Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

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Discussion

Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Sunday 28th February 2021
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xeny said:
Gary C said:
IT hates users tinkering, especially by those who have a clue, even more so those that have half a clue.
I work in research "IT". I'm fine if people tinker (to an extent it is necessary - I'm trying to balance something consistent enough I can conceivably staff adequate support for it with something nimble enough they can do the science they need to do).

What frustrates me is people who want "different", can't give a clear rationale for why and then demand help when they've dug themselves a hole they can't get out of.
Its not so bad if its in house, I imagine for OR or BT, it must be a pain when users complain about problems then find its because they have used another router and mucked it up.

Users always mucked things up. I would create the perfect program and users would just break it with their faulty thinking wink why would you press that button after that one.

I left the computer section for the operations section and found lots of things I could have fixed when I was in the DP group, if only I had known.
I know that IT and the DP group find it frustrating when I tinker these days and I can really empathise.

Doesn't stop me though.

Mattt

16,661 posts

217 months

Sunday 28th February 2021
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County Broadband told me their supplied router can be put into bridge mode, perhaps you need to contact them.

Ultimately you don’t need bridge mode or separate routers etc - you just need more/better access points.

Chasing higher WiFi speeds is a bit pointless though, the speed you got on your phone is perfectly good enough.

High speed home broadband allows more devices to connect faster, browsing PH on your phone at 100Mbps versus 600Mbps makes no difference.

Even Netflix 4K is something like 25Mbps.

RizzoTheRat

25,084 posts

191 months

Monday 1st March 2021
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Toilet Duck said:
Sorry, I posted while you two gents were responding.

My current PC isn't good enough for gaming, it wasn't worth investing in as up until now I was only getting 1Mb download. However, I had planned to upgrade now I've got decent internet and maybe start getting into gaming. I don't know what "double NAT" is, but is it something that I can overcome?

Really appreciate that info on MESH. I was planning on a triple pack of Deco M9's, so I assume that they should be compatible?

Again thanks to everyone for all the help
The Deco's will be fine. I have the P9's and in the phone app there's an option to switch them from Router mode to Access Point mode. This means the original modem/router does all the routing stuff, while the Deco's do all the wifi. They're not doing Network Address Translation in this mode so no double NAT issues, but it means you can't use their inbuilt firewall, parental controls etc.
You'll need at least one of the Deco's connected the router by ethernet cable, the rest can use wifi talk back to that one, but if you can cable them up it's worth doing.

techguyone

3,137 posts

141 months

Monday 1st March 2021
quotequote all
RizzoTheRat said:
Toilet Duck said:
Sorry, I posted while you two gents were responding.

My current PC isn't good enough for gaming, it wasn't worth investing in as up until now I was only getting 1Mb download. However, I had planned to upgrade now I've got decent internet and maybe start getting into gaming. I don't know what "double NAT" is, but is it something that I can overcome?

Really appreciate that info on MESH. I was planning on a triple pack of Deco M9's, so I assume that they should be compatible?

Again thanks to everyone for all the help
The Deco's will be fine. I have the P9's and in the phone app there's an option to switch them from Router mode to Access Point mode. This means the original modem/router does all the routing stuff, while the Deco's do all the wifi. They're not doing Network Address Translation in this mode so no double NAT issues, but it means you can't use their inbuilt firewall, parental controls etc.
You'll need at least one of the Deco's connected the router by ethernet cable, the rest can use wifi talk back to that one, but if you can cable them up it's worth doing.
On mine, i just disabled router wifi, hooked up the first deco to the router, then added a switch, everything else wired went through the switch, wi-fi (and ethernet on the deco units) was taken care of by the decos, this helped avoid issues with phones and such randomly switching from router Wi-Fi to deco Wi-Fi and having everything on the decos meant things like Chromecast was visible everywhere (and had control via the deco app like parental control, blacklisting etc.

RizzoTheRat

25,084 posts

191 months

Monday 1st March 2021
quotequote all
techguyone said:
On mine, i just disabled router wifi, hooked up the first deco to the router, then added a switch, everything else wired went through the switch, wi-fi (and ethernet on the deco units) was taken care of by the decos, this helped avoid issues with phones and such randomly switching from router Wi-Fi to deco Wi-Fi and having everything on the decos meant things like Chromecast was visible everywhere (and had control via the deco app like parental control, blacklisting etc.
Yeah, same here. Modem->Deco->Switch. PC and NAS are then cabled to the switch for speed and everything else runs via wifi. Another advantage of this type of device is they can act as a wireless bridge, so my Pi and Playstation are connected by cable to to Deco, which then talks back to the master deco by wifi (and powerline in the case of the P9's).

If you've still got the parental controls available that presumably means you have the Decos in router mode, so you are double NAT'ing if the router isn't in passthrough/modem mode, which can cause some problems with online games and VPNs, but should be an issue for general web browsing

techguyone

3,137 posts

141 months

Monday 1st March 2021
quotequote all
RizzoTheRat said:
techguyone said:
On mine, i just disabled router wifi, hooked up the first deco to the router, then added a switch, everything else wired went through the switch, wi-fi (and ethernet on the deco units) was taken care of by the decos, this helped avoid issues with phones and such randomly switching from router Wi-Fi to deco Wi-Fi and having everything on the decos meant things like Chromecast was visible everywhere (and had control via the deco app like parental control, blacklisting etc.
Yeah, same here. Modem->Deco->Switch. PC and NAS are then cabled to the switch for speed and everything else runs via wifi. Another advantage of this type of device is they can act as a wireless bridge, so my Pi and Playstation are connected by cable to to Deco, which then talks back to the master deco by wifi (and powerline in the case of the P9's).

If you've still got the parental controls available that presumably means you have the Decos in router mode, so you are double NAT'ing if the router isn't in passthrough/modem mode, which can cause some problems with online games and VPNs, but should be an issue for general web browsing
Never had an issue with gaming or VPN'ing (well I did under Windows 8.1, but not convinced that wasn't some weird quirk of Nord, Win 10 no issues at all)

ecs0set

2,470 posts

283 months

Thursday 4th March 2021
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For those people using their ISP supplied all-in-one (modem/router/firewall/WiFi AP) in bridge mode, what are you using for a firewall/router? Do the Tenda / TP-Link / Google WiFi systems provide routing and firewall as well as WiFi?

I imagine this is why ISPs disable the bridge option.

Toilet Duck

1,329 posts

184 months

Friday 5th March 2021
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Mattt said:
County Broadband told me their supplied router can be put into bridge mode, perhaps you need to contact them.
Thought I'd let you know, I raised the issue and County Broadband have now told me that customers don't have the ability to put the router into bridge mode. You have to raise a ticket telling them what mesh system you've bought and their "technical team" will remotely put the router into bridge mode. Also, only the supplied modem/router is compatible, you can't replace this with one of your own.

Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Friday 5th March 2021
quotequote all
Toilet Duck said:
Mattt said:
County Broadband told me their supplied router can be put into bridge mode, perhaps you need to contact them.
Thought I'd let you know, I raised the issue and County Broadband have now told me that customers don't have the ability to put the router into bridge mode. You have to raise a ticket telling them what mesh system you've bought and their "technical team" will remotely put the router into bridge mode. Also, only the supplied modem/router is compatible, you can't replace this with one of your own.
So its inbuilt ONT is serial matched with the OLT in the same manner as OpenReach by the look.

At least they will allow a bridge mode even if they do it for you.

It looks as if BT will force Digital Voice by hook or crook which ties you to their router,

FunkyGibbon

3,781 posts

263 months

Friday 5th March 2021
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ecs0set said:
Do the Tenda / TP-Link / Google WiFi systems provide routing and firewall as well as WiFi?

.
The Asus AiMesh I have the primary node does the routing and firewall. I'd suspect it would be the same for most other brands.

red_slr

17,122 posts

188 months

Wednesday 10th March 2021
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VELOP fully working now at my place. Managed to get 4 nodes second hand for c.200. Overall very easy to install and get running.

Noticed the web seems more snappy. The main positive is we now have full coverage in the garden right the way to the garage.

This means I can now run a nest camera on the garage - its been on there a couple of months but I had to switch it off as it would connect then drop again many times a day. Been rock solid last 2 days which is great.

I will do a walk test at some point to see just how far we get coverage but I think 4 nodes is pretty much perfect for us.

Lucas Ayde

3,541 posts

167 months

Wednesday 10th March 2021
quotequote all
Gary C said:
It looks as if BT will force Digital Voice by hook or crook which ties you to their router,
Way back when I first got BT broadband, their Home Hub (v1 I think it was) actually had a socket that you could plug a regular telephone into, that gave you a second telephone number which was a digital 'line'. They seemed to drop the idea in subsequent hubs but I thought a second 'land line' number for no extra cost was pretty useful. You actually got a few nice bonuses (eg. Free usenet server) in those days which they have dropped over the years.

BT sadly have never really had a good router in my experience, WiFi seems to be their weak point. The v1 Hub was pretty awful for WiFi coverage and my current HomeHub5 was so unreliable with WiFi dropping out that I replaced the WiFi side with a Whole Home disc setup, just to avoid the weekly reboots to get WiFi to work again. Rather than work on getting their gear bug-free they just go ahead and put out new kit, leaving the older stuff without upgrades.


jimmyjimjim

7,329 posts

237 months

Wednesday 10th March 2021
quotequote all
Lucas Ayde said:
Way back when I first got BT broadband, their Home Hub (v1 I think it was) actually had a socket that you could plug a regular telephone into, that gave you a second telephone number which was a digital 'line'. They seemed to drop the idea in subsequent hubs but I thought a second 'land line' number for no extra cost was pretty useful. You actually got a few nice bonuses (eg. Free usenet server) in those days which they have dropped over the years.

BT sadly have never really had a good router in my experience, WiFi seems to be their weak point. The v1 Hub was pretty awful for WiFi coverage and my current HomeHub5 was so unreliable with WiFi dropping out that I replaced the WiFi side with a Whole Home disc setup, just to avoid the weekly reboots to get WiFi to work again. Rather than work on getting their gear bug-free they just go ahead and put out new kit, leaving the older stuff without upgrades.
I remember using the BT usenet server. They were why I went to Clara instead, then to giganews as both services regarded it as a sideline, and couldn't keep up with demand. Reading the Clara newsgroups regarding the usenet service was very interesting; it took a surprising amount of hardware to run.

Back on topic, pretty much every bundled router has the same issue of being built to a price, and that price is 'less than you'd think'. It makes support easier - "Not working? replace the all in one box".


dmsims

6,450 posts

266 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
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Ah the Homest hub

Bizarre software issues (ghosted connections, IPV6 issues etc etc) and you can't even put them in modem mode

jimmyjimjim

7,329 posts

237 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
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Talking of bizarre issues....you may remember I tried a deco system, which went mental, bricked itself and couldn't be recovered.

Turns out I had a dodgy switch which also affected the Unifi kit, though not as badly (presumably it was putting out less traffic much of the time), and needed replacement.

24 managed gigabit ports later, I'm looking at Unifi Dream machines....

troc

3,740 posts

174 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
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jimmyjimjim said:
24 managed gigabit ports later, I'm looking at Unifi Dream machines....
I’m very happy with my dream machine pro and full unifi system here. Not cheap but it works very well, combined with Pihole to keep the ads at bay.


Edited by troc on Thursday 11th March 19:01

jimmyjimjim

7,329 posts

237 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
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troc said:
full h if I system here.
?

I'm looking more at the non-Pro. A router, firewall, switch, controller and AP all in one. I don't have cameras so the NVR and access control parts of the pro aren't needed, but the AP would be nice. I'd also appreciate running the controller on the box instead of on the Pi.

troc

3,740 posts

174 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
quotequote all
Yeah. That mad no sense. Was supposed to say unifi.

Sorry smile

The pro runs the controller etc just like the normal one - we have cameras so it is also used for them. My main reason for getting the pro was that I already had a rack available and I am gently adding more 10gig hardware. Which is totally unnecessary for home use............



Edited by troc on Thursday 11th March 19:04

jimmyjimjim

7,329 posts

237 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
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Makes sense now!

I added a 24 port ubiquiti L2 managed switch (because while I was confident it was the switch, I'd been confident it was about 8 other things, and wanted both to buy something quality and have more diagnostics).

So, I'm tempted to add a beacon HD (completely superfluous) and another managed switch to replace the one remaining unmanaged switch. Preferably with PoE to power the second AP.

Then, if I add the UDM, I'll have 1 gateway, 3 switches and 4 APs all managed on the unifi controller. And be able to repurpose the Pi.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
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Any recommendations for something to replace a bt home hub 2? Cheers