU outlets, and open panel positions are held in reserve so the next wired point is a cable pull, not a rebuild.
Installation Gallery
The basement core: patch panel, 48-port PoE switch, UDM SE, metered PDU, Starlink router, and UPS in one locking cabinet
Every run terminates on the panel and patches down to a numbered switch port that matches the guide
Closed and locked — the door protects the core without hiding its status lights
Turret camera under the eave — one dedicated PoE run back to the basement, recorded locally
Doorbell station at the entry, wired PoE, paired with a PoE chime inside
Soffit-corner mount — the same hardwired standard as every other endpoint on the property
This deployment applies architecture documented across our service methodology:
Services Deployed
Equipment Manifest
- UniFi Dream Machine SE
- UniFi USW Pro Max 48 PoE
- UniFi U7 Pro ×3
- UniFi U7 Outdoor ×1
- Starlink (backup WAN)
- UniFi Power Distribution Pro
- CyberPower CP1500PFCRM2U UPS
- 12U wall-mount cabinet
- UniFi G5 Turret Ultra ×3
- UniFi Doorbell Lite + Chime PoE
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.