Mesh or Access point

tom_cairns

tom_cairns

tom_cairns

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17 Feb 2021
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9
Hi
I have just moved to 1Gb fibre with Virgin media. Currently using their hub and 2 wifi pods. I am thinking of getting a mesh or an access point.
My house is 5 bed semi detached. The router is at the very front of the house near the middle. The stairs run up the middle. so back left corner and conseravtory (at ther bqack) suffer a little. Would I be better with a ceiling mounted access point at the top of the stairs or ,say, a 3 node mesh system. Wired backhaul not very easy with the mesh but I do have ethernet running from router to loft so the access point would be easy to do.

Any opinions gladly accepted.
Tom
 
A single AP might work, depends on the wall construction etc. You can always try a single one and if necessary, add another wired one near the Virgin hub.
 
tom_cairns said:
Which one did you go for and are they wired together or wireless?
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Linskys MX4200 Wifi 6 (3 units). Mine aren't wired but as they're tri-band they have a dedicated 5ghz channel for the communication between nodes. I get 40+ MB/s through the house on a quick test so far.
 
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tom_cairns said:
Thank you, but I was thinking of just one ap. I thought that might remove the need for multiple?
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The huge advantage of having a cable to the loft is you can deploy multiple ceiling mounted access points on the upper floor. I would be tempted to plan on three - on in the middle of the house over the stairs. See what that gives you, then if it’s not enough, add another one at the middle of the extreme edge of the ceiling upstairs and then the third one goes at the other extreme middle of the ceiling. It’s very unlikely you’ll have many not-spots at that point.

Ubiquiti U6-lite are a decent shout at about £100 each and you’ll probably need a PoE switch for the attic. if you only have one cable up to the attic then a UniFi 5 Flex PoE switch and 60W PoE injector will get you power and 4 free PoE ports. Yes, it’ll be £420 which isn’t cheap but I can 99.99% guarantee you won’t be unhappy with your WLAN after that.
 
Silly question time. Why are APs better? You can cable mesh nodes just the same. So in reality would mesh not be preferable? You have the flexibility of wiring in just like APs, or if tri band, using 5Ghz for wireless connectivity where cabling is not possible. FYI I use mesh, cabled nodes.
 
Firegod said:
Silly question time. Why are APs better? You can cable mesh nodes just the same. So in reality would mesh not be preferable? You have the flexibility of wiring in just like APs, or if tri band, using 5Ghz for wireless connectivity where cabling is not possible. FYI I use mesh, cabled nodes.
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Just no.
 
Firegod said:
Silly question time. Why are APs better? You can cable mesh nodes just the same. So in reality would mesh not be preferable? You have the flexibility of wiring in just like APs, or if tri band, using 5Ghz for wireless connectivity where cabling is not possible. FYI I use mesh, cabled nodes.
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I don't think it's a silly question.

A mesh unit with cabled back-haul IS an access point. Most dedicated access points (the ones with cabled back-haul as their first option) allow a meshed mode of operation too.

What makes access points better is they have wired back-haul. Any wireless back-haul is going to be slower than cabled back-haul and unless you have dedicated (expensive) wireless backhaul you take up some of the capacity of the wireless system in the meshed units.

And with a PoE access point you only need one cable - not a backhaul cable and a power cable.

And even if you have dedicated wireless back-haul they use the same 5GHz channels as the rest of the WiFi gear in the world so they're increasing the amount of congestion in the wireless environment.

If you can, wired backhaul is always better. I don't like to be unkind, but people are often lazy and generally have more money than DIY skills so they buy overpriced mesh gear and then despair of the fact that their wireless LAN can't keep up with their incoming broadband. WiFi6 has helped, and WiFi6E and WiFi7 will help again, but they're still 2 years off the point where everyone has a WiFi6E phone in their pocket.
 
Minstadave said:
About £170 for 3 nodes.
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If you factor in 3x APs + network kit it may work out the same price just about.

Are you getting full speeds on the mesh system? The mesh system is probably easier as there’s no cable pull involved but I think it would depend on the house layout and if anything would cause problems. I.E thick walls.
 
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GaryTheSnail said:
If you factor in 3x APs + network kit it may work out the same price just about.

Are you getting full speeds on the mesh system? The mesh system is probably easier as there’s no cable pull involved but I think it would depend on the house layout and if anything would cause problems. I.E thick walls.
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We're likely to move house next year so needed a simple option. We've only got 50mbps internet which wasnt a challenge for the original Homehub from BT but Synology backups and transferring between PCs is much faster, around 40MBps around the house wad what I was seeing (away at the moment so no detailed testing).

I like the mesh nodes have a built I'm switch so I can connect the main PC/synology/CCTV setup all to the same hub by wire to reduce wifi traffic.

When we move house I'll get ethernet put in and can just use the nodes with wired backhaul.
 
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