[binand]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

If you have a spacious place in a not too crowded area and position your router well, you can get identical performance on WiFi with cutting edge equipment.

Spacious place, not too crowded area, cutting edge equipment... You are talking of the one-percenters.

For the rest, internal wiring constraints, presence of walls, interference from consumer electronics etc. all play a role in degrading home Wifi.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

... ... ... WiFi and LAN connections.

This is part pedantry, and partly asking those whose knowledge is up-to-date if I'm right...

According to me, it is all LAN. In fact, you'll find your devices have addresses on the same Local Area Network, eg 192.168.nnn. It isn't WiFi or LAN: wifi is one way of connecting to your LAN.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

This is part pedantry, and partly asking those whose knowledge is up-to-date if I'm right...

According to me, it is all LAN. In fact, you'll find your devices have addresses on the same Local Area Network, eg 192.168.nnn. It isn't WiFi or LAN: wifi is one way of connecting to your LAN.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. I had shortened LAN ethernet cable to LAN.

[am1m]

Looks like Starlink is coming to India. Anyone planning to try it?

I see from the website that my pin code in Bangalore will be covered in the beta launch in 2022. Seems like quite an ambitious plan, satellite Internet. I remember the Worldspace radio service and Iridium that also launched private satellites. I guess this will be much bigger, the number of bright spots in the night sky will increase dramatically (of course won't make any difference in cities with all the light pollution). If it works, seems like a great alternative to wired connections and mobile data devices.

Of course the main advantage (if it all works out) should be for remote places where wired infra or mobile towers aren't available. Not sure how many of those are covered in the beta.

[amvj]

Please help me to choose a router for my Airtel broadband. Mine is fiber optic based and the current plan speed is 300 Mbps. My current router is supplied by Airtel and its Huawei made. I find the Wi-Fi signal range is not sufficient. House size is approximately 1200 sq ft. I find some of the low end smart phones in the household is not able to get Wi-Fi signal when moved to a different room.

I would like to purchase a Router that support / exceed:

1. Able to accept fiber optic input connection
2. Good coverage
3. Sufficient speed (needs to be higher than my current plan so in case if I am going for higher plan, it should support)
4. If possible, a non-Chinese brand. I am not much bothered about where it is made.

[swissknife]

Originally Posted by amvj

Please help me to choose a router for my Airtel broadband. Mine is fiber optic based and the current plan speed is 300 Mbps. My current router is supplied by Airtel and its Huawei made. I find the Wi-Fi signal range is not sufficient. House size is approximately 1200 sq ft. I find some of the low end smart phones in the household is not able to get Wi-Fi signal when moved to a different room.

I would like to purchase a Router that support / exceed:

1. Able to accept fiber optic input connection
2. Good coverage
3. Sufficient speed (needs to be higher than my current plan so in case if I am going for higher plan, it should support)
4. If possible, a non-Chinese brand. I am not much bothered about where it is made.

Wifi singals, especially in the high frequency bands suffer from signal loss when they encounter walls. For higher distances and through walls, it's preferable to use the 2.4Ghz frequency rather than the 5Ghz frequency. Yes, the throughput would be lower, but the consistency would be higher.

If you wish to buy a router with wifi, you may not need one with fiber optic wan connection. You could connect a high speed ethernet cable from your airtel router to the new wifi router. You may want to take a look at the TP Link Archer C6.

[amvj]

Originally Posted by swissknife

...it's preferable to use the 2.4Ghz frequency rather than the 5Ghz frequency.

If you wish to buy a router with wifi, you may not need one with fiber optic wan connection. You could connect a high speed ethernet cable from your airtel router to the new wifi router. You may want to take a look at the TP Link Archer C6.

Except laptops, I connect my mobiles to 2.4GHZ only.

There is no LAN cable available and only Fiber optic cable is connected directly to the router as shown below.

[lxskllr]

What swissknife means is to use the yellow ports on your existing router and get a new router(your choice, I'd recommend probably a WiFi 6 one) and disable the wireless on the old router

Coming to GPON router, we don't have many options, you can try Archer XR500v which has a fiber optic in, but this time will be dependent on Airtel support, it's likely that it won't work.

Your best bet is to get a new router and connect it to your existing on using LAN port. Do check the connection speed on both the routers, hopefully they're 100Mbps and full gigabit ports, else you'll be limited the bandwidth.

Originally Posted by amvj

Except laptops, I connect my mobiles to 2.4GHZ only.

There is no LAN cable available and only Fiber optic cable is connected directly to the router as shown below.

Attachment 2128309

[Swapnil4585]

I use my Android mobile as a hotspot in my office. However, off late I am unable to access internet on any device that I connect with it.

The name of the hotspot is say "xyz". Now whenever I connect it to any device (laptops or other mobiles), the name appears as "xyz 1" or "xyz 2" and so on. And then the connection is blocked. I think it is blocked due to some firewall settings. What do I do to correct this?

[hondafanboy]

Originally Posted by amvj

Please help me to choose a router for my Airtel broadband. Mine is fiber optic based and the current plan speed is 300 Mbps. My current router is supplied by Airtel and its Huawei made. I find the Wi-Fi signal range is not sufficient. House size is approximately 1200 sq ft. I find some of the low end smart phones in the household is not able to get Wi-Fi signal when moved to a different room.

I would like to purchase a Router that support / exceed:

1. Able to accept fiber optic input connection
2. Good coverage
3. Sufficient speed (needs to be higher than my current plan so in case if I am going for higher plan, it should support)
4. If possible, a non-Chinese brand. I am not much bothered about where it is made.

I also want to Huawei router with another one which is also compatible with Airtel vFiber connection. Haven't found the solution yet. If you find anything then please update.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by amvj

Please help me to choose a router for my Airtel broadband.

I've got the exact same problem. I see three solutions:

1) Mesh setup
2) Keep this Airtel-provided Modem+Router, run LAN wires to two/three Access Points as necessary
3) Keep this Airtel-provided Modem+Router, run LAN wires to two/three Dual-band Routers as necessary

Which of option 2 and 3 is better? I will use only WiFi (be it AP or Router). I thought of running a LAN wire to the TV but I also use the FireStick, which only takes WiFi.

[amvj]

Originally Posted by hondafanboy

I also want to Huawei router with another one which is also compatible with Airtel vFiber connection. Haven't found the solution yet. If you find anything then please update.

I am just planning to change the location of the router. I checked for Wi-Fi repeaters (extender), but experts say it will reduce the speed by 50%. Which I feel not worth it.

Originally Posted by libranof1987

I've got the exact same problem. I see three solutions:

1) Mesh setup
2) Keep this Airtel-provided Modem+Router, run LAN wires to two/three Access Points as necessary
3) Keep this Airtel-provided Modem+Router, run LAN wires to two/three Dual-band Routers as necessary
....

I am pretty much new to Wi-Fi and stuffs. I don't know what this Mesh setup is. It requires "mesh" compatible router right ? Also, I am not sure whether the Airtel supplied Huawei router is Mesh compatible or not.

[vidyanand]

Originally Posted by amvj

Please help me to choose a router for my Airtel broadband.

Originally Posted by hondafanboy

I also want to Huawei router with another one which is also compatible with Airtel vFiber connection.

1. Ask Airtel to give you the new Nokia G-2425G Router Modem. They give this to new connections and seems to have better coverage. Try this before spending on a new Router if it is a single floor apartment flat. Try to place it at a most central location you can mange of you flat.

2. In case above #1 does not work, do not worry about optical fiber router. Simply get a powerful Wifi Router (as suggested by swissknife) and connect LAN1 (or 2-4) port on Airtel router to Internet Port (generally Blue) on your new Router. That should be more than enough for 1200 sqft. house. Powerful ones do come at a price.

3. Yes Mesh will need mesh routers as they come in set or ASUS standalone routers that support AiMESH. That still means you need to buy minimum 2 routers. Again Good ones are pricy. My brother is not happy with budget mesh DLink Covr so choose accordingly. I have ASUS AiMesh Routers (two different models) but you can get good brand sets from others as well. Search Amazon. But I believe you will be ok with Step 1 and at most 2.

Originally Posted by amvj

... but experts say it will reduce the speed by 50%. Which I feel not worth it.

If you are happy with 300Mbps, this will not have much impact. Above options anyways will take care of this.

[vinu_h]

Originally Posted by am1m

Looks like Starlink is coming to India. Anyone planning to try it?

I have subscribed. What worries me is the equipment cost. Refer these videos. The presenter says equipment costs $500. That's nearly 4 years of ACT/Airtel. For someone in an urban setup and interested in nothing less than 100% uptime only will consider this option. Others, can simply get both ACT & Airtel and achieve redundancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo

/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6MfM8EFkGg

[reignofchaos]

Anyone else on Ubiquiti gear here or any network experts around who are well versed in home networking? So far I've only used their edgerouter series and found them to be exceptionally stable.

Planning to upgrade to the Unifi series now and get a UDM Pro, Unifi Pro 24 for wired clients, Unifi PoE+16 for wireless APs and other PoE equipment and 6 units of Unifi 6 lite APs for the new house. Is this a good idea?

This should hopefully last me for the time until 10gbps LAN becomes more common.