Team-BHP - On Wi-Fi & Routers

Quote:

Originally Posted by s4ch (Post 5173414)

An update!

Super happy and looking forward to the new hardware. I have received the RMA number and just need to drop off my current router to their partner collection service, after which I am promised delivery of the replacement within 7 days.

So lets see how this goes! If it actually works out I will be quite impressed.

Update 2!

Dropped off the faulty Orbi RBR40 at Flex in Pune. A pretty hassle free experience and no questions asked, had a wait of about 20 mins to be seen as it was a Saturday, but once at the counter was done in less than 5 mins. Flex handles service and replacement for quite a few brands like Nokia, Lenovo, Netgear etc.

They said the replacement router will be shipped within 8 days, but before I even got home an hour later, I got a message from Fedex saying a shipment has been sent! Received yesterday and it was the RBR50, an upgraded model with faster wireless backhaul and slightly stronger 5Ghz antennas. The router was brand new and unused.

Setup was a walk in the park. For now I have kept the Orbi in AP mode only as getting the Airtel router into bridge mode has to be done through their backend support which was proving to be a pain.

I have also upgraded my plan to 1Gbps with Airtel. They came in to install a new router, DASAN Networks H680GM-A, which is pretty decent and has good UI, though a little restricted due to their way of configuring everything remotely. You are able to do basic things like turn off the WiFi etc. Does anyone know how to put this into bridge mode? There is an option on the WAN interface setup page for "pass-through" - it's currently deactivated but not sure if that is what is needed to then setup the PPoE connection on my Orbi instead?

However, with using their provided cable I was not really able to cross 650Mbps, even when connected via Ethernet to a laptop directly. Swapped out the cable for an AmazonBasics Cat7 and now getting 900Mbps+ over Ethernet, and 700Mbps over WiFi when in the same room. Using the Orbi Satellite in the Office with wireless backhaul, get a minimum of 350Mbps which is pretty decent, and a minimum of 200Mbps anywhere in our apartment. (I agree this is pretty overkill for just my wife and I, our laptops, phones, iPads and TV, but going all out after years of rubbish local ISP's!)

So, would I recommend Netgear Orbi? Yes. When it works, it really works well. Their support has also been very good after the warranty issue was sorted out. I would just recommend that you buy from a reputed seller, Amazon or Flipkart etc., and register for warranty and make sure it shows the correct dates. The RMA experience was hassle free and I am thoroughly happy with speeds throughout our apartment.

The only thing that I may possibly do, is as a fellow member suggested, run an Ethernet cable internally from the Router to the Satellite for a wired backhaul, but don't think that is really necessary at the moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by s4ch (Post 5177352)

However, with using their provided cable I was not really able to cross 650Mbps, even when connected via Ethernet to a laptop directly. Swapped out the cable for an AmazonBasics Cat7 and now getting 900Mbps

The different cable might have done the trick, but a good cat6 cable should have worked.

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(I agree this is pretty overkill for just my wife and I, our laptops, phones, iPads and TV, but going all out after years of rubbish local ISP's!)

Even our recent upgrade to a mere 200Gb/s fibre is overkill for us couple too. I don't think the browsing experience is much different to the 40-plus Mb/s we had before. But hey, I'm not giving it back :)

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The only thing that I may possibly do, is as a fellow member suggested, run an Ethernet cable internally from the Router to the Satellite for a wired backhaul, but don't think that is really necessary at the moment.

If it doesn't need it, it doesn't need it.

For my (Asus) mesh, the remote node was never going to get a good enough wireless connection to pass on: cable was necessary.

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Originally Posted by NPV (Post 5176468)

Any recommendations for a good router ? Hopefully it will have enough range within a 2 floor home. I can add a range extender/repeater later if needed.

On a 2 floor home, you may get range but not quality. Best is to have a base router, extend an ethernet cable to your 2nd floor, and have a 2nd router plugged on the other side. I find it a better solution than having wifi range extenders, etc.

In my 3 BR home, I have 3 routers placed strategically (connected with wired) so that signal remains below -50 db everywhere and close to -20-30 DB near to router. You can configure your devices (PC, mobile) to poll the best signal and select that one.

For router specifically, I have good experience with Tplink. One particularly good router is AC2600 (was 4600 in amazon sale). There is also AC1900 and AC1200. More expensive could be AC4000 which is triband.

You should also configure your router so that there are not 2 SSIDs broadcasting on same 80mhz band of 5GHz. Quite easy to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 5177452)

The different cable might have done the trick, but a good cat6 cable should have worked. Even our recent upgrade to a mere 200Gb/s fibre is overkill for us couple too. I don't think the browsing experience is much different to the 40-plus Mb/s we had before. But hey, I'm not giving it back :)

If it doesn't need it, it doesn't need it.

For my (Asus) mesh, the remote node was never going to get a good enough wireless connection to pass on: cable was necessary.

Yes Cat 6 works but the price difference with Cat 7 is not much now. If you are doing cabling afresh, best is to go for Cat 7.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 5177452)

Exactly how I feel! The only real use case where I can significantly notice the faster speed is when downloading large files. I was able to download a 2Gb file in less than 30 secs! For some reason no-one else seems to share my excitement though... rl:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 5177452)

If it doesn't need it, it doesn't need it.

For my (Asus) mesh, the remote node was never going to get a good enough wireless connection to pass on: cable was necessary.

Very well said, the real question to ask myself is if I am going to notice the 100Mbps improvement with a cable - probably not!

Quote:

Originally Posted by vasudeva (Post 5177465)

Yes Cat 6 works but the price difference with Cat 7 is not much now. If you are doing cabling afresh, best is to go for Cat 7.

Very true. A 10 feet long Cat 7 was hardly 400-500 on Amazon, didn't even bother checking the price of Cat 6 to be honest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by s4ch (Post 5177504)

Very well said, the real question to ask myself is if I am going to notice the 100Mbps improvement with a cable - probably not!

Compared with WIFI, cable wont give you much higher speed but stable speed. That is why I prefer cabling for backhaul and wifi for end devices. But cable for PC, laptop, streaming, TV. Much better than wifi. Phone cant have cable so that is acceptable. But wherever cable is possible, that is my preference.

In a new home, people plan a lot on internal power cabling. However, not many give a thought even now on network cabling. My wife sister has a huge newly built 2 story home with just 1 wifi router and maybe a wifi extender. The network is simply atrocious beyond words, and what is the point. Just some planning on network cabling and buying 3-4 routers for 3000 each and maybe 100-150 feet of cat 6/7 cable would have solved the problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vasudeva (Post 5177465)

Yes Cat 6 works but the price difference with Cat 7 is not much now. If you are doing cabling afresh, best is to go for Cat 7.

Cat7, although backwards compatible they say, has different shielding, earthing, and is made for cat7 devices. Even if it was cheaper, I'd buy cat6 --- because I don't have one single cat7 device.

Quote:

Originally Posted by s4ch (Post 5177504)

I haven't tried that yet. And I don't do it often anyway. The next time I download a Linux upgrade will be interesting.

My cloud site, for shared storage and backup, pCloud, seems to be pretty slow. Or maybe because I am uploading multiple 400kb-ish files, rather than one big stream. Best I'm getting is 2Mb/second which is disappointing, but, objectively, it is still much faster now. I can no longer make tea during photo uploads.

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Very true. A 10 feet long Cat 7 was hardly 400-500 on Amazon, didn't even bother checking the price of Cat 6 to be honest.

Given your current experience of cat6 cable a against cat7 cable b, it's probably hard to make a case that it was a bad cat 6 cable! Many of them are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vasudeva (Post 5177531)

Compared with WIFI, cable wont give you much higher speed but stable speed. That is why I prefer cabling for backhaul and wifi for end devices. But cable for PC, laptop, streaming, TV. Much better than wifi. Phone cant have cable so that is acceptable. But wherever cable is possible, that is my preference.

According to me, and I could be wrong/out-of-date, cable will always perform to a much higher percentage of its spec than wifi.

Quote:

In a new home, people plan a lot on internal power cabling. However, not many give a thought even now on network cabling. My wife sister has a huge newly built 2 story home with just 1 wifi router and maybe a wifi extender.

Well, I can't really talk, because I forgot about it with our terrace studio flat we built. I've ended up slinging a cable across the terrace.

But if I was building a house, I'd certainly want, at minimum, ethernet to every floor, if not to most rooms.

But I'm a (ex-)computer person: who else will think like this? Most will not. You and I would probably end up with heaps of seldom/never used cable around the house --- but imagine the satisfaction of knowing it is there! With neat sockets and a smart patch panel! lol:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 5177569)

Cat7, although backwards compatible they say, has different shielding, earthing, and is made for cat7 devices. Even if it was cheaper, I'd buy cat6 --- because I don't have one single cat7 device.

I haven't tried that yet. And I don't do it often anyway. The next time I download a Linux upgrade will be interesting.

My cloud site, for shared storage and backup, pCloud, seems to be pretty slow. Or maybe because I am uploading multiple 400kb-ish files, rather than one big stream. Best I'm getting is 2Mb/second which is disappointing, but, objectively, it is still much faster now. I can no longer make tea during photo uploads.

Given your current experience of cat6 cable a against cat7 cable b, it's probably hard to make a case that it was a bad cat 6 cable! Many of them are.

According to me, and I could be wrong/out-of-date, cable will always perform to a much higher percentage of its spec than wifi.
Well, I can't really talk, because I forgot about it with our terrace studio flat we built. I've ended up slinging a cable across the terrace.

But if I was building a house, I'd certainly want, at minimum, ethernet to every floor, if not to most rooms.

But I'm a (ex-)computer person: who else will think like this? Most will not. You and I would probably end up with heaps of seldom/never used cable around the house --- but imagine the satisfaction of knowing it is there! With neat sockets and a smart patch panel! lol:

It is essential if you care about network, streaming, productivity, browsing. Walls are the biggest enemy abd so is hiding routers. But if you place 2 or 3 routers even cheaper ones, that will work. Of course, too many routers means channels clash. It is wise to also look at what frequencies the router allows. Cheaper ones are from 36 to 48. That gives 1 clear 5 ghz signal lane. Then if you have 52 to 64, 100 to 128, 149 to 165. You then get 4 or 5 clear wifi channels of 80 each.

My wife sister has tried all sorts of expensive wifi extenders. But simply don't cut it. Thrown them in the discarded box when just cabling would have worked.