Mesh Router System - 160MHz Backhaul?

[NYSteve]

This might help:

Situation: you have a property that cannot have wifi everywhere you need it from 1 wifi router. Therefore you need multiple wifi points.

You need to decide
1. How do you want to connect the multiple wifi points. You can
a. use a wireless mesh system that connects wirelessly
b. spend an insane amount of effort/money for ethernet
c. use powerline to convert power wire to ethernet.
thoughts: wired will always be better that wireless, even if it's powerline. If the powerline works, you want that. I would not buy a powerline with built in wifi, it's almost guarantee to be terrible.

2. What system do you to use?
a. multple consumer wireless routers, such as the asus above
b. consumer mesh product, such eero that has a dedicated wireless channel for backhaul
c. enterprise product that uses dedicated hard wired access points that you see at the office

thoughts: the lines blur quickly between all of the above. The best off the shelf that doesn't need a lot of input is Eero Pro line. Others that are also off the shelf are Aruba Instant On or Unifi Dream Machine. For more hands on tweaking, Unifi APs, Rukus used, Omada etc is what you'll see as cost value enterprise equipment.

Myself I would go with Eero Pro with hardwire powerline and call it a day.

 

[JHZR2]

The key want is seamless WiFi. To me that means mesh, not extenders or other points. I also don't really want Ethernet, because it's a point connection.

The intent was mesh, and the question was solely about backhaul, and if a 160 MHz channel,would somehow help.. So the approaches are to:
- use wireless backhaul
- use Ethernet backhaul (not really feasible)
- use power line adapter Ethernet backhaul

So my test is of the wireless backhaul, which seems the least desirable, but seems to work well.

Next up Would be the power line Ethernet as the backhaul, if needed.

 

[wag123]

Power line ethernet would be a better option IMO. Whichever way you go, make sure to set your routers up to use different static channels so you don't get interference between them.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted by wag123
Power line ethernet would be a better option IMO. Whichever way you go, make sure to set your routers up to use different static channels so you don't get interference between them.


Ok. Once I get it set up in its final location, will perform some speed tests concurrently and see how things work out. I know powerline adapters are available cost effectively in brick and mortar stores nearby, so can go that route to connect the two routers if needed.

 

[JHZR2]

So finally got the whole system working and stable.

Long story short - mesh is great, ASUS AIMesh is fast and results in excellent coverage, and the ASUS AX series routers are stable and I'd recommend them.

One caveat - the folks pushing for the powerline adapters were right. But not just any one.

When I first set up the AX58, and then the mesh, it was quite good. Speeds are around 80Mbps with WiFi backhaul.

I tested speed on WiFi and wired at the router and confirmed 80/10. The mesh was set up and the entire area, except for the worst corner of the dead zone showed ~60-80/10. The worst part of the dead zone showed around 25/5.

Standing next to the router:

Standing next to the mesh:

In a bad zone where the old n and ac routers wouldn't reach (note it's not full bars of signal strength):

The difference was some level of jitter in the mesh areas, but it didn't seem to make any practical difference for doing anything including streaming movies we tested.

About a day in the WiFi backhaul became flaky. Granted, the WiFi needs to go out a door, around a corner, and it's all concrete with at least some rebar. Nature of the construction.

It was so bad that it would drop the mesh all together. Sometimes it would be rock solid for hours, other times the mesh router would go offline routinely. Put the mesh just one concrete barrier away from the other router and it would be solid again, but that wasn't where we wanted it for ideal reach.

Found an old 200MBps powerline adapter, and it worked, but like the WiFi mesh setup, the honeymoon soon faded. It was really bad. I want to say I got 25/4 on my best test, but most were between 0.25-4 both directions, and >25ms ping.

Finally got a pair of TP-Link 1000AV powerline adapters, and paired them. Ran a test on both WiFi, and on a machine connected to the mesh router via an Ethernet line. So modem-router-powerline adapter-powerline-powerline adapter-mesh node-Ethernet cable-nic

I'll add that there are two separate powerline Ethernet systems working on the same power lines too, as the solar reports it's status and power output over a 200Mbps setup.

Seems like a lot of hops. But there is no practical difference from being at the router. In fact, I've gotten the best speed from the ISP yet (note service is 75/10) at the end of that Ethernet!

In hindsight this all makes sense. I'm dealing with a 75/10 setup. Not a GB setup. So the backhaul only needs to meet the max throughput, which the ac standard (even with a 40MHz channel) can do in spades.

From here: https://data.kommago.nl/files/pdf/whitepaper-ruckus-802-11ac.pdf

So the crux of my question was really if an 80 MHz backhaul channel would work,especially if not using two three band routers. One can see that 160MHz isn't really necessary, because an 80MHz channel with MIMO gives more than enough bandwidth to be faster than the main internet service. And since mine is connecting on an 80MHz channel in AX, it's 3x faster than that chart. So as long as signal strength wasn't a consideration, it's fine for normal speed connections.

So my take on all this is as follows:

If you want to use mesh to expand your WiFi without APs, so you have all the same, seamless SSID (including smart roaming and selection between 2.4 and 5GHz), the ASUS AIMesh is great. This is assuming that you can truly get full "bars" (Id say -50dB or better) of connectivity between the main router and the mesh node. If the signal has impediments, wireless backhaul is not a great idea (which we already knew). But a powerline adapter to provide an Ethernet backhaul is great, and the new ones are very stable and fast.

So the biggest finding I had was that one can use a WiFi-6 (AX) backhaul, with simple two band routers, and get full speed on the mesh, even with many consumers (I've been tracking 15 clients routinely connected, many on 80MHz 5Ghz channels). While this may not be the case if one is sending Gbit internet, for practical purposes it is fast and excellent.

But if there's any doubt on WiFi strength, then go with straight Ethernet or a powerline adapter. It's a great setup that works well.

 

[PandaBear]

Glad things work out for you. Do you know what "back haul" band the mesh system usually use? are they almost always using 2.4GHz or do they try to stay with 5GHz in between as well?

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted by PandaBear
Glad things work out for you. Do you know what "back haul" band the mesh system usually use? are they almost always using 2.4GHz or do they try to stay with 5GHz in between as well?


I would see the mesh router lock onto the (often weak) 5GHz signal when it could, and sometimes would be on 2.4 GHz. The routers are set up for dual-band smart connect, so they all (including the mesh) can vary on the fly. It works great for devices at least... Maybe that was the downfall of the mesh (and why generally I guess you want a tri-band set of routers, so wifi backhaul can use a different connection)? There are enough channels in 5GHz to avoid any issues if one channel is used for backhaul and others for devices. But I guess one transmitter must still split its time between all clients, even with MIMO. Still, for 75Mbit, it was fast enough, and had the router locked onto a good signal where we wanted it, we would be using it. When close, the wireless backhaul was fast and stable, it just didnt work for us.

I dont know the channel (I used my MBP built in "scan" to find the best control channel), but homes are well spaced out so there isnt really any interference.

Knock on wood the powerline adapters are stable and working great.

 

[spackard]

A graphics-heavy posting of Netgear's Orbi RBK852: https://koolshare.cn/thread-172604-1-1.html
(View it with chrome; it'll translate from Chinese.)

The RBK752 uses the same chipset, but supports fewer devices.

rbk852 use ipq8074A_000，I think IPQ8074A = IPQ8074 v2，ipq8074_002 = [email protected]

I spent a little time looking at Qualcomm's chips. Looks like there's marketing material to look at.
Maybe an NDA needs to be signed before one can see more.

 

[nthach]

A graphics-heavy posting of Netgear's Orbi RBK852: https://koolshare.cn/thread-172604-1-1.html
(View it with chrome; it'll translate from Chinese.)

The RBK752 uses the same chipset, but supports fewer devices.

I’ve installed the 802.11ac 4x4 MIMO Orbi setup for my parents - it’s a good router but I still have my doubts about how well tri-band backhaul works - especially on the lower-cost 4x4 models. I have no need to get WiFi6 for them unless they upgrade to iPhone 11/12/SE2 or the Galaxy S10/20 or get WiFi6 compliant computers. Unless you have gigabit internet on the public side and devices that can take advantage of the improvement on the LAN side, what’s the point?

Netgear has used Atheros/Qualcomm SoCs on their mid-high end soho routers, which also opened up DD-WRT support on them.

 

[PandaBear]

I’ve installed the 802.11ac 4x4 MIMO Orbi setup for my parents - it’s a good router but I still have my doubts about how well tri-band backhaul works - especially on the lower-cost 4x4 models. I have no need to get WiFi6 for them unless they upgrade to iPhone 11/12/SE2 or the Galaxy S10/20 or get WiFi6 compliant computers. Unless you have gigabit internet on the public side and devices that can take advantage of the improvement on the LAN side, what’s the point?

Netgear has used Atheros/Qualcomm SoCs on their mid-high end soho routers, which also opened up DD-WRT support on them.

I think it depends on what you do. Before lockdown I was using usually just ipad for wifi and it was fine with slow wifi.

Then I got an Oculus Go to watch some 4K 60fps VR video that's about 25GB each, and streaming it over 2.4GHz wifi will lag big time. So I added an AC AP next to the Oculus Go for that. The source of the video sits on my PC and the streaming is smooth, except Oculus Go would overheat after about 1 hr over wifi streaming vs local storage.