Fritz!box 7490 Lab v7.51 firmware

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Fritz!box 7490 Lab v7.51 firmware

1 | 2

wlgspotter

331 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3030871 2-Feb-2023 11:57

Wombat1:

Is this a new feature in the newer FritzOS then? Why would you want the Fritzbox mesh to use 2.4Ghz for the mesh uplink? Surely that will be slowing things down. 5Ghz on its own is ample for the uplink?

Yes apparently it is a new feature. I guess first and foremost it is there for link redundancy - if 5GHZ is too far for example..? Not sure if they would use both uplinks simultaneously tho as that would be good if it does - I guess two uplinks are still better than one? Also remember that with the FritzBoxes there is not dedicated radio for Mesh uplink so if it uses the 5GHz (and only 5GHz) then the available airtime to serve 5GHz clients out of that repeater units gets reduced.

Wombat1:

Also a question for those that are using 7490's as mesh repeaters, have you set the mesh repeaters to only connect back to the master? Or do you also need to setup the mesh repeaters to be able to connect to themselves? (this is via the wps button thing) I have found that the mesh network does not take the shortest path in the following scenario:

Repeater1 --> Repeater2--> Master

Instead it does this

Repeater1 --> Master

Repeater2 --> Master (Even if Repeater1 is between Master and Repeater 2)

In my case when configuring my Mesh Repeater I select which "uplink" Mesh units it wants to connects to, in my case it is the master, i.e.

Repeater 1 -- Mesh Master -- Repeater 2

From looking at the Mesh Repeater config, it looks like the Mesh Repeater can only connect to one unit as its uplink. If your case is Repeater 1 -- Repeater 2 -- Mesh Master then I believe for Repeater 1 you should be able to choose Repeater 2 as your Mesh uplink. Never tried it myself but it looks like you could do it given the configuration screen allows you to choose the uplink unit.

[Edit: Fixed typo/contents]

Lally

100 posts

Master Geek

#3031404 3-Feb-2023 16:49

Lally:

Ok, another issue I've found and I hope there is someone else on GZ who can test or verify this for me please.

One of the new enhancements was enabling Mesh over both bands 2.4 and 5:

FRITZ!Box products in "Mesh Repeater" operating mode could previously only be connected to other FRITZ!Box/FRITZ!Repeaters with one Wi-Fi band (2.4 or 5 GHz) at a time. With the new FRITZ!OS, it's now also possible to use more than one Wi-Fi band for the Wi-Fi uplink. This enables higher data throughputs and stability in the Mesh. When updating a Mesh network that's already been set up with an older FRITZ!OS and consisting of one or more FRITZ!Box products in Mesh Repeater mode, the previously unused Wi-Fi band is automatically connected.

If I do this on the mesh repeater, the 2.4 network disappears from use on the repeater.

OK, logged a call with AVM and they provided the answer. Bit of a gotcha I guess for me.

Because of the kids (private device mac addresses) I don't allow new wireless devices , this tripped me up as on the new firmware, the uplink bands have their own mac addresses from the repeater.

2.4 was being refused at the master, disabled then re-enabled and all is good.

Evidenced from the below, never knew the dual band uplink was represented separately here as I only ever saw the one link previously.

wlgspotter

331 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3036256 14-Feb-2023 08:47

Intersting - that's good to know although not surprising as each of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz are separate radio interfaces anyway.

In my case, I've decided to roll back my 7490 to the stock (default) firmware. I do like the capabiltiy of using dual links for the Mrsh uplinks, but I'm actually not sure how the FritzBox would determine which link to use. Would they use 2.4GHz (which should give a stronger signal, albeit lower bandwidth/speed), or would it use the 5GHz? What I was seeing is that devices (especially my Xiaomi TV-S Android TV box) that is connected via the 7490 Mesh Repeater keeps getting "No Internet connection" error and streaming would stop/drop - very frequently. This never happenned before (at least not as frequent) on the stock firmware. If I power off the 7490 Mesh Repeater that it would be OK - it still could connect directly to the Mesh Master (my 7590 AX) although signal is weak and connection speeds are low, but at leats I get a stable connection.

Since rolling back the 7490 I was back to before - a lot less "No Internet/Wi-Fi Connection" messages and issues.

This could be due to the fact the firmware is in beta - who knows. I'll wait until the fully released firmware is out before trying again. On the plus side the rollback is pretty easy - you do need a backup of the config file tho as you'll need it to restore otherwise the unit would be factory defaulted.

Wombat1

586 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#3036281 14-Feb-2023 09:59

I went and upgraded my 7490 which is being used as a repeater to FRITZ!OS:7.51-103186 BETA. No issues yet like you describe, though my devices are only about 10m from each other.

I got rid of my second 7490 repeater as I found it was not very beneficial. The coverage from these units is pretty good so I was finding the 3rd unit a bit of a waste as it was rarely being used by any devices.

1 | 2