Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

[xeny]

red_slr said:

Its wifi that I need really as I have nest camera in the garage which currently drops about 10 times a day.

The mesh kit may have better antennae, but if the camera is dropping 10 times a day, and it is connecting to an AP that is in the same place as the mesh unit you're hoping to use to mesh to a node in the garage, realistically you may well need a wired connection to the garage, and then an AP connected to that.

You can't get a mesh unit near an upstairs window in the house? That would at least have wifi going through a pane of glass and a roof which will be less RF opaque than two brick walls.

[red_slr]

xeny said:

red_slr said:

Its wifi that I need really as I have nest camera in the garage which currently drops about 10 times a day.

The mesh kit may have better antennae, but if the camera is dropping 10 times a day, and it is connecting to an AP that is in the same place as the mesh unit you're hoping to use to mesh to a node in the garage, realistically you may well need a wired connection to the garage, and then an AP connected to that.

You can't get a mesh unit near an upstairs window in the house? That would at least have wifi going through a pane of glass and a roof which will be less RF opaque than two brick walls.

Currently no AP in the garage. I have a TP link AP / booster in one of the back bedrooms to try and give the garden more coverage but I think its just a) distance and b) noise floor

TP link is set to max power - does hit the garage but its clearly dropping in and out. The RF environment is very busy I guess.

[xeny]

red_slr said:

TP link is set to max power - does hit the garage but its clearly dropping in and out.

May simply be the booster can't reliably receive return traffic from the camera, variations in WiFi traffic inside the house could have that kind of effect.

[Gary C]

Toilet Duck said:

Gary C said:

Your fibre plugs directly into the provided router ?

Not sure if its the same as OpenReache's GPON implementation, but the ONT is specific to the OLT and cannot be changed as the serial number must match whats expected.

I imagine its routing is good enough, so it would probably be ok to turn off the wifi and connect some BT discs (white ones and do not get the premium ones) for a cheapish mesh.

Thanks for the reply. Apologies but I don't understand most of what you posted as I'm not up to speed on router/pc type stuff

Are you saying I can't change the router?

I'm guessing it's the router that limits the current WiFi speeds? I don't mind spending the money to get a good mesh network, I've been looking at the Deco M9 triple pack that's been mentioned in this thread. I don't want to buy them though if the existing freebie router is a turd and will create a bottleneck?

I can confirm that the fibre plugs directly into the router though. They have run a new fibre all the way to my house with no copper, it's a "hyper fast" network according to the blurb.

Thanks again.

It looks to me as if your fibre optic cable plugs into the router with no separate box ?

In Openreach's implementation they have a small box called an ONT and that cant be changed. Its possible that your all in one solution can't be changed either but there does not seem to be any information, you would have to ask your ISP.

The Deco kit looks like good value, and was what I was going to get before I got the BT mini disks (as they were dirt cheap and worth a try at that price and work well)

[Mattt]

You can have the existing Altice all in one put into bridge mode and then use whatever kit you want.

In reality for most people they don’t need to change the router, they just need to improve their internal network via a combination of hardwiring devices and placing additional access points.

[Toilet Duck]

xeny said:

What is the spec of the client you're testing with? ~230Mb might be a single radio 802.11ac client with 40 Mhz channels, in which case the performance is roughly as expected.

If you bought a mesh system, then the speed of the mesh would be unrelated to the wifi speed of the router (you connect the two systems together with an ethernet cable)., and you would indeed turn the router's WiFi off.

I'm using my mobile phone (Huawei Honor 10) to test the WiFi internet speed, I don't know what its specs are or how suitable it is for checking the speed.

I think I will go ahead and get a mesh system, then plug that into my existing router. As and when I redecorate the house, I plan to run ethernet cable in so I can hopefully connect the components via that and not have them talking to each other over WiFi, but that won't be for a long time.

Gary C said:

It looks to me as if your fibre optic cable plugs into the router with no separate box ?

In Openreach's implementation they have a small box called an ONT and that cant be changed. Its possible that your all in one solution can't be changed either but there does not seem to be any information, you would have to ask your ISP.

The Deco kit looks like good value, and was what I was going to get before I got the BT mini disks (as they were dirt cheap and worth a try at that price and work well)

I don't believe County Broadband uses an ONT box. When the engineer came to connect me up he ran a fibre from a telegraph poll that they had already ran fibre to and where there was a junction box. I think he said there was 8 ports on it. The fibre goes to my house and terminates in a small box on the outside wall. Thats soley another junstion box as he was showing me how he splices the fibre etc , the fibre then goes through the house wall and plugs direct into the router.

Mattt said:

You can have the existing Altice all in one put into bridge mode and then use whatever kit you want.

In reality for most people they don’t need to change the router, they just need to improve their internal network via a combination of hardwiring devices and placing additional access points.

Sorry if I'm being thick, but to put the router into bridge mode is that just a case of turning off the 5GHz and 2.4GHz WiFi? I've logged onto the router and had a hunt around the menus etc but I cannot see any mention of "bridge" or an option to turn it on/off? Again, sorry if I'm just being dumb.

Many thanks

[Gary C]

Bridge mode is when it basically just acts as an optical 'modem' and passes the data up and down and lets a separate box handle all the logging on to the WAN and managing your LAN.

[Toilet Duck]

Gary C said:

Bridge mode is when it basically just acts as an optical 'modem' and passes the data up and down and lets a separate box handle all the logging on to the WAN and managing your LAN.

Many thanks. How do I actually activate the bridge mode though? I can't find a "bridge mode" setting in the router user interface, do I activate/deactivate something else?

[Gary C]

Toilet Duck said:

Gary C said:

Bridge mode is when it basically just acts as an optical 'modem' and passes the data up and down and lets a separate box handle all the logging on to the WAN and managing your LAN.

Many thanks. How do I actually activate the bridge mode though? I can't find a "bridge mode" setting in the router user interface, do I activate/deactivate something else?

No idea

But either its not possible, or your ISP has provided a model with the option disabled ?

[FunkyGibbon]

Toilet Duck said:

Many thanks. How do I actually activate the bridge mode though? I can't find a "bridge mode" setting in the router user interface, do I activate/deactivate something else?

Could be called IP - passthrough

[Toilet Duck]

Gary C said:

No idea

But either its not possible, or your ISP has provided a model with the option disabled ?

No worries

So if they have indeed disabled the bridge mode option, then I guess I can't get a mesh system to work with it, and in that case I need to change the router to one with bridge mode available (assuming the fibre provider hasn't locked the network so only their supplied router works)? Worst case I suppose I could buy a new router off amazon and if it doesn't work send it back for a refund?

[dmsims]

Toilet Duck said:

No worries

disabled the bridge mode option, then I guess I can't get a mesh system to work with it,

You just need a mesh that can work in Bridge or Access point mode (same thing but different names)

Just avoid Google/Nest

[FunkyGibbon]

You will still be able to add a mesh system.

Buy a mesh system.
Connect WAN port on mesh primary node to a fibre modem Lan port
Leave DHCP server on the fibre modem
Turn off the WiFi (or just ignore it) on fibre modem
Use the mesh system WiFi as your main WiFi
Turn off DHCP on the.main mesh node

Should do in it.

You may have issues with double NAT which might affect you if into online gaming.

Edited to add this works fine with Asus ai-mesh and Asus Zen WiFi mesh.. and will probably work with most others, though heard that Google might not.

Edited by FunkyGibbon on Sunday 28th February 17:45

[Toilet Duck]

I've just found this link on google:

https://www.kbase.pt/fibergateway-meo-configurar-e...

It's in a different language but it appears to be my router (although not rebranded to County Broadband like mine) and shows that there should be a "bridge" mode.



However, when I log onto the same page that option is missing:




So it looks like the fkers HAVE disabled bridge mode for some reason

Can anyone recommend a suitable router that I could buy (and return for refund if it won't work) to test if another router will work with County Broadband?

Why does something so simple have to descend into this complexity

Edited by Toilet Duck on Sunday 28th February 17:58

[Gary C]

Toilet Duck said:

Gary C said:

No idea

But either its not possible, or your ISP has provided a model with the option disabled ?

No worries

So if they have indeed disabled the bridge mode option, then I guess I can't get a mesh system to work with it, and in that case I need to change the router to one with bridge mode available (assuming the fibre provider hasn't locked the network so only their supplied router works)? Worst case I suppose I could buy a new router off amazon and if it doesn't work send it back for a refund?

Not at all.

The mesh is just a bunch of devices that will get an IP address from the router then act as a clever wifi system. The only issue would be the first unit connected to the router if you cant turn off the altice units wifi as the two close together might interfere too much.

Can you turn off the wifi in the altice unit ?

[Toilet Duck]

dmsims said:

You just need a mesh that can work in Bridge or Access point mode (same thing but different names)

Just avoid Google/Nest

FunkyGibbon said:

You will still be able to add a mesh system.

Buy a mesh system.
Connect WAN port on mesh primary node to a fibre modem Lan port
Leave DHCP server on the fibre modem
Turn off the WiFi (or just ignore it) on fibre modem
Use the mesh system WiFi as your main WiFi
Turn off DHCP on the.main mesh node

Should do in it.

You may have issues with double NAT which might affect you if into online gaming.

Edited to add this works fine with Asus ai-mesh and Asus Zen WiFi mesh.. and will probably work with most others, though heard that Google might not.

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

[xeny]

Toilet Duck said:

So it looks like the fkers HAVE disabled bridge mode for some reason

Why does something so simple have to descend into this complexity

Possibly to reduce their support bills.

FWIW, your phone looks to be from 2018 and single stream 802.11ac, so what you're seeing is about the most it will do.

It's not that simple, that's why you're finding it is complex.

Have you not got a decent, reasonably modern laptop to test with, given you've paid for all this speed?

[Gary C]

xeny said:

Possibly to reduce their support bills.

Nail on head.

IT hates users tinkering, especially by those who have a clue, even more so those that have half a clue.

[dmsims]

Toilet Duck said:

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

They support access point mode and have gigabit so yes

You will have to setup in router mode first, change to AP mode and disable the Wifi on the router

[xeny]

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.