Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

[Blown2CV]

troc said:

Don’t forget that there is more to networking than just device to internet. You can also have decide to decode communication within your own network and you might have many devices communicating concurrently. In such a situation, having WiFi devices which can support ultra high bandwidths means that the intranet communications won’t affect the ability for your devices to access the intranet.

WiFi always used to be the bottleneck, especially with multiple devices connected to a single AP. This is not the case anymore with newer gear. Very rarely do you need more than a few hundred mbps to the internet but that can quickly slow down if multiple devices are all trying at once. Having a WiFi that is significantly faster and more capable than your internet speed will essentially make sure you are using it most efficiently.

I think you’ve missed my point there. I am saying if Wi-Fi is no longer the bottleneck then wired infra will be.

[Blown2CV]

troc said:

You can usually get 2-2.5 gig through cat 5e, especially in the fairly short-ish runs that you find in houses.

2.5gbps seems like loads today of course and I am sure it will be more than enough for a while, but I don’t think most people realise that they could be investing in accidental constraints which prevent them getting anything like what then fastest part of their setup can manage.

[illmonkey]

Wondering if anyone can help…

I have my router connected to a EAP225, router is just that, no wifi. Then I have power line to my garage to boost the wifi, it’s just so the echo dot works, doesn’t need to be crazy.

Everything works individually, so the echo works of the power line wifi (WPA4220), my indoor devices work on the EAP225, but mobile devices won’t jump from 1 to the other. The only way to get them to move is disabling ‘private wifi address’ on the iPhone to get it to connect onto the power line wifi, I’d leave this disabled but it then won’t join the EAP225 wifi.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why this is an issue. Any ideas?

[dmsims]

Do both devices have the same SSID?

Roaming is an absolute st show even with identical hardware that supports roaming

illmonkey said:

Wondering if anyone can help…

I have my router connected to a EAP225, router is just that, no wifi. Then I have power line to my garage to boost the wifi, it’s just so the echo dot works, doesn’t need to be crazy.

Everything works individually, so the echo works of the power line wifi (WPA4220), my indoor devices work on the EAP225, but mobile devices won’t jump from 1 to the other. The only way to get them to move is disabling ‘private wifi address’ on the iPhone to get it to connect onto the power line wifi, I’d leave this disabled but it then won’t join the EAP225 wifi.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why this is an issue. Any ideas?

[jimmyjimjim]

If they both have the same SSID, perhaps turn down the transmit power on the EAP225 so they don't see it when I'm the garage, forcing a transfer?

[illmonkey]

I’ve found a separate AP to use, is behaving better.

The issue is why they don’t agree on private mac’s. Anyway, I’ve turned the power line wifi off and I can roam better now.

Thanks chaps

[Gary C]

Personally, i would dump the separate AP's and get a decent mesh that has active handoff and hardwire them in.

[2Btoo]

Update on my situation (I asked a few questions on this thread a couple of months ago).

This is precisely what I did ....

Gary C said:

Personally, i would dump the separate AP's and get a decent mesh that has active handoff and hardwire them in.

A second-hand TP Link Deco system with three Deco M5 units was bought from eBay for a little over £80. It's all been installed with Cat5e wired backhauls and the units themselves sit in home-made brackets which hold them up with bits of elastic cord, or sit on a shelf. The whole house is covered by strong WiFi and all our dead spots problems have gone away. It's configured by the Deco app, which was necessary to set them up but seems to be completely unnecessary now as it all just works. (Interestingly, there was a problem with the network cable to one of the devices and I only noticed it 'cos the device reported itself as running on a WiFi backhaul, not wired. Once I sorted out the cable it now tells me that it is on a wired backhaul, but I wouldn't have noticed had the app not told me that there was a problem.)

It is all connected to a Virgin router (with the built-in WiFi turned off) and the network runs Pihole, which acts as a DNS Sink and a DHCP server, as well as giving logs of activity.

All in all: I'm pretty happy. Thanks for the help chaps.

[TheAngryDog]

I've recently upgraded to 900mbps internet with Vodafone. I get the full 900mbps if I connect a laptop to the router via ethernet, but not wifi, I only get high 400's.

I assume that this is because the Vodafone router is junk for wifi?

I also have a 3 TP Link Deco M4 AC1200 mesh, but these only give about 300mbps unless you're pretty much sat on top of one. I have the primary one connected to the router via ethernet.

Can anyone recommend any options for getting 900mbps over a wifi mesh? I realise I will need to buy a new set up.
I cannot backhaul via ethernet as my house is too old and I'd have to chase the cabling into the walls.

Thanks.

[RizzoTheRat]

Check if they're both using 2.4GHz or 5GHz WIFI. I think 2.4 tops out at about 450mbps so sounds like it could be the issue.

[silentbrown]

TheAngryDog said:

Can anyone recommend any options for getting 900mbps over a wifi mesh?

Are you doing anything that really needs that bandwidth? If so, go wired regardless of the hassle.

4K Netflix is ~15Mb/s so unless you have 20 people all watching different 4K films simultaneously, 300Mb/s is plenty.

[Blown2CV]

so the powerline mesh is now playing up. Either that or it's 4GEE. Is there any such thing as a fast, stable, painless broadband setup... who knows. I've never found one. Admittedly mine never claimed to be fast as I am stuck on 4G until the council/BDUK/whoever fking else get their fingers out and build FttP here.

[troc]

As had been said, ultra fast WiFi isn’t IMHO worth pursuing. Anything around 200Mbpsis more than enough and it’s better to work on stability and range than speed. Especially as speed will drop off rapidly with distance from the Ap’s.

Wire everything that needs your full bandwidth and use WiFi for everything else.

[megaphone]

TheAngryDog said:

I've recently upgraded to 900mbps internet with Vodafone. I get the full 900mbps if I connect a laptop to the router via ethernet, but not wifi, I only get high 400's.

I assume that this is because the Vodafone router is junk for wifi?

I also have a 3 TP Link Deco M4 AC1200 mesh, but these only give about 300mbps unless you're pretty much sat on top of one. I have the primary one connected to the router via ethernet.

Can anyone recommend any options for getting 900mbps over a wifi mesh? I realise I will need to buy a new set up.
I cannot backhaul via ethernet as my house is too old and I'd have to chase the cabling into the walls.

Thanks.

The only way you'll increase speeds is to set the bandwidth of your channels to 80mhz, the problem with doing this is it uses up lots of available channels. Also the 'mesh' system has limitations as each access point is doing backhaul duties which uses up bandwidth.

Theoretically your WiFi 5 AC system will achieve 1200Mbs however in reality it is difficult to achieve this. Often the constraining factor is the client device which may have limits.

Wifi 6 AX is available which has theoretical faster speeds, but again you'll need suitable client devices for it to make sense.

[xeny]

TheAngryDog said:

I've recently upgraded to 900mbps internet with Vodafone. I get the full 900mbps if I connect a laptop to the router via ethernet, but not wifi, I only get high 400's.

I assume that this is because the Vodafone router is junk for wifi?

No, it's because 900mbps over WiFi isn't trivial. What is the client device's wireless hardware?

[Blown2CV]

New… Eero max wifi 7 mesh… covers 700m2, up to 4.3gbps wireless and 10gb Ethernet… £1700 for 3 nodes.

[silentbrown]

£1700? You can buy a lot of cat5 cable for that.

[illmonkey]

silentbrown said:

£1700? You can buy a lot of cat5 cable for that.

how many angel grinder discs, backboxes, faceplates, channelling, plaster, sanding pads and paint can you buy for that?

Also lots...

[Blown2CV]

yea i guess, however after all that you'll still need to buy mesh nodes.

anyway i'm not saying it's cheap, just that it exists.

if putting in a brand new cable run, should people be installing greater than cat5e anyway these days?

[silentbrown]

Blown2CV said:

yea i guess, however after all that you'll still need to buy mesh nodes.

anyway i'm not saying it's cheap, just that it exists.

Fair enough. In a domestic setting I think it's answering a question that nobody has asked.

The usual issue with wifi is poor signal, not insufficient speed. Wifi7 is only going to make that worse.

Blown2CV said:

if putting in a brand new cable run, should people be installing greater than cat5e anyway these days?

Domestic? IMO 5E is fine. I'd suggest running dual cables for redundancy.