Extending my WIFI and SSID splitting
Discussion
Hi all
Background:
In my previous house, i ran Cat6 from all the rooms to a gigabit switch. Had a couple of POE cameras, 4 rapberry pi's running kodi, a HP micro server and a few wireless devices. We have an Asus AC3100 with a BT fibre modem
Having moved to a new (project) house the Asus 3100 is struggling to broadcast its wireless throughout the house. All the ethernet devices are now wireless and we now have a selection of additional wireless devices being added.
Does anyone have a recommendation to extend the wifi. I purchased an extender HERE but i am still struggling
I have been looking at the Netgear Orbi. Anyone got or had an Orbi?
I looked at Ubiquiti but they require ethernet mainly to extend
Now, I have several Nest cameras, Google devices, Amazon sticks and kodi, washing machines and driers running as wireless static devices. Then we have mobiles and other mobile devices.
Do people split up the SSID's to have cater for different device types??
Thanks
Nick
Background:
In my previous house, i ran Cat6 from all the rooms to a gigabit switch. Had a couple of POE cameras, 4 rapberry pi's running kodi, a HP micro server and a few wireless devices. We have an Asus AC3100 with a BT fibre modem
Having moved to a new (project) house the Asus 3100 is struggling to broadcast its wireless throughout the house. All the ethernet devices are now wireless and we now have a selection of additional wireless devices being added.
Does anyone have a recommendation to extend the wifi. I purchased an extender HERE but i am still struggling
I have been looking at the Netgear Orbi. Anyone got or had an Orbi?
I looked at Ubiquiti but they require ethernet mainly to extend
Now, I have several Nest cameras, Google devices, Amazon sticks and kodi, washing machines and driers running as wireless static devices. Then we have mobiles and other mobile devices.
Do people split up the SSID's to have cater for different device types??
Thanks
Nick
Seems people use a mix of different tech to pipe Internet around. Powerline/HomePlugs with a wifi access point (AP) on the end works for some, mesh systems or both for others. (Powerlines here, as throughput isn't an issue for the smart Tv.)
WiFi extenders have to go in range of the source, so might not extended far enough for some properties.
Splitting the SSID used to be mandatory a couple of years ago for getting some iThings to work with BT routers, otherwise it's often useful for testing distant connections. 5Ghz WiFi doesn't seem to like the 1969 brick walls in my house, so 2.4Ghz is in use for the mobiles/tablets.
WiFi extenders have to go in range of the source, so might not extended far enough for some properties.
Splitting the SSID used to be mandatory a couple of years ago for getting some iThings to work with BT routers, otherwise it's often useful for testing distant connections. 5Ghz WiFi doesn't seem to like the 1969 brick walls in my house, so 2.4Ghz is in use for the mobiles/tablets.
I'd treat type of access point, how you connect the access points to your router, and how many SSIDs you have as separate topics.
Most (decent) access points regardless if they are standalone, extenders or mesh will allow you a variety of different ways to connect them up. Obviously if you can run cat 5/6 between your access points and the router this is going to be the most reliable and highest performing solution. If you can't then assuming you do not have overly complicated mains electrics (like completely separate rings) or poor quality electrics with lots of interference, then powerline using decent powerline devices (not cheap s
t) will be the next best option. Finally extending via a separate WiFi channel is going to be the worst option but with good quality gear it will work, but will have upper limits of how much data you can push across it.
In terms of access points when using a single SSID I would always recommend a proper mesh system, even if hard wiring with cat 5/6 or powerlines as the access points are setup to properly hand over the clients to the next nearest access point when range is getting stretched. While you can make a large network work with normal access points (I have 3 R7000s connected via cat 6 to give me whole house and garden coverage) they cannot manage the hand over properly. You cannot trust clients to properly select the correct access point, particularly anything from Apple, the access point has to be involved with the hand over.
While you can setup multiple access points with different SSIDs and then expect any mobile devices to flip over to them, I have never been impressed with this approach as less tech savy people in the house never get it working right. Far easier to have a single SSID for a group of devices such as mobiles and laptops, and have the access point flip it over to the nearest access point.
For groups of devices such as security cameras or network streaming devices putting them onto separate SSIDs only really makes sense if you want to wall them off in separate VLANs to apply different security or QoS parameters to them. If you are going down that route then you need to make sure all your network gear supports VLANs (and the same tagging standard) properly otherwise it isn't going to work. You can do a basic approach with guest networks on some access points, but these are fairly limited in what you can configure for security/QoS, and don't offer enough to be worth investing time in IMO.
Most (decent) access points regardless if they are standalone, extenders or mesh will allow you a variety of different ways to connect them up. Obviously if you can run cat 5/6 between your access points and the router this is going to be the most reliable and highest performing solution. If you can't then assuming you do not have overly complicated mains electrics (like completely separate rings) or poor quality electrics with lots of interference, then powerline using decent powerline devices (not cheap s
t) will be the next best option. Finally extending via a separate WiFi channel is going to be the worst option but with good quality gear it will work, but will have upper limits of how much data you can push across it. In terms of access points when using a single SSID I would always recommend a proper mesh system, even if hard wiring with cat 5/6 or powerlines as the access points are setup to properly hand over the clients to the next nearest access point when range is getting stretched. While you can make a large network work with normal access points (I have 3 R7000s connected via cat 6 to give me whole house and garden coverage) they cannot manage the hand over properly. You cannot trust clients to properly select the correct access point, particularly anything from Apple, the access point has to be involved with the hand over.
While you can setup multiple access points with different SSIDs and then expect any mobile devices to flip over to them, I have never been impressed with this approach as less tech savy people in the house never get it working right. Far easier to have a single SSID for a group of devices such as mobiles and laptops, and have the access point flip it over to the nearest access point.
For groups of devices such as security cameras or network streaming devices putting them onto separate SSIDs only really makes sense if you want to wall them off in separate VLANs to apply different security or QoS parameters to them. If you are going down that route then you need to make sure all your network gear supports VLANs (and the same tagging standard) properly otherwise it isn't going to work. You can do a basic approach with guest networks on some access points, but these are fairly limited in what you can configure for security/QoS, and don't offer enough to be worth investing time in IMO.
I'm a convert to the mesh type system, and recently bought a set of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-MW6-AC1200-Whole-Sy...
I can now pickup the wifi from my house halfway down the road whereas with the standard BT Hub i couldn't get a signal in my garage.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-MW6-AC1200-Whole-Sy...
I can now pickup the wifi from my house halfway down the road whereas with the standard BT Hub i couldn't get a signal in my garage.
In order of preference
Cat 6 and access points at stragetic parts of the house. Take care to make sure the AP's are on different channels
Mesh
Powerline adapters linked to switches and AP's wherever possible use cable for devices. Make sure the powerlines are the fastest you can afford and shop around as promo's happen
Cat 6 and access points at stragetic parts of the house. Take care to make sure the AP's are on different channels
Mesh
Powerline adapters linked to switches and AP's wherever possible use cable for devices. Make sure the powerlines are the fastest you can afford and shop around as promo's happen
I'm with techiedave as an order of preference. With Ubiquiti you can use it as a mesh system until you cable up.
With regards to splitting SSIDs think carefully wbout why you want to do it.
So with Ubiquiti you can do the following by implementing up to four different SSIDs on the access point:
- rate limit depending on which SSID the device connects to
- set different access schedules depending on which SSID the device connects to
If one of your objectives is that you want to segregate traffic connecting to one SSID from devices connecting to another then this can be done but not without a little help. The Access Point can tag traffic on a particular SSID with a VLAN but you'll need a router that supports VLANs to keep traffic away from other devices.
I use both rate limiting and VLAN tagging for a guest network for visitors to my house.
With regards to splitting SSIDs think carefully wbout why you want to do it.
So with Ubiquiti you can do the following by implementing up to four different SSIDs on the access point:
- rate limit depending on which SSID the device connects to
- set different access schedules depending on which SSID the device connects to
If one of your objectives is that you want to segregate traffic connecting to one SSID from devices connecting to another then this can be done but not without a little help. The Access Point can tag traffic on a particular SSID with a VLAN but you'll need a router that supports VLANs to keep traffic away from other devices.
I use both rate limiting and VLAN tagging for a guest network for visitors to my house.
The ASUS AC3100 supports AiMesh. Grab yourself one of the cheaper ASUS modems (AC68U?) to act as mesh clients.
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