wifi brain trust
 

have a combo modem and wireless router that does not reach to the far edges of my house. Suggestion is to buy a new modern (24 channel what ever that is) and wireless router. Obviously doable

Question is, i have 6 smoke detectors, 2 thermostats among other things connected to the wireless system. If i put in the new wireless router and give the channels the same name as the ones i have now and the same passwords, will everything automatically connect since channel is the same name with the same password.

Not necessarily. If the 2 AP's for one reason or another don't behave ,
or your client wifi is iffy, you probably won't have the best kind of automatic switcheroo between the 2.

Unless off course you fork over serious moola (Think North of 500 bucks at the minimum) for professional AP's,
you'll probably find that getting Wifi to work like this relies heavily on Bllack magic and luck or lack thereof.

Especially if your house is not Wifi friendly (lot's of metal and thick walls)


Sometimes it's better to just pick 2 seperate SID's so at least they don't confuse each tother.

going to replace the existing router with a new one so there should not be any conflict
there. So one new router with the same channel names and same passwords.

What you want is known as a dual band router, operates in 2.4 and 5 ghz specteums.

I know you are looking for the easy answer but the thing about wifi is it operates at the speed of the slowest connected device.

Obviously without knowing much about your current devices hard to say what speed a, b, g or n they run on but seeing as they are not really communication devices, pass large amounts of data, its safe to assume they are slow.

Get the dual band and put all the slow / unknowns on 2.4 and all your newer know N a/c devices on the 5 spectrum.

Now there is also no gaurantee a newer router will provide broader coverage so if you can run some cat 5 close to your dead zones you may just want to run two wifi networks.

Saves you from having to reattach those other devices to boot.

I had a similar issue,
solution was to buy a Netgear PL1200(or PLP1200)
These use your house AC wiring to carry the signal from your router, you plug a unit into a house hold AC outlet near the router and another near the device that needs the signal then run a normal Ethernet cable(supplied) at each end to connect. It works great w/ no fuss, you also can encrypt the signal very easily, just push a button on each Pl1200. They also have lights to diagnose signal speed. I have 4 of them(2 sets) so can feed 3 devices far away from the router.

They claim 1200mbps but the actual speed is way less, a get ~75mbps through the router and ~60mbs at the furthest node.

The PLP1200 is the same but has a pass through AC outlet.

You don't have to replace the existing unit.

If it supports gigabit Ethernet just connect the new router to the old and enable it in bridge or access point mode.

Again that saves you from having to reconfigure the other devices.

You are not getting the theoretical speed most likely because the two outlets are not on the same circuit.

I've had to resort to using them in a pinch and they work best on the same circuit.

I've had situations where they don't work at all if the circuits are not in the same panel.

well that sounds promising. So don't by a new modem, just find a way to connect the better router into the current router and presto?

I just went through this. I had two routers in a bridged configuration so I could wire my tv into the second router without having to run cabling all over the house. I have a three story home, so running copper was a no go.

The secondary router started dying, so I needed to replace it.

Did a bunch of reading, and I ended up buying new routers, and I went with Portal wifi. They can use bridge or mesh. I went with the mesh, and now I have great coverage and the price wasn't too bad.

https://www.amazon.com/Portal-mesh-wifi-system-2-pack/dp/B01MYRZNAQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1490475602&sr=8-3&keywords=portal+wifi

Setup takes about ten minutes, and you don't need your neighbor kid to do it.

I have an airport extreme and two expresses set up to extend the signal. I have a massive chimney and the airport expressess have worked really well.

thoughts on this unit? Seems like a well thought out concepthttps://help.amplifi.com/hc/en-us#/hc/en-us/articles/235222547-Mesh-Mode

You miss the point, even the reduced throughput is ample to stream multiple 4k video streams to the far end of the house where the PL feeds an older spare Wifi router.

each 4k video feed needs way less then 20mbps

https://amplifi.com
sorry, link did not work. Thoughts on this unit

Sorry Bill,

You missed the point which was why you are not seeing anything close to the theoretical throughput of the device.

It was simply guidance on why, trying to help you get a better result, nothing more.

But while we are at it, no, you can not stream multiple 4 k streams over 20mb.

If you are able to do that then Amazon, Netflix, HULU all want to talk to you and your solution is worth billions.

Two get two 4K streams going (ignoring bandwidth consumed by overhead) you need to get each stream to 10 Mbps which means 40%-50% efficiency on the compression and a frame rate of 24 fps. That's what the math says.

Netflixs minimum for 4K streaming is 15 Mbps dedicated meaning you'll need space for overhead and anything else on the pipe so if you are checking OT while streaming you are pushing it. That's a moderately aggressive compression and reduced frame rate. The recommended dedicated bandwidth for quality 4K streaming is 25 Mbps per stream.

Anything less than that and you are better of watching it on blu-Ray.

Have a cable modem connected to a hub. The hub has a wired connection to another hub to two computers in another room. It is also wired to a wireless router for my home wifi. The wireless router has 3 wired connections, AppleTV, smart TV, and desktop computer as media server with TV as monitor. The wifi network has the smart TV, a color laser printer, My laptop, an iPhone, an iPad and a 2nd network interface on one of the wired computers.

Had 25mb/5mb connection to internet with my cable modem. Using speedtest.net got 20mb/5mb everywhere on all devices, even testing 2 at the same time.

Found some movies on youtube with my laptop I wanted to watch on the TV so just used Airplay to send my laptop screen and sound to the AppleTV with the TV as the output device for the AppleTV. It didn't work very well unless I moved the laptop to the same room as the wireless router to get full signal strength. Upgraded my wireless router to one of the newer dual bands and it worked fine with the same speeds everywhere using speedtest.net

Upgraded my Internet connection to 50mb/10mb. My iPhone speedtested 50/10 no matter where I was in the house. Laptop and hard wired servers only speedtested at 20/10.

Double checked the wire going between the two hubs and it had a hole in the wire from where a tree fell through the roof and was only supporting 10mb instead of gigabit. Pulled a new wire and the wired computers started getting 50/10.

The laptop in the same room as the wireless router would get 50/10. But on the desk I used it it only got 20/10. Put my old wireless router and set it up on the desk where I typically used the laptop. Set it up to extend an existing wireless network. Now the laptop speedtests at 50/10. I was surprised. Thought I would have to setup the second wireless router by having it wired and putting it in bridged mode. Glad I didn't as I found the Airport Express only supports 100mb ethernet instead of Gigabit.



If you just need to extend your home wireless network you can use another wireless router in extend and existing wireless network mode. I have all Apple wireless routers, ie Airport Extreme and Airport Express right now. Only assume this can be done with other wireless routers.

When extending wifi the devices should be connected via Ethernet whenever possible.

Creating the network over wifi will only provide throughput equal to what is available where the devices ranges overlap.

Doing it over wifi also introduces a lot of additional management overhead that can easily degrade the repeated throughput by half.

Mine sped up. At least to the speeds of my cable modem which is as fast as I need.

I put a wifi network in my nephew's large home. And the new home had those metal studs throughout.
Used 3 wireless routers in Bridge mode each wired to a central wireless router to get good coverage.

Wasn't necessary just to get faster coverage in the rooms at either end of my house that were just getting lower signal.

Also did an unwired wireless router in my brother's home. His TV and AppleTV had a fireplace between it and the main wireless router. Putting and unwired wireless extender in good range of the base router and line of sight with the blackout area bumped blackout area up to the same speeds as the rest of the wireless in his home. And didn't have to pull any wires.

If it sped up that means you fixed a pre existing configuration or infrastructure issue.

There are no circumstances under which bridging over wifi will yield a better result than properly configured Ethernet.

Changed nothing, just dropped in an unwired router set it to extend the wireless network and in that low signal area it sped up the wireless speeds to match that of the cable modem. I will say it again the unwired extender speeds up the low signal area's to match the speeds of the cable modem. Never said it made the optimum wireless network.

More missed point
they advertise 1200 mbps, maybe w/ 1200mbps input they do better
but I have ~75mbps through the modem/router
going from 75 in to 60 at the far end is no big deal as far as performance goes, even for multiple 4k streams using encryption
and chances are the 2 ends of this setup will always be on separate circuits so one should always expect some loss of signal

You are talking about two different things here.

The 75 is on your WAN.

The adaptors theroretical 1200 is on the LAN.

Stating "They claim 1200mbps but the actual speed is way less..." is incorrect.

The 60 is not a byproduct of the device or technology. The limitation is your broadband connection.

Peer to peer within your LAN you should see significantly better than 60.

But if the LAN is only being fed 76 from the WAN then 60 is about right.

Put another way, they are not multipliers and won't put out more than they are fed.

Speaking about the theoretical speed and apparent bandwidth loss in the same sentence only makes sense if you are feeding it something close to its throughput potential and not seeing it on the other end.

So my assumption was you were referring to poor peer to peer LAN throughput hence my relaying why that might be / the cause.

My apologies for seemingly offending you by trying to help.

thought i might ask this again, does this group think this product will solve my signal strength issue at the edges of the house?

Mesh networks are mad expensive, comparatively.

My neighbor did one.

Had a pro install it all.

Took a couple a couple of months to get working properly.

Now he is a gear head with electronics / media sort of like we are with cars and easily has $75k worth of electronics that had to be integrated so I'm sure that contributed to most of his issues.

Having said that they do work.

Without knowing more specifics, size of house, construction materials, layout and location of current devices and reach I'd still be willing to bet you can do it simpler and cheaper.

Here's a question, is there a coax drop anywhere in the vicinity of the dead spots?

yes, at each end of the house where the issue lies there are coax drops. They are currently being used by TV sets in those locations

MoCA adaptors.

Same concept as using the existing electrical wiring in the home but far more reliable and far less prone to issues.

Most residential broadband comes into the home via coax.

Means ethernet is already present at the cable drops in the house.

Coax supports gigabit ethernet.

Pick up an adaptor, or as many as you need, plug them into coax, add a WIFI router and good to go.

Use a splitter for the TV, make sure the minimum splitter rating is up to 1,000 mhz or better yet use the up to 2.5 GHz splitters.

What router do you have? Who is your provider. What you get kind of depends on how you are currently set up.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=actiontek+moca

Adaptor and WIFI built into one unit.

Good price too.

https://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Dual-Band-Wireless-Extender-WCB3000N01/dp/B00FKTMWDE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1490631704&sr=8-3&keywords=actiontec+moca

I have a very large home and my router does not reach the far end. I use a D-Link N300 300Mbps Compact Wi-Fi Wireless Range Extender (DAP-1320) placed about halfway between my router and where my signal is weak. It works just fine for my purposes. They cost about $10 new on ebay.

had been told by the Best Buy geek extenders are stretching the slgnal making it moderately acceptable everywhere. He counseled against an extender. Sounds like the coax based answer might be the way to go

Extenders work but you have to think about how they work.

Draw a circle then 5 more equally spaced concentric circles around it. Number them 100, 80, 60, 40, 20, 0 with 100 being the center. 100 represents strongest signal, 0 is nothing.

Draw the same thing next to it.

Slide them over each other and the deepest penetration represents the strength of the repeated signal.

Meaning, the extender can only repeat what it can receive.

In theory the only way to get 100% is to stack them on top of each other.

That's OK because WIFI can move way more data than most residential broadband supplies. It's only an issue if you need to move large amounts of data that originates inside your network.

If it can pass 300mbps second and overlap at 50 that's still 150 mpbs and if your broadband connection is 75 mbps you have overhead for two devices to fill the pipe. Actually less but that's the general idea.

The other thing to consider with WIFI extension is the overhead.

Imagine 2 guys, guy number 1 has to fill a bucket from a trough then pass it to guy number 2 who dumps the contents into his trough. Guy 1 has to know the exact number of drops in the bucket and let guy 2 know. Guy 2 has to confirm the number of drops he received and report back. If 2 got less than 1 sent then 1 has to send the missing drops.

The drops are data packets being transmitted.

When extending wifi you add a third guy into the mix. He has to receive from 1, dump into his trough, refill a new bucket from the trough and pass to the next guy. In addition to confirming how many drops he got from guy one he has to inform the next guy how many he sent. He's effectively doing the work of both the other guys combined at the same time.

It's twice the work and one of the reasons that wifi extenders can lose up to 50% of the throughput.

Trust me, the MoCA adapters work.

They are really just a cable modem set up to function in a different mode.

As long as the coax in your house is in good shape you'll get the same exact performance as if you'd moved the cable companies router to that location.

No cable in my hood...so that is not a player...but the extender does just fine in the far reaches of my home where I have a digital scale and similar where low speed does not matter.

You are not implying that the extender slows down other devices on the network that are not connected through the extender are you?

No they don't do that.

They are perfectly serviceable devices when used in the right application or barring any other solution.

They just have limits that generally go unnoticed, depending on how individuals use their network.

For me they don't work, for others they are the answer.

Wired ethernet does not have the middle man hand off issue is all.

EDIT: Although if you have coax running in the house there is a version of MoCA adapters that take ethernet from your primary router and feed your coax. Meaning cable internet is not a requirement.

All good stuff, and waaaay over my grey haired head. I think i am getting an understanding. The MoCA extenders are using my coax system to get a stronger signal throughout the house. Given the layout, seems like one at each end of the house (ranch style, 3000sf). That would mean two of them at $70 each plus the splitter for $140 plus shipping. The mesh system from Amplifi is $380 delivered to my house. Seems like both are serving the same function, just doing it differently. The MoCA uses the coax system, the Amplifi seems to be using the electrical distribution in the house since the satellite units plug into the wall

So, i am thinking if i am getting a boosted signal the MoCA is doing it for less.

if it ain't one thing its another. My modem is not compatible with MoCA. Therefore looks like the mesh system for me. Figuring the Amplifi system as opposed to the Netgear Orbi. Thoughts?

What modem is it? Provider?

If it is feed from the ISP with a coax cable it's MoCA.

If it is feed from the ISP with an ethernet cable then not.

You can use the previous linked router and add one of these this to the buy.

https://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Bonded-Ethernet-Adapter-ECB6200K02/dp/B013J7OBUU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490648107&sr=8-1&keywords=actiontec%2Bmoca&th=1

It will take the ethernet from your routers out and pipe it through the coax.

The benefit of Mesh is you should have only one network name and everything roams (in theory) seamlessly between antennas. I say in theory because your devices, laptops, tablets, etc.. need to support mesh. If not they may stay attached to the same antennae regardless of which is closer. With MoCA you may need to switch networks manually as well so at worst it's a toss up either way.

Hard to tell if the Amplifi system uses the homes wiring to pass data or if it's just wifi extenders.

If you get that buy the hi density and not the long range version.

Amplifi looks cool so if it fits the budget then what the hell, why not.

modem is from Cox and is a Ubee DDW 365 Ubee DDW366 In my chat with Cox they said it was not compatible, but given their level of service ....

It is fed from the wall to the back of the modem (combo for wifi and tv) by coax then to the Cox box with an Ethernet cable. Clearly you understand this better than them.

Frankly i am trying to solve a very specific problem. I have a wireless sprinkler controller on the outside of the house that is not getting a good signal. Will most likely add another wireless controller for the pool on the other end of the house and will most likely have the same signal issue (-73db which i understand is pretty low). So all of this trouble so my wife can water the plants when she wants. Go figure

Good info. Thanks!

Never heard of that brand of Modem.

That the router is fed by coax means they are running ethernet into the house over coax. So far so good.

But that specific UBEE looks like it lacks the ability to manage MoCA which I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around since it distributes wifi and breaks out the ethernet to another box which does not make a lot of sense because that indicates it has some facility to manage a network. Bizarre.

You can still use coax MoCA adapters but it gets a little more complicated and without knowing the specifics of each piece of hardware I'd be reluctant to recommend it. The installation would require the use of very specific splitters and termination to avoid back feeding the network and causing potential issues with your picture quality and network quality and there is a high likelihood that internet would not work at all because the adaptors would have no bridge to authenticate back to COX.

Basically if I can't see all the stuff on site I would have to make assumptions and I hate doing that because it can go sideways real fast.

So Amplifi might be your best option. As in headache free installation.

So, still not sure why one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L0YLRUW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

wouldn't work to extend the signal to your controllers. They don't have huge overhead.

Granted I didn't read the whole thread, I'm a geek after all, we skip to the end.

SM's right on the mesh, don't do it - you don't need it and it's a PITA. I've installed Ubiquiti, I'd spend on that if I was forced.

Thank you. Great info. Appreciate the thought you put in. Wish I really knew the specifics of your Ubee analysis. So off to Amplifi. Will post the results.

Did you look at the portal units I posted? A bit cheaper than the Amplifi, and it will give you ethernet ports at the client side also.

I looked at the Amplifi and the Orbi but I liked the Portal better because of the ethernet ports, and it is built more to the specs of commercial grade, rather than consumer grade.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/10/portal-router-aims-to-deliver-us-from-congested-wifi/

https://portalwifi.com/technology

I did look at them which is what got me wandering off to other products including the Amplfi. There were several negative reviews on a site I checked for purchase but will look again before I pull the trigger. You guys are great. Thanks for the suggestions and comments