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Wireless home networking (again!)

ToTo Man

ToTo Man

the band not the dog
We have a Virgin SH2 in the upstairs landing that serves as our main router. It delivers satisfactory 5GHz and 2.4GHz wifi to all upstairs rooms but the 2.4GHz coverage downstairs is patchy and the 5GHz coverage virtually non-existent. We therefore added a 5th generation AirPort Extreme downstairs, connected to the SH2 by ethernet, and set to bridge mode. This delivers acceptable performance to most downstairs rooms, but not as good as the SH2 serves the upstairs rooms.

I recently added an AirPort Express to the front downstairs living room, connected to the Extreme by ethernet, and set to bridge mode, which has finally given us satisfactory coverage in that room. Coverage in the back of the house is still piss-poor, and on the back patio almost non-existent. When we're outside the only way to pick up a wifi signal from the upstairs SH2 is to hold our phones above our heads. The AirPort Extreme gives us nothing outside, despite being much closer to us (I suspect this is because it has more walls in its way). If I move the Extreme nearer the patio, the strength of the wifi in the kitchen and dining room suffers.

My parents think I'm crazy to consider adding a 4th router to our network to improve coverage in the back of the house. 5th and 6th generation AirPort extremes can be had for beer money now, but it's the inconvenience of tying up another power outlet and unsightliness of running yet another network cable that's the cause of their reluctance.

Is there a limit on the number of routers you can add to a network to extend wifi coverage before they start interfering with each other? I've never paid attention to the traffic channels before, I've always just used the router's Auto settings. However, as an experiment, I changed the SH2's 2.4GHz channel from Auto to 1 and the Extreme's 2.4GHz channel from Auto to 11 to see if that made any significant difference to the download speeds, but it didn't seem to (at least not according to Speedtest.net's test which IME can vary widely from one minute to the next regardless!).

We live in a 130-yr old detached property and our nearest neighbour is at least 10 metres away so interference from neighbouring networks is unlikely to be an issue.

The last thing that's worth mentioning is I've configured each router to have its own SSID, and this applies to both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels. Having a total of six SSIDs to choose from drives my parents nuts as their iPhones/iPads regularly fail to switch networks automatically when the signal becomes weak, meaning they must remember to do it manually as they move around the house. I set it up this way because I like to know what router I'm connected to and I don't trust my devices to automatically connect to the strongest signal. However, if I add a fourth router then I'll probably bite the bullet and simplify things down to two SSIDs - one for all the 2.4GHz networks and one for all the 5GHz networks - otherwise there will be eight individual SSIDs to choose from!

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I'd be grateful if any advice could be expressed in layman's speak please as my networking knowledge is embarrassingly scant.
 
According to this post on MacRumors, changing the Country setting on the AirPort Express to New Zealand increases the tx-power. I'm wondering if this might negate the need for a 4th router? Probably not?...
 
Bin the apple stuff it’s super last generation and get a decent mesh Wi-Fi kit. I use unifi but other brands area available.

Seriously Apple bailed from this game years ago, they are a boat anchor now nothing more
 
garyi said:
Bin the apple stuff it’s super last generation and get a decent mesh Wi-Fi kit. I use unifi but other brands area available.

Seriously Apple bailed from this game years ago, they are a boat anchor now nothing more
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With a mesh wifi kit is it still possible/preferable to connect the mesh satellites to each other and the main hub via ethernet or is there no longer a performance advantage to had from this?
 
Yes, as far as APs go, if you can back haul them with ethernet that is totally the best solution. but if you simply cannot its not the end of the world.

The advantage of mesh is you turn off wifi on your main router and they you have one logon for wifi across your house, no more separate ssids, and phones clinging onto the last one etc.
 
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Networking is a complex subject and its way beyond those who haven't studied and worked with it.

Firstly you can have one or if you choose just two SSIDs from over as many APs that you want. Your network devices (APs or what not) have to support roaming and that means that you can walk from room to room with a phone/laptop and get the best signal automatically. Its the APs that sorts out the roaming if you have the correct type.

A mesh system is not aways the best as I found out here in my 3 floor 5 bed detached house.

DV
 
garyi said:
Yes, as far as APs go, if you can back haul them with ethernet that is totally the best solution. but if you simply cannot its not the end of the world.

The advantage if mesh is you turn off wifi on your main router and they you have one logon for wifi across your house, no more separate ssids, and phones clinging onto the last one etc.
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Just had a look there on Amazon for Unifi mesh and am confused about what hardware I need to complete a mesh system. Can you point me to an example of a Unifi hub and satellites that are compatible with each other?
 
I am not necessarily suggesting you go unifi, its a whole thing, server and all that, but its what I know. I did previously have BT whole home which was perfectly fine as well. I would always suggest a known and trusted brand, I have no doubt there will be lots of 5 letter random word Chinese brands on amazon, but pick something known.

They should all work in a similar fashion. i.e. they plug into ideally switches on your network back to your router, and provide wireless coverage over the house. They in a sense act as 'one' access point so that when you wonder about the house your phone or what ever just picks the best signal, because its effectively one ssid/system you should see nothing but 5 bars all the time. In a sense your apple gear is doing that but they are not acting as one as it were.

Unifi is good. However it uses a server to run it all. I have unifi throughout, switches, router, cameras, WAPs the lot, the router also runs the server. You can run the server yourself, but probably beyond the remit of most households.


Sorry I cannot recommend a specific Access point/mesh set up but someone will be able to chime in. Darth will probably tell you to run the latest apple operating system within windows 11 on an old macbook that can run neither, but thats not really anything to do with this :)
 
Have a read of this: 'Virgin broadband and mesh wifi'
https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/virgin-broadband-and-mesh-wifi.289941/
The Deco system is working great for us. And there’s only one network to connect to as you move about. You can force devices to only connect to a specific AP (e.g. the nearest one) for devices that are static. We did this for our smoke alarms. Or plug directly into the AP - works for my streamer. Virgin ‘hub’ router set to modem mode.
We got the x20 but the x50 is back on sale at JL.
 
ToTo Man said:
With a mesh wifi kit is it still possible/preferable to connect the mesh satellites to each other and the main hub via ethernet or is there no longer a performance advantage to had from this?
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Usually it is but it does depend, sometimes e.g. a 5G connection can be preferable
 
dan m said:
Have a read of this: 'Virgin broadband and mesh wifi'
https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/virgin-broadband-and-mesh-wifi.289941/
The Deco system is working great for us. And there’s only one network to connect to as you move about. You can force devices to only connect to a specific device (e.g. the nearest one) for devices that are static. Or plug them directly into the AP. Virgin ‘hub’ router set to modem mode.
We got the x20 but the x50 is back on sale at JL.
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We’re Deco on a virgin superhub too. Been faultless, and easy to set up.
 
ToTo Man said:
With a mesh wifi kit is it still possible/preferable to connect the mesh satellites to each other and the main hub via ethernet or is there no longer a performance advantage to had from this?
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You don’t want 2 networks going. Plug the first mesh AP directly into the fast port on the Hub and switch the Hub to modem only. I would see if that works without messing with Ethernet between the APs.
I force the connection preference of the AP - basement-> ground floor -> first floor. 3 floor stone building here with no connectivity issues. I’d add more APs if there was. Easier than drilling and frees up a port on the AP.
 
It sounds like you need a proper mesh network. First, forget about buying anything from Apple. Sell what you've got and put the money toward a proper set of accesspoints. I would recommend Ubiquiti. Their equipment works really well for mesh networking, and it can be installed using Power over Ethernet for those really tricky places where you need to get signal "through" a heavy wall... or out onto a garden (they do waterproof accesspoints too)

The resulting network will present only one SSID, which will solve your second problem.

You can fit the gear yourself, but just from your initial description, I think you'd benefit from having someone come and design the system for you: or sounds like they're are a lot of solid walls that block the signal. Check your local IT installation companies.
 
dan m said:
You don’t want 2 networks going. Plug the first mesh AP directly into the fast port on the Hub and switch the Hub to modem only. I would see if that works without messing with Ethernet between the APs.
I force the connection preference of the AP - basement-> ground floor -> first floor. 3 floor stone building here with no connectivity issues. I’d add more APs if there was. Easier than drilling and frees up a port on the AP.
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Apologies for the confusion, when I wrote 'main hub' I was referring to the first mesh AP, which I assumed would have more going on inside it than the satellites as it has to communicate with the network modem/router. Are all APs in a mesh system identical then?
 
I’d replace the apple wotsits with a couple of Netgear wac 104 access points or a couple of decent routers with dns disabled and make sure all devices are proffering the same ssids and authentication details. Cheaper than a mesh system.

Also, Those apple airports are bloody ancient and will pose a security vulnerability as they won’t have been updated for years.
 
ToTo Man said:
Apologies for the confusion, when I wrote 'main hub' I was referring to the first mesh AP, which I assumed would have more going on inside it than the satellites as it has to communicate with the network modem/router. Are all APs in a mesh system identical then?
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Physically, yes. The primary one will be doing more as it will be managing dns if your primary router is modem only.

It’s worth noting that many isp routers are tricky or impossible to switch to modem only mode and if you have fibre broadband you can easily bin them and connect your own equipment straight to the ONT. Your isp can provide the config details.

If you have copper broadband, something like an asus dsl router will almost certainly be better and more configurable than the router from the isp.
 
foxwelljsly said:
Physically, yes. The primary one will be doing more as it will be managing dns if your primary router is modem only.

It’s worth noting that many isp routers are tricky or impossible to switch to modem only mode and if you have fibre broadband you can easily bin them and connect your own equipment straight to the ONT. Your isp can provide the config details.

If you have copper broadband, something like an asus dsl router will almost certainly be better and more configurable than the router from the isp.
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Our (ancient) Virgin Media Superhub 2 connects by coax and can be switched to modem-only mode, however I've always used its wifi facility as its 5GHz performance on the first floor of our house has always been, and still is, great. Its 2.4GHz performance has become flaky in recent years and requires periodic rebooting of the router to maintain acceptable download speeds. Given this model is 11 years old now I assume it poses just as much of a security risk as the AirPorts? I've tried on several occasions to get Virgin Media to issue me a newer model but the chancers always want to charge me for the privilege!
 
We were a new install. Got the Hub 4. It did reach the ground floor but not the first. Only using it as a modem now. There was a good forum post on the TP link website that went through the set up process. Worked well.
 
You can check for adjacent channel interference with inSSIDer. I use version 3 (free) as you are not forced to log in to metageek if you can still find it.

As for the number of nodes you can have as many as you want but there is a gotcha. A LAN whether its Ethernet wired or WiFi can only talk to one station at a time. This fast and usually not noticed however when a station is a hop away through another node the bandwidth halves and through two nodes its a quarter and so on halving each time.

I would bite the bullet and replace the Virgin router with a proper business device and at its age its likely to die at any time. My own stuff uses a Draytek router and nodes. I originally used 3 nodes in a mesh confiuration with the router as the route node. However due to some issues I now have a stable SOHO network using just two of those nodes configured as APs and have solid performance over all 3 floors and out into the garden. The router is on the top floor in my office and that height helps with coverage.

I use just two SSIDs one for 2.4GHZ and another for the 5GHz bands. All 3 nodes are configured for roaming so that we can take our phone, tablet or whatnot around the house and into the garden and not lose a connection.

Its a case of identifying the route cause of your issues before looking for a solution but a decent router is the priority.

DV
 
Sounds like overkill to me. But maybe the OP has ‘business class’ needs. Otherwise, the x20 or x50 mesh system offers wifi-6 speeds and (so far) is fit and forget.
 
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