Wireless Access Points - some advice please

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#3353893 14-Mar-2025 09:45

CokemonZ:

I have had good experiences with an older generation of this type of product.

It uses the powerlines in your wall like an ethernet cable, and gives you both wifi and ethernet at each end. This one will replace your fritzbox too.

Awesome at rentals as you can plug them in wherever you like, and move them around.

Buy the TP-Link Deco PX50 (AX3000) + G.hn 1500 Hybrid WiFi 6 Whole Home Mesh... ( Deco PX50(3-pack) ) online - PBTech.co.nz

You could always go for a mesh system, I like wires :)

I recommended this solution to one of my colleagues at work a couple of weeks ago who had never ending wifi speed and reliability issues. He bought exactly these units, had them setup in an hour and he is completely happy with the results. This solution just makes life easy and works without any mucking around.

allan

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#3353941 14-Mar-2025 14:04

noroad:

CokemonZ:

I have had good experiences with an older generation of this type of product.

It uses the powerlines in your wall like an ethernet cable, and gives you both wifi and ethernet at each end. This one will replace your fritzbox too.

Awesome at rentals as you can plug them in wherever you like, and move them around.

Buy the TP-Link Deco PX50 (AX3000) + G.hn 1500 Hybrid WiFi 6 Whole Home Mesh... ( Deco PX50(3-pack) ) online - PBTech.co.nz

You could always go for a mesh system, I like wires :)

I recommended this solution to one of my colleagues at work a couple of weeks ago who had never ending wifi speed and reliability issues. He bought exactly these units, had them setup in an hour and he is completely happy with the results. This solution just makes life easy and works without any mucking around.

If wired connectivity isn't an option, surely you'd be better going with a mesh system that had a dedicated WiFi backhaul channel rather than Powerline, which I've often found problematic.

noroad

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#3353942 14-Mar-2025 14:08

allan:

If wired connectivity isn't an option, surely you'd be better going with a mesh system that had a dedicated WiFi backhaul channel rather than Powerline, which I've often found problematic.

It does both wireless and powerline mesh at the same time, they chose the best of what is available and act accordingly without the user having to be involved. i.e., plug in and magic happens.

raytaylor

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#3354013 14-Mar-2025 15:22

allan:

If wired connectivity isn't an option, surely you'd be better going with a mesh system that had a dedicated WiFi backhaul channel rather than Powerline, which I've often found problematic.

We tell customers to avoid wireless mesh as you often cant set channels and then the customers try to mix them with arlo cameras (shudder) and its just an all round bad experience.
Customers will also try and put the remote units in a dead spot where the 5ghz backhaul link wont reach so they are repeating a bad signal to begin with.

However in NZ, even old wiring can work really well with powerline systems because 99% of our houses are on single phase 230v supply.
In the USA where they have 110v split phases, it can be difficult to use them where half the house is on a different phase. And thats mostly where the bad reputation comes from.
The newer powerline AV standard uses MIMO so it transmits on both wires which can get an extra 3db of signal (doubles the signal) but if they are on different phases of a split phase system you dont get that boost.

The newer g.hn standard coming out is going to be rather interesting.
Powerline AV runs at sub-100mhz where as the fancy new g.hn i understand runs at 0.3-2ghz so its gonna be very interesting to see how that performs.
Lower frequency breaks through bad wiring better, but higher frequency with less range could be boosted with a higher transmit power.

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Lizard1977

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#3354090 14-Mar-2025 18:04

Thanks for that. I was wondering whether the wireless backhaul would be better than powerline. For reference, I did some signal strength testing on my fritzbox in the front bedroom and found that I had signal in every room. I think the worst it got was -80db on 5ghz but slightly better on 2.4ghz.

I've been wondering if the triband systems would be better than the powerline option. But if 5ghz struggled to reach then 6ghz would be struggling even more, wouldn't it?

raytaylor

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#3354467 16-Mar-2025 23:21

Lizard1977:

I've been wondering if the triband systems would be better than the powerline option. But if 5ghz struggled to reach then 6ghz would be struggling even more, wouldn't it?

Correct. The whole idea of powerline is to punch through walls that attenuate the wireless signal.

-80db is barely connected. You really want it to be higher.
At least -75 in bathrooms or garages for notifications to get through reliably.

Then in living spaces such as a couch, kitchen table, lying in bed, you want the signal to be -73db for a reliable connection for surfing and the occasional bursting like video clips
but ideally between -65 and -60 for good speeds.

A wireless mesh system needs about -65 on the 5ghz backhaul for the signal to be relayed well.
You would be surprised how close to the master base station this means you need to place the remote units.

Ray Taylor

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Goosey

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#3354469 17-Mar-2025 06:15

Is there any accessible roof space upstairs?

Is there any carpet coving (instead of skirting boards). (Popular in early 90s builds).

assuming the ONT was installed on an external wall, do you think there’s enough room to push through a outdoor rated CAT cable? And then run that up into the exterior soffit and then across to a suitable room upstairs? (Bonus if there’s roof space upstairs above rooms to use to “fish for the cable”)?

nicely run above the skirting board a small flat conduit with the CAT Cable to the nearest wardrobe and use the wardrobe as a way to then feed the cable into the ceiling space and then across to a room upstairs.

if that’s possible then draw a plan for the landlord, plus provide explanation on how it would look and a good cost estimate….they might say yes.

Whats the exterior of the house made of?

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Lizard1977

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#3354623 17-Mar-2025 15:51

I don't think running cable is an option. The house is brick on the ground floor and stucco on the second floor. I considered surface conduit to run cabling from the bedroom down to the lounge (as the most central point and with most devices needing a wired connection), and then probably ducting up the stairway to provide something upstairs. But I don't see a practical solution. It would have to drill through walls (or else go through doorways and stop them being shut) and that's not gonna fly. I had a friend helping with the move on Saturday, and he is an IT professional. His first thought when I mentioned the problem was to run cables, but on inspecting the actual layout agreed that it wasn't an option in a rental (different story in an own home situation).

So I'm tossing up between the TP-Link Deco PX50 (powerline+wireless backhaul hybrid) and something like the Deco XE75 (with a tri-band setup). Harvey Norman have the XE75 for $679 right now with a $60 gift card (net cost $619 - I'll find a use for the gift card), while I can get the PX50 for $605 from Noel Leeming using a Friends and Family discount code. It seems the dilemma lies between whether the hybrid backhaul (using powerline) or the tri-band wireless backhaul will be more reliable. My internet connection is 300/100mbps, and I think the most bandwidth intensive tasks will be streaming from my Synology NAS to the couple of friends I've shared my media library with (and streaming on my local network as well), and the potentially multiple streaming services being used around the house (my partner has two teenage children who each have their own TV and access to our array of streaming services). I may deploy some smart bulbs around the house once I've worked out what I can bring over from my old house, but this won't be comprehensive.

With both devices close in price, I'm struggling to pick between the powerline/hybrid option, or the tri-band system for purely wireless backhaul. What would you pick and why?

Ragnor

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#3354635 17-Mar-2025 17:09

Unfortunately you aren't really going to know what real world throughput you will get with powerline networking in a house until you try it, this is just due to the inconsistent nature of how houses are wired.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/h8m6nz/real_world_speeds_with_powerline_networking/

https://micoolpaul.com/2023/07/10/how-to-actually-increase-powerline-adapter-throughput/

For wifi mesh, I would suggest running a wifi analyzer / survey (there are various free tools for this) and see how congested the location is before investing either way.

Ragnor

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#3354637 17-Mar-2025 17:17

Lizard1977:

My internet connection is 300/100mbps

Hmm at lower speeds like that it might not much of an investment to give powerline a try in the new place. You could just get the cheaper/basic adapters and give it a go before dropping a bigger investment on mesh etc.

Just remember the marketing speed is nonsense.

Q: Are there old coax tv cables? Might be worth looking into GoCoax type ethernet over coax

https://www.gocoax.com/

Lizard1977

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#3354761 18-Mar-2025 10:26

So I did some more thinking, looking, digging, and have made some progress.

First of all, I discovered that the powerline option is unlikely to work. I read about a way to check whether sockets are on the same circuit by connecting something like a lamp to each of the sockets and then turning off the breaker switch. If both go off, then they're on the same circuit. I tried that, and discovered that the left side of the ground floor is on one breaker, and the right side is on another. As I have to cross the left to the right to get the signal down from the far bedroom, I don't think powerline would work.

But while I was doing this I started to think a little differently about the ethernet option. I had only been looking up, and realised I couldn't get past the door to the bedroom. But there is an appreciable gap at the bottom of the door - if I went around the skirting, then went up and around the architrave (using surface conduit), I reckon I could get an ethernet cable down to the lounge reasonably neatly, without drilling. Total length would be between 20-25m which should be fine for ethernet.

But if I took this approach and cabled the ONT so that the Fritz Box was down in the lounge, then the kids bedrooms downstairs would have poor wifi on their TV's and the Playstation. So I came up with another version:

Connect the ONT to the FritzBox in bedroom 1 and run ethernet around the skirting to the second lounge (right next door) and connect to a small switch. This would give a wired connection to the TV in the second lounge and the Playstation. If I connected a wireless AP to this switch, then it would also provide good wifi signal to this whole end of the house (2 x bedrooms + second lounge).
Run a second cable from the FritzBox down to the main lounge (around the skirting, then up to the architrave along the hallway - this is about a 20-25m run) and connect to my main network switch. This would give a wired connection to the main TV, the NAS, the Apple TV, the Xbox, and a second wireless AP. This would give good wifi signal to the other end of the house.
Run a cable from the main network switch in the main lounge upstairs (same approach, going up to the architrave and using surface conduit) and connecting a third wireless AP. This would give good wifi signal to the master bedroom and the office.

This would ensure maximum wifi coverage but with a wired backhaul to the router. I would turn off the wifi on the FritzBox and just use the wireless APs.

That would just leave the question - what wireless APs to go with? I used a Unifi AC device at a previous house, but it needed to be hosted on a server (which MichaelMurfy kindly provided) and I don't think I want to go down that road. I'm looking for something pretty simple. I did wonder if I should just go for the TP-Link Deco X50 (the non-powerline version of the PX-50). That way I could try using it as a wireless mesh system for now and if I found that I needed the wired backhaul then I could execute my wired plan above and use them as APs. But it's probably overkill, if there are cheaper options for wireless APs.

richms

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#3354787 18-Mar-2025 11:29

Are they on the same RCD? That seems to be what kills the signal more than just a breaker, and its very common in NZ to have a shared RCD for 3 circuits to save money on the gear needed - normally its 2 power and 1 light circuit per RCD.

Richard rich.ms

noroad

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#3354799 18-Mar-2025 12:05

Lizard1977:

First of all, I discovered that the powerline option is unlikely to work. I read about a way to check whether sockets are on the same circuit by connecting something like a lamp to each of the sockets and then turning off the breaker switch. If both go off, then they're on the same circuit. I tried that, and discovered that the left side of the ground floor is on one breaker, and the right side is on another. As I have to cross the left to the right to get the signal down from the far bedroom, I don't think powerline would work.

As long as the house is single phase (it certainly will be) all power circuits will go back to the board and any modern powerline system will work. A lot of the "internet" advice will be applicable to power systems that don't really apply in a single dwelling NZ home,

Lizard1977

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#3355306 19-Mar-2025 18:01

So I took the plunge and went for the X50. Got it home and started setting it up, but have got stuck at the configuration stage. It asked for the type of connection - as I have a static IP I went for that option and put in my static IP as supplied by 2 Degrees. But I wasn't sure on the other fields - default gateway, subnet mask, and primary and secondary DNS. I was pretty sure the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 and the DNS could be google's DNS for example, but wasn't sure what to put in for the default gateway.

So I rang 2 Degrees and got through to their technical support. I'll spare you the details but the person I spoke to (who was very nice) had never heard of a subnet mask. He went into his knowledge base articles and was talking about "subnet blocking" and other stuff - for as ignorant as I am, even I knew that it had nothing to do with that. He was also flummoxed by my request for what to supply for the default gateway.

In the end he escalated it to his manager who came back with "good news and semi-bad news." The bad news is they don't support third-party devices, but they were going to send me a wireless extender for the Fritz Box. :( But my new best mate on technical support said that wasn't good enough for such a fine gentleman as me and they were going to get me to take back this TP-Link device they'd never heard of and rush direct to my door a Netgear Orbi mesh satellite for my Fritz Box...

I said, slow down, this isn't a piece of junk I just found on a random website - it's a legit piece of equipment. And while it's not directly supported by 2Degrees (which is fair enough - they can't offer tech support for every device - what I'm asking for is what I assumed is standard information for any connection - the default gateway and the subnet mask.

So I've come here to see what I'm doing wrong.

When going through the setup in the TP Link app, it first finds the Deco router. Then it asks me to connect to the modem (which I've assumed is the ONT, as the Deco is supposed to be the router) and then restart the modem. It goes to the next page which is specifying the type of connection. I've tried "static IP", supplying my static IP as the address, with 192.168.1.1 as the default gateway and 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask, and then putting in google's DNS as primary and secondary. But it can't connect to the internet. I tried PPPoE, but that didn't work either - same problem.

Am I correct in connecting the Deco direct to the ONT, or do I have to connect it to the Fritz Box?
Are my static IP settings correct?
If I need to get the information direct from 2 Degrees, what should I be asking. I wasn't expecting it to be so hard to get what I assume is pretty basic information from them...

Spyware

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#3355317 19-Mar-2025 19:09

Static IP is assigned via DHCP. The settings for 2Degrees are IPoE/DHCP = Dynamic IP with a vlan tag = 10.

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