[gtr2M3]

It warms my heart to be amongst people who understand that wifi, network and internet are different things

When people say “I have no wifi” meaning internet, it sends shivers up my spine and makes me cry inside

[wdb]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Haven't heard of this system and don't know the details as to how it operates. But from my initial look, it appears to be a cloud managed wireless system. Many SMB type companies are in this space. Meraki (owned by Cisco), the lower end Aruba Networks, Aerohive, and Ubiquiti to name a few. Ubiquiti is the main go to company for many home network enthusiasts as their equipment is quite mature as they've been at this for years. Plus their equipment is pretty reasonably priced.

I prefer not to depend on anything cloud and prefer to actually own my own equipment. This is why I have a physical on premise wireless LAN controller system. There are other alternatives which gives much the same functions as a physical wireless LAN controller but without the cost. These systems use a virtual controller construct where one of the APs functions as the central controller for the cluster. If the master fails, the secondary (if configured) or through a master promotion election process will step in to take control over the overall system. Aruba Networks has such a system called their InstantAP or IAP.

I have an OC200 hardware controller. https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-...troller/oc200/

TP-Link competes against Ubiquiti and that ilk. I found it to be more accessible and cheaper than the others. They're rapidly adding more hardware, and constantly improving the software and integration. That said there are little glitches to work around, all of them easy. The company is also buying out consumer class vendors so you'll see their name in that space too.

No one should ever be using an collection of independent access points or repeater/boosters at all; especially repeaters/boosters. These devices are the absolute worst thing you can introduce into any wireless network.

A buddy of mine recently opened up an AirBnB rental. He has some sort of little Google thingies scattered around so that he has WiFi signal. I offered to fix it for him. ;-)

[Glen e]

My condo was built in 2014 and recessed into the wall in the bedroom closet is a small door that includes power and the coax and cat5 that feed every room thru the walls. A wifi router used to sit in the living room cadenza, But everything that was important like all my streaming page and computers were hardwired to the CAT5.All of that went away when they ran optical up to the closet box and put in a small Wi-Fi modem about three months ago. It increased the speed from 80 Mbps to 500…Because optical feeding the Wi-Fi modem is so damn fast now, The cables through the walls are unnecessary, I’m getting 500 Mbps anywhere in the condo now without any cables.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by wdb

I have an OC200 hardware controller. https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-...troller/oc200/

TP-Link competes against Ubiquiti and that ilk. I found it to be more accessible and cheaper than the others. They're rapidly adding more hardware, and constantly improving the software and integration. That said there are little glitches to work around, all of them easy. The company is also buying out consumer class vendors so you'll see their name in that space too.

A buddy of mine recently opened up an AirBnB rental. He has some sort of little Google thingies scattered around so that he has WiFi signal. I offered to fix it for him. ;-)

That's good to know about TP-Link. I wonder if they're really doing all of the engineering in house or having another OEM do it for them. Netgear was doing this with their higher end ProSafe line of business switches. They had a chassis switch which I think was either an Enterasys or Extreme Networks switch rebranded under Netgear.

As to the Google thingies, it's probably Google WiFi which uses a mesh setup between APs. This is not the same as a repeater/booster.

[wdb]

Wireless backhaul though.

[B58-M340iX]

You want a wired backhaul for your mesh extenders if you can do it - I use it with my Google Fiber 2 gig service. It was a huge pain to get the wired part to work in my house, but I eventually figured out how to get it going with a wired backhaul.

[M_Six]

Agreed. My system, with multiple Deco X20 nodes, was vastly improved by wired backhaul.

[Chick Webb]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Agreed. My system, with multiple Deco X20 nodes, was vastly improved by wired backhaul.

Yeah, even Powerline networking for backhaul is preferable than using the wireless channel.

[zx10guy]

For clarification, of course, any wired connection is preferable to going wireless for the backhaul.

My comment was about a different situation. Repeaters and boosters connect to the main AP as a regular wireless client. Not only does this cause more congestion and performance issues on the overall wireless network, it divides the bandwidth in half. Mesh wireless backhauls are very different than this. Mesh wireless backbones use a different part of the 5GHz radio RF than the normal ones used by wireless clients. These are DEDICATED connections between member APs in the cluster. Of course the performance of these wireless backbones are entirely dependent on things that normally affect wireless networks.

As to powerline networking, in many cases yes, it is preferable to using wireless backhauls. But not always. It also depends on the quality of the wiring in the house and that there is no noise in the A/C line between the two powerline nodes.