[Snap] My thoughts after a month with Snap and a Fritzbox 7340

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › [Snap] My thoughts after a month with Snap and a Fritzbox 7340

tukapa1

725 posts

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#119119 21-May-2013 15:12

Thought I would post my thoughts now I've had Snap with a Fritzbox for a month.

1) Service through joining and preparing for the change from Vodafone was good. Staff answered the phone promptly, were friendly and everything happened when it was supposed to. Fritzbox arrived the day of the changeover and apart from needing to make one phone call to get things kicked off there was minimal disruption (half an hour) between old and new connection.

2) Have had a consistent performance for the month (although I'm not one for speedtests). It works for what I want and works well.

3) Fritzbox 7340 was ordered as opposed to the 7390. I already have a 16 port switch for distribution so didn't need the two extra ports on the 7390.

4) The Fritzbox seems to have a limited wifi range. Where my previous modem/router (Linksys WAG160N) gave coverage right down to the lounge area, the Fritzbox does not reach that far. It probably has about half/two thirds the range. I am disappointed with that as I now need to set up an access point to improve the range (although this will have the added benefit of extending the range to areas the previous modem/router wouldn't reach).

5) Was looking forward to trying out the NAS capabilities of the Fritzbox, especially as it can be used with a powered 4 port USB hub. Great for distribution of my media stored on a couple of 3TB external hard drives. Or so I thought. After spending quite a bit of time wondering why the simple set up process wasn't working, some research turned up the fact that 2TB is the maximum drive supported by the Fritzbox. This wasn't recorded anywhere when I did my research before opting for this. It also appears from recent forum comments (April 2013) by the manufacturers that they do not intend supporting drives larger than 2TB in the future.

So all in all happy with the performance of Snap but not so happy with the performance of the Fritzbox.

(edit - spelling)

PeterReader

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#822992 21-May-2013 15:12

Hello... Our robot found some keywords in your post, so here is an automated reply with some important things to note regarding broadband speeds.

If you are posting regarding DSL speeds please check that

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- you read this topic and follow the instructions there.

Make sure you provide information for other users to help you. If you have not already done it, please EDIT your post and add this now:

- Your ISP and plan

- Type of connection (ADSL, ADSL2, VDSL)

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- Your general location (or street)

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- If you know your connection is to an exchange, cabinet or conklin

- If your connection is to a ULL or wholesale service

- If you have done an isolation test as per the link above

Most of the problems with speed are likely to be related to internal wiring issues. Read this discussion to find out more about this. Your ISP is not intentionally slowing you down today (unless you are on a managed plan). Also if this is the school holidays it's likely you will notice slower than usual speed due to more users online.

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eXDee

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#823010 21-May-2013 15:40

You can set up your WAG160N as an access point quite easily by disabling most of its features (including DHCP) and plugging it into the fritzbox. If it was sufficient before then you may as well continue using it.

Seems the wireless range of the fritzbox is a frequent complaint. When not in some sort of power saving mode, it was as good as my Asus RT-N16 in range. My issue as i've mentioned was the performance rather than the range. The asus has better range than my Linksys E2000, which is similar design to the WAG160N.

Are you using Dual Band devices that might be perferring the shorter range 5ghz network over the 2.4ghz one?

nitrotech

1285 posts

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#823035 21-May-2013 16:29

eXDee: You can set up your WAG160N as an access point quite easily by disabling most of its features (including DHCP) and plugging it into the fritzbox. If it was sufficient before then you may as well continue using it.

Seems the wireless range of the fritzbox is a frequent complaint. When not in some sort of power saving mode, it was as good as my Asus RT-N16 in range. My issue as i've mentioned was the performance rather than the range. The asus has better range than my Linksys E2000, which is similar design to the WAG160N.

Are you using Dual Band devices that might be perferring the shorter range 5ghz network over the 2.4ghz one?

The 7340 only has 1 wifi chip so can only do 2.4 or 5 not both at the same time as apposed to the 7390 which has both.

But ultimately the fritz has poor wifi coverage - there are many people talking about it (as you've mentioned) and it does spoil what is otherwise an excellent device - really the options are to run a separate wifi AP or use an extender (whilst understanding their limitations)

tukapa1

725 posts

Ultimate Geek

#823048 21-May-2013 17:13

eXDee: You can set up your WAG160N as an access point quite easily by disabling most of its features (including DHCP) and plugging it into the fritzbox. If it was sufficient before then you may as well continue using it.

Seems the wireless range of the fritzbox is a frequent complaint. When not in some sort of power saving mode, it was as good as my Asus RT-N16 in range. My issue as i've mentioned was the performance rather than the range. The asus has better range than my Linksys E2000, which is similar design to the WAG160N.

Are you using Dual Band devices that might be perferring the shorter range 5ghz network over the 2.4ghz one?

Unfortunately I sold the old WAG160N on TardMe - I do have cat5 cable wired throughout the house with a spare wall jack at the other end of the house so am looking at getting an accesspoint to connect there and extend the wireless. Still it's another $85 I didn't really want to spend.

sidefx

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#823056 21-May-2013 17:42

tukapa1:
Unfortunately I sold the old WAG160N on TardMe - I do have cat5 cable wired throughout the house with a spare wall jack at the other end of the house so am looking at getting an accesspoint to connect there and extend the wireless. Still it's another $85 I didn't really want to spend.

Sign up with Truenet and you could just use their probe as your access point in exchange for a bit of your data. Win win as I think they're always looking for volunteers. ;-)

(BTW are you using it for ADSL or VDSL. IMO it's brilliant for VDSL but possibly not quite as good value for ADSL. For me it makes the perfect VDSL modem ATA combination)

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

chevrolux

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#823060 21-May-2013 17:51

I personally think the wifi range is a bit of a moot point. People shouldn't be expecting to have good wifi performance when the access point is at the opposite end of the house. Even in my small 3 bedroom house I have two access points for optimal coverage. My signal strength never drops below -60dB and with a multi antenna card on the laptop performance is superb.

The other thing is I really wouldn't expect a router to act like a NAS for 6TB of data. I realise it seems like a really good idea but surely when you get up to that amount data a proper NAS is a far better solution. FreeNAS makes it easy for anyone to have a decent NAS solution for a very low cost.

tukapa1

725 posts

Ultimate Geek

#823087 21-May-2013 18:25

sidefx: Sign up with Truenet and you could just use their probe as your access point in exchange for a bit of your data. Win win as I think they're always looking for volunteers. ;-)

(BTW are you using it for ADSL or VDSL. IMO it's brilliant for VDSL but possibly not quite as good value for ADSL. For me it makes the perfect VDSL modem ATA combination)

Had never heard of Truenet - just had a look at their website - says to connect everything to their probe but I'm assuming if their probe is connected to one of the ports on the switch then pretty much everything is connected? I'm ADSL at the moment.

chevrolux: I personally think the wifi range is a bit of a moot point. People shouldn't be expecting to have good wifi performance when the access point is at the opposite end of the house. Even in my small 3 bedroom house I have two access points for optimal coverage. My signal strength never drops below -60dB and with a multi antenna card on the laptop performance is superb.

The other thing is I really wouldn't expect a router to act like a NAS for 6TB of data. I realise it seems like a really good idea but surely when you get up to that amount data a proper NAS is a far better solution. FreeNAS makes it easy for anyone to have a decent NAS solution for a very low cost.

I don't expect the wifi signal to completely cover my house - if you read my earlier post you will see my old modem/router did cover the areas that I needed and did it well. The WAG160N used to get crappy reviews, the Fritzbox gets great reviews. I would have expected the Fritzbox to provide as least as good wifi signal as the WAG160N, and probably expected better.

And as far as the data distribution goes I have a box here which I am building up specifically for a NAS but it would have been interesting to see whether the Fritzbox could have supplied a working alternative without the need for a stand alone NAS. I expected that it may not do everything i needed but it's an advertised feature so I was keen to run it through it's paces. If it did work it was going to be one less item drawing power around the house.

edit - spelling

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sidefx

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#823129 21-May-2013 19:28

tukapa1:

Had never heard of Truenet - just had a look at their website - says to connect everything to their probe but I'm assuming if their probe is connected to one of the ports on the switch then pretty much everything is connected? I'm ADSL at the moment.

That's their recommended setup but it's not mandatory. Their probe apparently has some smarts in that it won't run the tests when you're using your bandwidth, so that's part of the reason they recommend it that way, and I guess it makes their measurements more accurate.

But I've asked in the past and you don't have to run it like that; I don't run anything through my probe and haven't noticed any impact on my home network performance, and the stats they collect look pretty much as I would expect, so I don't think it's affecting their readings either.

Currently I just have the probe plugged into one of the ports on a switch that comes off one of the fritzbox ports. Into the other fritzbox port I have another router at the other end of the house just acting as a switch\access point. I used to run the truenet probe in there but wanted to go full gigE so replace it. It's a decent option though, gives you some nice stats\graphs to look at and the wifi too. The wifis not great, doesn't do 5GHz or anything but it would give you coverage at different ends of your house.

I think if you have a switch and don't need gigE between the fritzbox and switch another option would be to just plug the truenet probe into fritzbox then switch into the probe and anything else into the switch. And additional devices into the other truenet ports too if you don't need gigE on them.

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman