Good mesh system for FibreX ?

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#1885964 18-Oct-2017 21:11

Kiwifruta: Instead of installing new cabling, you could try Ethernet over Power line adapters to connect the router to the APs.

I've always had good success with EoP, but others have not, so YMMV. I live in Tauranga, if you live here you are welcome to borrow my pair to test in your house.

is likely slower than the connection that would be achieved via the mesh solution

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#1887683 22-Oct-2017 11:00

Buy an AP with a good radio and you will get good coverage. There are tons of cheap slightly old enterprise APs like Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba on trademe. I had an old Ruckus AP coverage a 265 sq m house no problems, on an 800 sq m section worst I'd get would be 25Mbps.

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#1887832 22-Oct-2017 18:40

vulcannz:
Buy an AP with a good radio and you will get good coverage. There are tons of cheap slightly old enterprise APs like Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba on trademe. I had an old Ruckus AP coverage a 265 sq m house no problems, on an 800 sq m section worst I'd get would be 25Mbps.

Not the best solution. Yes you may but you end up interfering with those around you. If everyone did it with WiFi spectrum would be useless.

Multiple lower power radios are the way to go.

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#1887859 22-Oct-2017 19:57

KingPluto: Thanks heaps. The house is old (early 1930s) 2 storeys, no ceiling space, wooden floors and definitely no data ports (indeed only 2 phone ports!) so I think the cost of getting it wired up is going to be prohibitive

I think a mesh is the easiest solution. Though $600 is a fair bit for an experiment! At least you guys have helped me find systems that will supposedly work with FibreX ... I’m edging toward the AmpliFi over the Orbi because you get three mesh points for a cost that is $90 less than the two you get with Orbi

Anyone want to convince me why the Orbi is the better option?

The cost of getting it wired for ethernet might surprise you. Sometimes those old houses are brilliant for running cables in.

Cabling will be a far superior solution in terms of life span, future upgrade costs, and interference.
Your $600 wifi might be useless if the neighbors get something that interferes with it.

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#1887886 22-Oct-2017 20:31

Jase2985:
vulcannz:

Buy an AP with a good radio and you will get good coverage. There are tons of cheap slightly old enterprise APs like Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba on trademe. I had an old Ruckus AP coverage a 265 sq m house no problems, on an 800 sq m section worst I'd get would be 25Mbps.

Not the best solution. Yes you may but you end up interfering with those around you. If everyone did it with WiFi spectrum would be useless.

Multiple lower power radios are the way to go.

Yeah nah. Single decent device, easy to manage, no complex wiring, no stupid bandwidth sucking mesh, single point for devices to connect too (no strange roaming problems). Enterprise radios tend to be smart around band selection as well (and have decent band steering capabilities).

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#1887898 22-Oct-2017 21:24

And a powerfull AP will light up all the bars on a smartphone and still be close to useless when the phone cant get back to the AP over all the other noise in the band.

Richard rich.ms

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#1887899 22-Oct-2017 21:30

vulcannz:

Jase2985:
vulcannz:

Buy an AP with a good radio and you will get good coverage. There are tons of cheap slightly old enterprise APs like Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba on trademe. I had an old Ruckus AP coverage a 265 sq m house no problems, on an 800 sq m section worst I'd get would be 25Mbps.

Not the best solution. Yes you may but you end up interfering with those around you. If everyone did it with WiFi spectrum would be useless.

Multiple lower power radios are the way to go.

Yeah nah. Single decent device, easy to manage, no complex wiring, no stupid bandwidth sucking mesh, single point for devices to connect too (no strange roaming problems). Enterprise radios tend to be smart around band selection as well (and have decent band steering capabilities).

sorry but most decent AP's are easy to manage, complex wiring all depends on your property, so it s case by case basis, bandwidth sucking mesh? most of the time they have a dedicated radio for that so doesnt detract from the normal bandwidth, and single vs multi point to connect to is a moot point, any decent hardware wont have roaming issues.

As Rich said, good luck getting your device to talk back to a single AP from a distance. multiple access reduce this problem a lot.

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#1888061 23-Oct-2017 13:34

richms:

And a powerfull AP will light up all the bars on a smartphone and still be close to useless when the phone cant get back to the AP over all the other noise in the band.

A good quality radio+antenna at one end makes a huge difference. it's not just signal strength, but enterprise radios tend to have a buckload of extra goodies built that make wifi life much nicer.

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#1888062 23-Oct-2017 13:42

vulcannz:

Jase2985:
vulcannz:

Buy an AP with a good radio and you will get good coverage. There are tons of cheap slightly old enterprise APs like Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba on trademe. I had an old Ruckus AP coverage a 265 sq m house no problems, on an 800 sq m section worst I'd get would be 25Mbps.

Not the best solution. Yes you may but you end up interfering with those around you. If everyone did it with WiFi spectrum would be useless.

Multiple lower power radios are the way to go.

Yeah nah. Single decent device, easy to manage, no complex wiring, no stupid bandwidth sucking mesh, single point for devices to connect too (no strange roaming problems). Enterprise radios tend to be smart around band selection as well (and have decent band steering capabilities).

A single radio was a 2009 solution to a problem. It's not a 2017 solution.

There mere fact that 5GHz is now the norm for WiFi (and companies like Cisco and Apple recommend *only* 5GHz deployments to deliver a robust network) means that due to 5GHz propagation (or lack of it) it's now a basic requirement for multiple AP's to even cover an average sized house or large office if there are multiple walls or doors.

At the end of the day the problem isn't just the AP - it's the fact a client device with a much smaller antenna and lower power output needs to be able to talk back to the AP.

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#1888070 23-Oct-2017 14:02

sbiddle:
vulcannz:

Jase2985:
vulcannz:

Buy an AP with a good radio and you will get good coverage. There are tons of cheap slightly old enterprise APs like Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba on trademe. I had an old Ruckus AP coverage a 265 sq m house no problems, on an 800 sq m section worst I'd get would be 25Mbps.

Not the best solution. Yes you may but you end up interfering with those around you. If everyone did it with WiFi spectrum would be useless.

Multiple lower power radios are the way to go.

Yeah nah. Single decent device, easy to manage, no complex wiring, no stupid bandwidth sucking mesh, single point for devices to connect too (no strange roaming problems). Enterprise radios tend to be smart around band selection as well (and have decent band steering capabilities).

A single radio was a 2009 solution to a problem. It's not a 2017 solution.

There mere fact that 5GHz is now the norm for WiFi (and companies like Cisco and Apple recommend *only* 5GHz deployments to deliver a robust network) means that due to 5GHz propagation (or lack of it) it's now a basic requirement for multiple AP's to even cover an average sized house or large office if there are multiple walls or doors.

At the end of the day the problem isn't just the AP - it's the fact a client device with a much smaller antenna and lower power output needs to be able to talk back to the AP.

bang on the money, again.

KingPluto

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#1888085 23-Oct-2017 15:12

Thanks for all the advice ... but the epic difference of opinions is what puts off the non-technicals (like myself) from taking the leap into something better.

I don’t need the best (hell, the bandwidth on fibreX is so variable anyway it really doesn’t matter) ... just something easy and reliable (and preferably cheap)

Orbi or AmpliFi still seems the best from what I can tell ... but is there an easier/cheaper option?

vulcannz

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#1888106 23-Oct-2017 15:49

sbiddle:

vulcannz:

Jase2985:
vulcannz:

Buy an AP with a good radio and you will get good coverage. There are tons of cheap slightly old enterprise APs like Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba on trademe. I had an old Ruckus AP coverage a 265 sq m house no problems, on an 800 sq m section worst I'd get would be 25Mbps.

Not the best solution. Yes you may but you end up interfering with those around you. If everyone did it with WiFi spectrum would be useless.

Multiple lower power radios are the way to go.

Yeah nah. Single decent device, easy to manage, no complex wiring, no stupid bandwidth sucking mesh, single point for devices to connect too (no strange roaming problems). Enterprise radios tend to be smart around band selection as well (and have decent band steering capabilities).

A single radio was a 2009 solution to a problem. It's not a 2017 solution.

There mere fact that 5GHz is now the norm for WiFi (and companies like Cisco and Apple recommend *only* 5GHz deployments to deliver a robust network) means that due to 5GHz propagation (or lack of it) it's now a basic requirement for multiple AP's to even cover an average sized house or large office if there are multiple walls or doors.

At the end of the day the problem isn't just the AP - it's the fact a client device with a much smaller antenna and lower power output needs to be able to talk back to the AP.

The day I take network advice from apple is the day hell freezes over.

Like I said, I had a ruckus for many years covering a large property, no problems and with a plethora of wifi devices (my network is not your average home network either). Why do you need 5Ghz? A proper radio in a suburban environment on a large property is not going not going to have issues. Maybe if your experiences are based on consumer grade radios, but not enterprise.

Multiple APs for an average sized house means you are buying rubbish APs.

Jase2985

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#1888153 23-Oct-2017 17:33

lol why do you need 5ghz? because its faster, thats why. there are also more non overlapping channels, and there are more channels full stop. there's less interference. its just generally a better user experience.

you last comment is the biggest crock out there. yes you can do it, but its not neighbour or device friendly and you must have missed all the previous posts about why its not a good idea. i could have one AP cover my whole house, but then i would be living with 25mbps (like you). id rather have 200+ mbps everywhere, and not have it affect the neighbours.

enterprise grade grade hardware is cheap these days, for less than $150 you can pickup an enterprise grade access point, thats more than capable of delivering wifi with excellen speeds.

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#1888178 23-Oct-2017 17:46

vulcannz:

Maybe if your experiences are based on consumer grade radios, but not enterprise.

My experiences are based on many enterprise deployments including plenty of Ruckus deployments. To add to that my home is also served by Ruckus - they make the best WiFi kit on the market.

IMHO the fact you think 5GHz is pointless is IMHO a bit like invoking Godwin's law - you invoke it and you instantly lose the argument. To think there is no need for 5GHz really shows a level of naivety. 2.4GHz in many urban environments is munted beyond belief.

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#1888180 23-Oct-2017 17:48

Jase2985:

enterprise grade grade hardware is cheap these days, for less than $150 you can pickup an enterprise grade access point,

You can't really. Despite using "enterprise" in their marketing neither UBNT or Grandstream really offer many basic enterprise features that any "enterprise" vendor such as Ruckus, Aerohive or similar. The closest you'll get to $150 is a 2nd hand Ruckus. :)

Every solution has it's pros and cons but you can't compare them.

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