Let's Talk About Networking (1 Viewer)

[Dave Upton]

Thanks again Dave.

Really, the possibility of greater than Gb is just speculating about the future. I doubt I'd ever want, and certainly never need it.

Do those PoE switches sense power need? Meaning, can I connect a PoE port to a non-powered peripheral?

I need more than 5 ports, so I figured THIS ONE.

Yes, PoE is on demand, so only PoE compatible devices will draw power (as much as they need). That switch will work nicely.

 

[DaveF]

...

I have the last model AirPort Extreme, which provides 250Mb/s in the main living part of the house. It looks like 250 is the maximum WiFi that router is capable of. Everything in the HT is wired, but it also has that WiFi speed as well as in the living room, which doesn't have anything wired. So, all that should be sufficient for a long time, or until the Apple router dies.

...

With a slightly older AEBS, I connected an Airport Express and set it to Bridge Mode for a wired extender. Been working fine for about eight years.

I think you'd do basically the same with a new access point.

 

[JohnRice]

With a slightly older AEBS, I connected an Airport Express and set it to Bridge Mode for a wired extender. Been working fine for about eight years.

I think you'd do basically the same with a new access point.

That brings up an option I hadn't thought about. I could get the AP Dave suggested, with a router, and use the much more capable and powerful AP in the main part of the house, then turn off routing on the AirPort Extreme and use it as an AP in the bedroom part of the house.

 

[DaveF]

I’m ready to upgrade my home wifi. I’ve had some intermittent streaming problems in the theater. I’ve also concluded I’ve got slow wifi the theater room. And I’ve had some few times when both iPhone and iPad completely lose wifi for a few minutes at night — like my wifi system is completely going offline for no reason.

But I don’t have time to get into it yet. Even with the good info give me here so far, I‘m not able to concentrate on it and pull together the plan. Maybe this Christmas vacation I can take time, make the plan, order gear, and install It.

 

[DaveF]

Trying to make some decisions for home wifi. The Ruckus AP talked about here is $900 at Amazon. So that’s…not an option. My budget is ~$500 not thousands and thousands for a home wifi upgrade. So I’m looking at the TP-Link EAP since they’re affordable and have a pretty good reputation. I don’t have any TP-Link brand affinity. I’m trying to downselect options so I don’t get lost in analysis paralysis over access points. And to help get to deciding “AP or Consumer Mesh”?

Can I use “Ceiling” access points near ground level? I can’t ceiling mount access points. My ethernet runs are normal outlet height (12” off floor) so APs will be upside down from ceiling-design orientation and probably be about two feet off floor.

TP-Link EAP 225 v3 Ceiling AP is back to $60. I could buy four for the main rooms in my home: Living Room, Bonus Room, Master BR, Theater. I’d have to use their POE adapters because I can’t practically get POE to power them, since they don’t have a LAN output port.

AC1350 Wireless MU-MIMO Gigabit Ceiling Mount Access Point

Outfitted with the latest 802.11ac Wave 2 MU-MIMO technology, the EAP225 easily delivers dual-band Wi-Fi speeds of up to 1350 Mbps to multiple devices at the same time.

www.tp-link.com

TP-Link EAP 235 Wall AP is an interesting option, also $60 each. They have three LAN pass through ports. So I could buy a POE switch for the basement to power them, and they can pass through Ethernet to local switches where needed. But I worry that there’s some implicit and hidden tradeoff with these. The value is … too good? Because otherwise, these seem great.

Omada AC1200 Wireless MU-MIMO Gigabit Wall Plate Access Point

Omada AC1200 Wireless Gigabit Wall-Plate Access Point EAP235-Wall provides dual-band Wi-Fi of up to 1200 Mbps, also 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports for bridging (1× uplink + 1× downlink), with one downlink port supporting PoE pass-through to provide power for wired device. Ideal for the use in hotel...

www.tp-link.com

With four APs in key rooms, I’m thinking I don’t need a wifi router? I could get a non-wifi router switch for $60. It’s Omada so it should integrate well with TP-Link EAP? Also being smaller and not wifi, I don’t have to have in the awkward location of up in the basement rafters of my current wifi router, but can stick it in the “home run” box for easy access if it needs a power cycle.

Omada Gigabit VPN Router

Omada Gigabit VPN Router

Omada ER605 supports Gigabit Ethernet connections on both WAN and LAN ports and multiple VPN protocols and high-security, high-performance VPN capabilities, making employees’ remote connections to their main offices as secure as if they were in the main office.

www.tp-link.com

 

[John Dirk]

Can I use “Ceiling” access points near ground level?

Certainly but I'm not understanding why you would want to. Running a discretely hidden cable higher would be preferred. It doesn't need to be on the ceiling but the higher the better.

TP-Link EAP 225 v3 Ceiling AP is back to $60. I could buy four for the main rooms in my home: Living Room, Bonus Room, Master BR, Theater. I’d have to use their POE adapters because I can’t practically get POE to power them, since they don’t have a LAN output port.

This model comes with a PoE adapter so you should be all set. If you did buy a PoE switch you would also be able to power them that way without the adapter. You don't need LAN ports for PoE.

With four APs in key rooms, I’m thinking I don’t need a wifi router?

Agreed. I have 4 AP's throughout my home. The main router has built-in Wifi as well but it's close enough to one of the other AP's where it doesn't really do me much good as an AP. In my case I leave it enabled but restrict it to only a couple of device connections that can benefit from it.

 

[DaveF]

Certainly but I'm not understanding why you would want to. Running a discretely hidden cable higher would be preferred. It doesn't need to be on the ceiling but the higher the better.

I might be able to get the AP‘s higher in some locations. But I don’t know. It’s safer to plan for them being closer to floor level, which is easy. (Visible cables running up walls fails SAF.)

If Access Points have to be installed on ceilings facing down over or room, or installed 8 feet up on a wall with no obstructions to function, I have to find a different solution.

But if that setup is ideal, but their wifi is strong enough to work well with general placement, then I can install as best possible. I’ll never have ideal placement. But I might be able to get some up higher, or less obstructed.

 

[John Dirk]

But if that setup is ideal, but their wifi is strong enough to work well with general placement, then I can install as best possible. I’ll never have ideal placement. But I might be able to get some up higher, or less obstructed.

You said it perfectly. Just as with our HT hobby, there are always real-world considerations. Some time invested in experimentation will let you know what you can live with. Based on some of your earlier comments however, I would go for optimal placement in your Theater room. My wife could care less what I do in mine as long as I confine my madness there.

 

[DaveF]

Made a new thread.

Catfisch Cinema Home Wifi Upgrade

I want to upgrade my home wifi. A thread. Here's the home, thumbnails to scale. Left to right: basement, first floor, second floor. The Homerun and Router are in the basement. The router, an Apple Extreme Base Station 6th Gen (802.11ac) is literally in the rafters to get it as high up (and on...

www.hometheaterforum.com

 

[JohnRice]

OK, so here's a completely bizarre thing that happened today. All of a sudden I lost my internet connection. As in, the connection between the modem and WiFi router was lost. I could restart the router and initially everything would be fine, then the internet would drop, signaled by an orange internet light on my router.

For the life of me, I could not figure out why this happened out of the blue. I did a LOT of troubleshooting, even going to the point of hooking up my (very) old AirPort Extreme. With it I got internet with WiFi devices, but NOT wired ones. That just made it more confusing.

After several hours of mind-numbing troubleshooting, I finally tracked it down to the most random thing. An ethernet cable in my HT between a switch and Oppo BD-203. That wasn't even on my radar. Holy @^@ %&^^# it took forever to find that. I'm actually a little surprised I was able to track it down.

Why would a cable at the end of the wired network kill internet on the entire network... and nuke the WiFi?

 

[Dave Upton]

@JohnRice - a cable that goes bad can sometimes start throwing errors on the layer 2 level that cause a great deal of retransmits/correction packets from the router and eventually the router can't keep up. My guess is that your router was keeping up but at some point the cable degraded to the point you were getting dropped packets everywhere and it couldn't handle the volume of errors.

@John Dirk could weigh in also, but it's also possible that the bad cable was preventing replies to broadcast traffic from the Oppo from working, and your network got flooded with broadcast data from the Oppo.

 

[JohnRice]

@JohnRice - a cable that goes bad can sometimes start throwing errors on the layer 2 level that cause a great deal of retransmits/correction packets from the router and eventually the router can't keep up. My guess is that your router was keeping up but at some point the cable degraded to the point you were getting dropped packets everywhere and it couldn't handle the volume of errors.

@John Dirk could weigh in also, but it's also possible that the bad cable was preventing replies to broadcast traffic from the Oppo from working, and your network got flooded with broadcast data from the Oppo.

Thanks Dave. The Oppo was turned off the entire time, so I don't know if that makes any difference.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

@JohnRice - a cable that goes bad can sometimes start throwing errors on the layer 2 level that cause a great deal of retransmits/correction packets from the router and eventually the router can't keep up. My guess is that your router was keeping up but at some point the cable degraded to the point you were getting dropped packets everywhere and it couldn't handle the volume of errors.

@John Dirk could weigh in also, but it's also possible that the bad cable was preventing replies to broadcast traffic from the Oppo from working, and your network got flooded with broadcast data from the Oppo.

While this is the most likely cause, it's also possible that the bad cable caused a spanning tree issue, depending on how your network is configured. Less likely, though. In any case, it sound like you found the root cause - - the bad cable.

 

[John Dirk]

@JohnRice - a cable that goes bad can sometimes start throwing errors on the layer 2 level that cause a great deal of retransmits/correction packets from the router and eventually the router can't keep up. My guess is that your router was keeping up but at some point the cable degraded to the point you were getting dropped packets everywhere and it couldn't handle the volume of errors.

@John Dirk could weigh in also, but it's also possible that the bad cable was preventing replies to broadcast traffic from the Oppo from working, and your network got flooded with broadcast data from the Oppo.

I would tend to agree with Dave's basic assessment as it does sound like your router was just struggling to the point of no longer being able to provide adequate throughput. The industry term for this is a DOS [Denial Of Service] attack. Although they are usually initiated by malicious outsiders, they can also occur internally due to excessive CRC errors or Ethernet broadcasts. Confirming this would require packet sniffing but I bet that's what happened.

Even if it's off, the network adapter of the Oppo was still likely active. Most network-connected devices are actually in standby mode unless unplugged.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Not to derail the thread but the layers are what kept tripping me up on my N+ exam.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

To revive an old thread, I finally bit the bullet and installed a mesh network in my home. I picked up this TP-Link Deco X55 on Amazon Prime Day and installed it this afternoon. It's replacing my Comcast Xfinity XFi router/WiFi device, which has for now been relegated to a cable modem.

Hopefully this will provide a little better coverage in the upstairs back bedroom that my wife uses as an office / craft room. The three Deco devices may be a little overkill for our 2,500 square foot house (not including the finished basement), but the price was right. My other motivation for this installation is to get my home network off Comcast hardware to make it easier to switch to a different ISP in the future -- we already have dumped them as a cable TV provider. All I should need to do now is swap out cable modems whenever we switch providers (we are price-locked with Comcast until next May, so I will probably switch then).

Installation went pretty smoothly. My only issue was getting the main Deco router communicating with the Xfinity gateway and then the Internet after putting the gateway into bridge mode -- thereby making it only a cable modem instead of a combo modem / router / wifi device. It turns out that only one of the four ethernet ports on the Xfinity gateway work in bridge mode, and it was the last one I tried (It has a little orange line above it, which I guess is supposed to signify that).

So far, network performance looks very good. The Deco app was a little cumbersome until I figured out where everything is. It took some looking to find where to label the two extra Deco units and all my network devices. The network signal in my wife's office looks strong. However, she has an old PC with a 2.4GHz built-in adapter, so that's probably the bottleneck now. Speed tests show her getting 100Mbps download speeds, while I can get over 400Mbps on my smartphone with its 5GHz WiFi connection (we pay for 400Mbps service).

 

[JohnRice]

To revive an old thread, I finally bit the bullet and installed a mesh network in my home. I picked up this TP-Link Deco X55 on Amazon Prime Day and installed it this afternoon. It's replacing my Comcast Xfinity XFi router/WiFi device, which has for now been relegated to a cable modem.

Hopefully this will provide a little better coverage in the upstairs back bedroom that my wife uses as an office / craft room. The three Deco devices may be a little overkill for our 2,500 square foot house (not including the finished basement), but the price was right. My other motivation for this installation is to get my home network off Comcast hardware to make it easier to switch to a different ISP in the future -- we already have dumped them as a cable TV provider. All I should need to do now is swap out cable modems whenever we switch providers (we are price-locked with Comcast until next May, so I will probably switch then).

Installation went pretty smoothly. My only issue was getting the main Deco router communicating with the Xfinity gateway and then the Internet after putting the gateway into bridge mode -- thereby making it only a cable modem instead of a combo modem / router / wifi device. It turns out that only one of the four ethernet ports on the Xfinity gateway work in bridge mode, and it was the last one I tried (It has a little orange line above it, which I guess is supposed to signify that).

So far, network performance looks very good. The Deco app was a little cumbersome until I figured out where everything is. It took some looking to find where to label the two extra Deco units and all my network devices. The network signal in my wife's office looks strong. However, she has an old PC with a 2.4GHz built-in adapter, so that's probably the bottleneck now. Speed tests show her getting 100Mbps download speeds, while I can get over 400Mbps on my smartphone with its 5GHz WiFi connection (we pay for 400Mbps service).

I don't think thee units is overkill with mesh, since you really want them spaced at intervals where there's still a solid signal. Since I was able to do wired backhaul, I could easily cover the same size house with two WiFi units, with room to spare. Of course, not everyone wants to go to the trouble to set up wired backhaul, or even can do it in their situation.

 

[DaveF]

To revive an old thread, I finally bit the bullet and installed a mesh network in my home. I picked up this TP-Link Deco X55 on Amazon Prime Day and installed it this afternoon. It's replacing my Comcast Xfinity XFi router/WiFi device, which has for now been relegated to a cable modem.

Hopefully this will provide a little better coverage in the upstairs back bedroom that my wife uses as an office / craft room. The three Deco devices may be a little overkill for our 2,500 square foot house (not including the finished basement), but the price was right. My other motivation for this installation is to get my home network off Comcast hardware to make it easier to switch to a different ISP in the future -- we already have dumped them as a cable TV provider. All I should need to do now is swap out cable modems whenever we switch providers (we are price-locked with Comcast until next May, so I will probably switch then).

Installation went pretty smoothly. My only issue was getting the main Deco router communicating with the Xfinity gateway and then the Internet after putting the gateway into bridge mode -- thereby making it only a cable modem instead of a combo modem / router / wifi device. It turns out that only one of the four ethernet ports on the Xfinity gateway work in bridge mode, and it was the last one I tried (It has a little orange line above it, which I guess is supposed to signify that).

So far, network performance looks very good. The Deco app was a little cumbersome until I figured out where everything is. It took some looking to find where to label the two extra Deco units and all my network devices. The network signal in my wife's office looks strong. However, she has an old PC with a 2.4GHz built-in adapter, so that's probably the bottleneck now. Speed tests show her getting 100Mbps download speeds, while I can get over 400Mbps on my smartphone with its 5GHz WiFi connection (we pay for 400Mbps service).

So last year I upgrade to a wifi 5 deco system I wanted five beacons to span my home due to the layout, and dropping down to the lower end kit made that practical over a 3 beacon wifi 6 system. I’ve been happy with it.

In particular, the Deco app while not the most full-featured app has gotten new features the past year. In fact, just recently I found it added a per-device toggle for “fast roaming” which solved a problem I had with connecting a new wifi-capable oven range.

The layout of the app is not intuitive — I can never remember where features are. But I eventually find what I’m looking for.

TL;DR
…

I bought into the TP-Link Deco system and spent today taking out my old wifi and setting up the new kit.

Deco Whole Home Mesh WiFi

The Deco M5 mesh WiFi system provides fast, powerful WiFi coverage for large homes up to 5,500 sq.ft. Powerful anti-virus software keeps your home network totally safe and secure.

www.tp-link.com

I bought the three pack and the two pack for $250 total.
See on Amazon
See on Amazon

 

[Clinton McClure]

My eero Pro mesh network (two base station units) still provides excellent coverage to our 2,800-ish square ft. split level home. The only device with a non-wifi Ethernet connection (besides the cable modem) is my Mac Mini which is pulling 1Gbps directly from the modem. Perhaps one day, it will be worth my while to have someone come in and pull Cat 5e (or 6 or whatever is the standard at that point) but for now, mesh wifi is fantastic.

 

[JohnRice]

I can say that wired backhaul has significant benefits, especially if you have a large family, large house, or lots of devices streaming. You do have to run an ethernet cable to each WiFi point, but once that's done, it's done. Both my WiFi units are in the basement, up high. In fact, one is between the floor joists in a storage room that has an unfinished ceiling. It's a lot more straight forward than a mesh, but you do have to be a bit of a tweek to set it up. Once you understand how it works, it's not very mysterious. It's also rather inexpensive.