Mesh Wifi System recommendations

They should’ve run a cat5 to the first floor and hooked up the router there. Router alone should’ve been sufficient, but I probably would purchase something better than Actiontec. Although I’m using a free router someone was giving away on Craigslist, I’m very impressed with everyone’s ‘state of the art’ set ups here. :grin:

The fios guy looked at all the options and Bc of the ductwork and other things, didn’t really see a great way to get the cat5 up to the first floor. So he suggested sticking the router in the basement and then putting the extender on the first floor. Not ideal I realize now.

It is shocking how many enterprise WAPSs are set up incorrectly. Meraki is fine when they are set up correctly. They are overpriced though

Upgraded my whole setup with their gateway, cloud key, couple APs etc. and solved all my WiFi issues. Definitely requires networking knowledge so if anyone isn’t that tech savvy maybe their amplifi line will do the trick.

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Wanted to get some opinions here. About a month ago, I had an av company come out and install a Ruckus access point in our bedroom on the 2nd floor. My fios router is located in the basement and we were using a fios network extender on the first floor but the WiFi on the 2nd and 3rd floors wasn’t great. So i paid the company to do the access point on the 2nd floor hardwired directly to the fios router (used the telephone jack that was run using cat 5e). I did some speed tests and wanted to get everyone’s opinion if these speeds make sense. I did the tests using a MacBook Pro and used the Fios speed test website. Thanks for any advice/opinions.

Hardwired to fios router - DL - 780, UL - 933
Office on 3rd floor - DL - 95, UL - 96
2nd floor Bedroom with access point - DL - 94, UL - 97
1st floor Living room - DL - 84, UL - 95

I’m also paying for gig speed through fios so I would have expected faster WiFi speeds.

Seems like it should be faster than that, with my Ubiquiti AP standing next to it I get 125 DL on the Nokia phone and double on the iPad. Seems like allot depends on the device and how the AP’s are setup and what else is connected. You also have to consider interference from other people’s networks. I’d plug into those jacks that you plugging the AP’s into and test the speed there, with your MacBook.

Costco has good deal on 2 eero Pro pack for $269

Ubiquiti also has a consumer version of their products called amplifi. It is supposed to compete against the other consumer mesh products out there. https://www.ui.com/products/#amplifi

I love their products and have a combination of their unifi and edgeswitch devices in my network.

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Well considering all those AP speeds are below 100MB/s I’d be curious to see the switch they are connected to. Maybe the APs are connected to a 10/100 switch.

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Love the google WiFi system, works wonderfully

The ap is connected directly to the fios router.

Yeah that’s no good. Those ports should be gigabit ports. Definitely hard troubleshooting something like that over the internet. Wifi inconsistencies is exactly why I try wire as many devices as I can

I hear ya - hard troubleshooting over a leasing forum! :joy:

Appreciate the info. I have a call into the company that installed the ap so I’m going to let them handle it. Just frustrating when I am streaming toy story 2 on Disney plus and it keeps freezing Bc the tv isn’t getting enough WiFi to stream in ultra hd.

@Daburgaman suggest you check your cables to eliminate that as the problem. I had an issue with my Unifi AP not getting 100MB/s and turns out a cat5 cable was the limiting factor. Make sure it’s a Cat5e or better yet a Cat6 so you can get the most out of your connection. Hope it’s a simple as a cable swap as it was for me.

So it’s a cat5e. They used the existing phone jack
run. House was built 2 years ago so I’m using the lines are good.

Really no way to run new cables to where we want them. Hence why they used the runs for the phones.

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As some other have suggested I’d try Ubiquiti if you have some technical knowledge. I wanted to wet my feet some years ago without investing heavily so I started with the AP-AC Lite which ran me around $80. I installed the Windows controller and disabled the WiFi radios on my old LinkSys using the AP-AC Lite radios for WiFi. Was so impressed I threw everything away and changed my whole setup to Ubiquiti. I was so happy with the Lite that I bought the AP-AC Mesh to extend my network as my backyard Nest camera was having occasional connectivity issues. I live in a town-home complex surrounded by neighbors access points. All my issues were gone and have not looked back.

Over at my parents I setup a Long Range as @joeblogs mentioned above and voila, all issues solved for around $80. There are other products out there but highly recommend Ubiquiti from experience. Only con is that it’s a commercial product so that’s why technical knowledge is required, no traditional consumer phone support.

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Exactly, the stuff just works. Doing what you did is the easy way to go, nothing that someone couldn’t figure out with a few YouTube videos. The best part about starting with an Access Point, you can keep your other network pieces and gradually jump into it. Me, I like to tinker, I’ve had DDWRT setups and used old PC’s as routers running pfsense. Current setup with RouterBoard and Ubiquiti is great, never goes down, great range, great speed, never have to reset or mess around with it.

I’m a little late to this party but…

While WiFi explorer is a cool tool to take a look at a point in time, it is just that, a point in time. It will change probably within a few minutes.

Also, I know “back in the day” people who were “tech savvy” would know to change the channel their WiFi was using to avoid interference.

Problem with that is well on the 2.4 GHz freq. there are only 3 usable channels. When there was 1 AP on the block great, now there is at least 1 in each house, maybe more. Just let the AP decide what channel is free at the “point in time”

Other issue you have on 5 GHz is that the channels are probably bonded as you can see in the channel width. That lowers the number of available channels to 6. If anyone is really crazy with 160, well that leaves 2.

You are probably better off leaving it alone and auto detect.

The reason people are seeing better performance from the Ubiquiti stuff is that it is using a controller to manage these settings, pinging channels and looking for interference.

Some issues people may see with mesh is that a client will hang on to an AP further away than the one right next to you. If you are not getting the speeds expected, look at the AP and see which one the client is on.

A way around this is but not supporting lower speeds. For instance only allow connections at say 12 Mbps or maybe higher, you have to test it out. This will force the client to roam. The client always makes the decision, not the AP but the client can be pushed.

Also keep in mind 802.11ax or WiFi 6 is out. I would not spend any significant amount of money on an AC WiFi 5 setup. They will be cheaper and cheaper every day.

Oh and Meraki, well the whole idea behind that company is easy of use and it is for the client who doesn’t have a full time IT staff to manage the controllers and firmware and configurations. I can see how things went wrong and of course someone gets blamed, usually the tech guy not the BEAN COUNTER that didn’t want to hire the proper staff

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Yep. eero does it and speeds drop by half. Their suggested “band steering” messes up thing even more for devices on 2.4, for some reason.

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Alien router by AMPLIFI…you wont regret it!