[manim]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I asked if it was just because it's quite old now (Betel 777VR1) and can we have a new one.

I too have the Betel-777VR1 given to me by Airtel-ADSL-Broadband when I got the connection on 2017-April with 25 MBPS speed.

I had switched to Jiofiber on 2020-March with the 100 MBPS plan.

The Betel-777VR1 was gathering dust for the past 14 months. I was happy with Jiofiber's speed but unhappy with its WiFi range in their 2.4 GHz band (Jiofiber-modem has also the 5 GHz band).

There is one room in my house which always had a WiFi deadspot. Now with this lock-down and WFH, one member of my family needs a good connection throughout the day working for a multi-national company.

I experimented with this Betel-777VR1 modem a few days back. There is a 'WiFi repeater' in its settings, and I have now set it up midway between my Jiofiber-modem, thus getting a good signal.

However I want a long term solution. After reading your (THAD's earlier post), I too want to get a mid-range or better router like the Asus RT-AC86U with maybe two more secondary routers in an AiMesh, by running cat6 cables around my house.

Started studying about computer networks now!

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by manim

I experimented with this Betel-777VR1 modem a few days back. There is a 'WiFi repeater' in its settings, and I have now set it up midway between my Jiofiber-modem....AiMesh, by running cat6 cables around my house.

Is it possible to run cat6 cable to the point where 777VR1 is setup ? If you can' just put cable in any of the LAN ports. This would give you pretty good network in that area.

[sreenivass]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Is it possible to run cat6 cable to the point where 777VR1 is setup ? If you can' just put cable in any of the LAN ports. This would give you pretty good network in that area.

This would be a better solution unless you are in a relative isolation. What I see generally is 2.4 GHz is so crowded and it is hard to coordinate with neighbors for a channel plan.

Hence it may be a good idea to use smaller Access Points wire connected and/or in low power for each room. If you see it this way Radio dead-spots are a boon. 5 GHz helps to some extent, but attenuation and support in devices comes in the way.

[manim]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

just put cable in any of the LAN ports

This is the first thing I tried. Using a short 1 foot cable I tested this LAN to LAN connection, and it worked. I had to disable DHCP and reserve its IP address on the same LAN subnet(192.168.29.200) as on the jiofiber-router(192.168.29.1).

Next, I want to try the LAN to WAN connection (with some other router which has a WAN port, since this one has only a RJ11 ADSL-port). This means I can use DHCP and a different subnet(192.168.2.x) on this second router.

But then it seems that this becomes double/triple NAT and will internet access work properly? I want to get hold of a test router from my local hardware guys to test this before spending big money on a fancy router.

Jiofiber router also does not allow bridge mode and I can't turn off its damn WiFi signals. Even though it has this option of shutting it off from the mobile app or from its web interface, it still broadcasts its WiFi. I think this is done deliberatily by jio to snoop around!

So anyone tried this LAN to WAN connection on Jiofiber?

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Is it possible to run cat6 cable to the point where 777VR1 is setup ?

My deadspot-room is a long way and I have to wait for the lockdown to end so that I can call my electrician to punch holes in the walls and run the wire through plastic-pipes clamped to the wall around the outside of my house.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by manim

Started studying about computer networks now!

You can learn everything you need to know about TCP/IP for the home, or even small-office network in about half an hour. Google "TCP/IP tutorial" and work your way through the first two or three chapters.

This will not teach you much about security. It will also not teach you about the ins and outs of wifi and the different standards --- which is something that baffles me to this day! That aside, a wifi device is just another thing on your LAN

Of course, there is depth, theoretical and practical, beyond that, which is why those tutorials have far, far more than the first few chapters, but for a small network, you need go there only if it interests you.

Leaving aside the physical implementation, the basis of tcp/ip (with ip4 addressing) is elegantly simple. Probably helps that it was not developed by Microsoft/Novel/IBM/etc!

[manim]

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

I recently got the Asus RT AC59U router since my fiber modem/router had only one gigabit ethernet port. To my surprise it was a V2 model and it supported their Mesh feature!

I have shortlisted this model after days of reading reviews, watching youtube videos, etc.

Will be asking for a quote from my local hardware guys today. Don't know if it will be available during lockdown though. Amazon too does not deliver now.

After testing it, if it works well with Jiofiber, maybe get one or two more to create a mesh around my house. One step at a time!

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

You can learn everything you need to know about TCP/IP for the home...

Here are the 'dog-eared' books I studied decades back. The author Richard Stevens is the 'Feynman' of computer-networks! these books are still used by my children for their studies.

[binand]

Originally Posted by manim

My deadspot-room is a long way and I have to wait for the lockdown to end so that I can call my electrician to punch holes in the walls and run the wire through plastic-pipes clamped to the wall around the outside of my house.

When schools reopened online last year, my home (a 3BHK) had 4 people doing online work. Since I was in the same boat as you I ordered two things off Amazon and installed them myself as a stop-gap arrangement (which is still going strong). These two:

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B0134QJH4G/
https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B0084M66QS/

The installation looks like this. Ugly, but functional.

Originally Posted by manim

Here are the 'dog-eared' books I studied decades back. The author Richard Stevens is the 'Feynman' of computer-networks! these books are still used by my children for their studies.

The second book is actually volume 1 of 3. And there is a fifth book in the Stevens canon, lovingly called APUE on Usenet. I bought them all in one order 20+ years ago and built a career out of it. :-)

[manim]

Originally Posted by binand

And there is a fifth book in the Stevens canon, lovingly called APUE on Usenet

Sorry to be going off-topic, mods please excuse, but at the risk of being a show-off here is my copy bought around 20 years ago!



coming back to the topic, ASUS routers has impressed me, I don't want to consider any other brand. I like their user-interface, they are not chinese and they can be updated with a third-party open-source firmware: https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by manim

Here are the 'dog-eared' books I studied decades back. The author Richard Stevens is the 'Feynman' of computer-networks! these books are still used by my children for their studies.

You'll be ahead of me then!

I had a TCP/IP textbook, but it was lost in the Chennai flood. I seem to recall that it did not mention the private address space addresses, so I guess it must predate them.

Yes, I had the textbook, but as a jack-of-all-trades, self-taught, Unix system manager, my networking knowledge was certainly less but was enough for what I had to do hands on. Don't ask me how to do sub-netting that does not fall on an easy boundary!

Of course, several corporates wanted their protocols/methods to rule the world and the expanding internet, but it was TCP/IP that did and does.

As an aside, does IBM's Token Ring even exist these days?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by manim

big money on a fancy router.

Given the books you are reading, fancy router is not needed at all

https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-TL-SG1...dp/B00YMTNVEM/

or preferably :

https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-TL-SG1...dp/B00JKB63D8/

+

https://www.amazon.in/Raspberry-Pi-3...dp/B07BDR5PDW/

or preferably :

https://www.amazon.in/India-Raspberr...dp/B07XSJ64ZY/

You can run full router OS instead of consumer-grade routers.

Originally Posted by manim

it still broadcasts its WiFi. I think this is done deliberatily by jio to snoop around!

putting Jio's hardware in a Faraday cage is the only practical solution (opening it up and cutting antenna cables is another) .

Originally Posted by manim

So anyone tried this LAN to WAN connection on Jiofiber?

I do that with Airtel fiber. Its exactly same in this aspect.

Airtel's Modem --> LAN Cable via managed switch--> Raspberry Pi 4 --> LAN Cable via managed switch --> WiFi AP

Raspberry Pi (running OpenWRT) does all the routing.

Originally Posted by manim

My deadspot-room is a long way and I have to wait for the lockdown to end so that I can call my electrician to punch holes in the walls and run the wire through plastic-pipes clamped to the wall around the outside of my house.

Electrician might be able to pull cables through existing wiring. E.g.: telecom cables like cable TV / intercom might already have internal cabling. LAN cable can be pulled with that.

Other option is to buy shielded LAN cable and run it with electrical wire (not recommended, but should work for home usage).

[manim]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Given the books you are reading, fancy router is not needed at all

You can run full router OS instead of consumer-grade routers

Thanks! but that was decades ago when I was working for my degree. My brain cells have got older and are less sharp now

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

putting Jio's hardware in a Faraday cage is the only practical solution (opening it up and cutting antenna cables is another)

If Jiomodem interferes with my planned mesh setup in future, I will then attempt to silence it!

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Electrician might be able to pull cables through existing wiring

I had installed a IP based CCTV system just three months back in my house.
It uses Cat6 cables with Power Over Ethernet (PoE) for the cams. I had already planned for pulling more cables through it for future expansion.
So yes, after this lockdown I'll do it.

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

I do that with Airtel fiber. Its exactly same in this aspect.

After I receive my new router I'll experiment with various ways. I'm going to have fun!

Currently here is the Jugaad/Hack which works for me. The repeater(old-modem) sits outside the window of the room which is a deadspot. I get only about 15 mbps on my 100 mbps connection, but it serves my purpose for now.

[Thad E Ginathom]

I don't know when we will eventually get the fibre from airtel, but I am wondering---

Will the airtel engineers attempt to pull fibre through built-in conduit? We have it, except that it has not been used since Airtel wanted to eliminate the house cable in fault finding. The old phone cable is there to act as a pull. Currently run to an RJ11 socket in a modular switch unit.

What is the diameter of the airtel in-the-house cabling? Do they terminate and plug direct to the modem, or via a box with a fibre flylead? I've heard that they use a Nokia box which is good quality. And that the decades of modem are over and I will have to learn to call it an ONT --- Optical Network Terminal!

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Will the airtel engineers attempt to pull fibre through built-in conduit?

They try that and prefer doing so. However, it is rarely successful because the concealed wiring pipes more often than not have construction debris. For instance, in our society, about 100 flats got the Airtel fibre done and this internal wire pulling was successfully in only 3-4 flats. In one flat, it was successful one way but while pulling the tug wire out, it snapped and got stuck. So, there could be some risk.

What is the diameter of the airtel in-the-house cabling? Do they terminate and plug direct to the modem, or via a box with a fibre flylead? I've heard that they use a Nokia box which is good quality.

Much to the chagrin of my parents (who were willing to get the walls dug and the wire concealed), I've run the optical fibre along the intersection of the roof and wall from the main duct -> door -> all the way to where the modem is placed.

Diameter: ultra thin and white. You won't even notice.

And the modem? It is shit. My connection is 100mbps and I get the full speed on wifi as long as the device has a visual on the router. The moment there are a few walls in between, the speed drops. This has been shown to Airtel engineers who recommended getting extenders. Mind you, this is when my laptop is a mere 15 ft from the router, just in another room at 90deg from the router. I couldn't stand the 25-30 mbps speed on my work laptop so just got a cat6 cable from the router right into my laptop. (imagine how disappointed my parents are with me).

And that the decades of modem are over and I will have to learn to call it an ONT --- Optical Network Terminal!

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Will the airtel engineers attempt to pull fibre through built-in conduit?

Yes, since you already have a cable that can be used to pull; this might work.

They have certain allowances (E.g.: number of hours to be spent on 1 installation, meters of cable to used per installation), if trial-and-error effort + cable wastage fits these allowances, this should work.

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

What is the diameter of the airtel in-the-house cabling?

Do they terminate and plug direct to the modem, or via a box with a fibre flylead?

Cable is flat (4 mm x 2.5 mm). This cable cannot be connected directly to modem. Cables is connected to ONT, a different optical cable connects ONT to modem.

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I've heard that they use a Nokia box which is good quality. And that the decades of modem are over and I will have to learn to call it an ONT --- Optical Network Terminal!

Just the terminology has changed. It is still a "modem".

ADSL : Splitter + Modem
Fiber : ONT + Modem

[manim]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Do they terminate and plug direct to the modem, or via a box with a fibre flylead?

Here are photos of my Jiofibre connection (to add to NetfreakBombay's post):

1. Black-ultra-thin optic-fiber cable comes from outside as INPUT to 'box'
2. Green-plug with yellow cable OUTPUT from 'box' (goes to router)
3. yellow cable connects to router underneath.

The router has 4 LAN and dual-band WiFi outputs.


Jiofiber is a pre-paid service where I can choose my plan when recharging every 30 days.I am planning to try the 300 mbps next cycle, for the fun of it, it is Rs.1,769 (inc.tax) for 30 days (includes Netflix-basic as consolation, The 100 mbps plan costs Rs.825)

For me a 25 mbps connection is more than enough, I really am spoilt!

I remember in the late eighties, my cousin had come from USA with a 300 bps modem which connects using a dial-up phone line. We were young and excited to test it by dialling to a USA number (phone calls cost a fortune back then) for a few minutes. It is mind-boggling how technology has progressed!