Soldato
@the-evaluator awesome thanks. I've not unplugged my patch cables after plugging in both SPF+ DACs and now ports 23/24 are blocked so I'm assuming that this is due to the SFP links between the switches.
*** Official Ubiquiti Discussion Thread ***
- Thread starter RoyMi6
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Soldato
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STP is blocking? That's expected if you've got multiple links between the switches and haven't configured STP to cope with it.
Soldato
Shouldn't be RSTP is on with primary switch is set at 4K and secondary is 32K. I need to unplug the patch cables anyway so what they're doing doesn't really matter.
Soldato
the SFP ports are in LACP mode and aggregating at 2gbps, its just on the Gen 2 POE switch that previous ports used for the links are now showing as blocked, was more curious than anything as the other switch is not showing this. Doesn't actually matter as I just need to go back and pull the patch cables... I'm just being lazy!
Soldato
For trying to cover a large house, is there any way to know if I'm better off with one long range AP or two smaller ones?
i.e. 1 UAP-AC-LR compared to 2 UAP-AC-LITE.
Best guess is the latter option is better, but would required more cabling and is more expensive?
So the LR may cover my house but until I try I won't know?
Or as a fairly casual user (not interested in all the detailed network options, more just full coverage and good speed) then am I better off with something like this which has better specs for speed?
TP-Link AC1750 Wi-Fi Dual Band Gigabit Ceiling Mount Access Point, MU-MIMO, Support 802.3af/at/Passive PoE, Easily Mount to Wall or Ceiling, Free EAP Controller Software (EAP245), White : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
Or is a wireless mesh a better option for me?
Finding it to be a bit of a minefield to know what to do.
i.e. 1 UAP-AC-LR compared to 2 UAP-AC-LITE.
Best guess is the latter option is better, but would required more cabling and is more expensive?
So the LR may cover my house but until I try I won't know?
Or as a fairly casual user (not interested in all the detailed network options, more just full coverage and good speed) then am I better off with something like this which has better specs for speed?
TP-Link AC1750 Wi-Fi Dual Band Gigabit Ceiling Mount Access Point, MU-MIMO, Support 802.3af/at/Passive PoE, Easily Mount to Wall or Ceiling, Free EAP Controller Software (EAP245), White : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
Or is a wireless mesh a better option for me?
Finding it to be a bit of a minefield to know what to do.
Without knowing the construction and size of your property it's very difficult to say what would be best.
For me I have two AP-AC-Lite AP's one in th loft to cover the bedroom and one on the living room ceiling to provide very good 5ghz coverage down stairs. My internal walls down stairs are made from Victorian engineering brick (very hard red brick with a high iron content) that is a PITA to get WiFi signals through.
I'd also buy the WiFi 6 versions, the last thing you want to be doing now is sinking good money into old WiFi 5 kit.
I have one NanoHD easily covering a 4 bed house from the landing ceiling but there are a couple of points to consider. The house is modern so the upstairs walls and floors are stud, plasterboard and chipboard and the house is square.
I have one NanoHD easily covering a 4 bed house from the landing ceiling but there are a couple of points to consider. The house is modern so the upstairs walls and floors are stud, plasterboard and chipboard and the house is square.
Soldato
My house is very much not square. It's L shaped with a further single storey extension - roughly 1100sqft on the ground floor. It's 16th and 17th century in the old bits, so who knows what hiding in some of the walls and 2 giant very solid brick inglenook fireplaces.
I could I suppose get one 6 LR, and then if I needed get a second one, and just do one run of cable. Though then I'm looking at 300quid, compared to two of the TP-Link ones I posted above which would probably do the job at half the price.
I could I suppose get one 6 LR, and then if I needed get a second one, and just do one run of cable. Though then I'm looking at 300quid, compared to two of the TP-Link ones I posted above which would probably do the job at half the price.
Soldato
Physics > Marketing
More access points will always give you significantly better coverage. Splitting clients across multiple access points also potentially improves the speed of connected clients.
What sort of system you want/need really depends on the kind of clients you’re running and how willing you are to run cables.
A cabled multiple access point system is obviously optimal.
Ubiquiti UniFi is a great system, but the access points are little better than anything else (physics and a limited number of chipset manufacturers mean they’re all pretty much the same in performance terms) so don’t get dragged in by the marketing spiel. What it does get you is a really wide range of access points at multiple price points and you can mix and match and they all just work together. Once you’ve set up the first one, adding another is literally plug it in, power it up and one click in the controller to adopt it to the controller.
Whether or not you need WiFi6 is really dependent on your clients again. WiFi6 really gets you best performance with WiFi6 clients but there are general speed gains across all clients, especially if you have a wide spread of 1x1, 2x2 and 4x4 clients. WiFi6 is also very new and relatively immature technology and it carries a premium price tag because it’s the newest, latest and greatest etc.
Mesh systems use bandwidth and add to radio traffic/noise in the area. If you’re going to mesh access points, then definitely get 4x4 access points. That gives you 2x2 for the mesh and 2x2 for the clients. Which is going to make the exercise expensive.
And now I’m going to suggest you buy 2 or 3 Huawei AX3 routers and mesh them. 4x4 WiFi6 and they’re about £50 each. Give them a go. I’ll bet they work really well.
https://consumer.huawei.com/uk/routers/ax3-mesh-kit/buy/
Soldato
Thank you for this post, that's a great help.
If I bought a pack of 3 AX3, could I have one as my main router, one as an access point (with ethernet plugged in running from main router) and a third unwired? And they'd all mesh together nicely?
One thing I read about the Ubiquiti ones is that they do actually give you seamless coverage, and devices switch well between them. I haven't read anything that convincing of the same for the AX3, do you know if that's the case or not?
And what is the realistic difference between the dual and quad core models? The dual core one is 29.99 on amazon now which is looking like very good value.
Soldato
Yes, if you watch the video on the page I linked, it’s very easy to mesh the units, wired or wireless.
The quad core would be better if you want to run a VPN or something CPU intensive.
And yes, they all share the same SSID so you roam ‘seamlessly’ as you put it but obviously, even with the UniFi APs there are breaks in connection as you roam from one access point to another. The only time you really notice is if you’re using a wireless IP telephone where you might experience a very short break in connection - literally a click as it disconnects and reconnects.
The quad core would be better if you want to run a VPN or something CPU intensive.
And yes, they all share the same SSID so you roam ‘seamlessly’ as you put it but obviously, even with the UniFi APs there are breaks in connection as you roam from one access point to another. The only time you really notice is if you’re using a wireless IP telephone where you might experience a very short break in connection - literally a click as it disconnects and reconnects.
Soldato
OK thanks, didn't see the video there sorry. I've ordered 3 of the dual cores (don't think I need anything intensive), if they do the job for 90 quid I'll be very pleased.
Soldato
Doing my absolute nut with these Huawei ax3s, they keep just disconnecting even when connected with ethernet into my main sky router. Light on the front just keeps periodically going red and I lose connection to the network. So I can't do anything. This is after plenty of restarts.
I've been able to set them up and get Internet out of them, but have not been able to get anything set up and useful. They also have less range than my sky broadband hub, despite the 4 rather large antenna.
Not at all intuitive or user friendly so far
probably I've cocked something up but I wouldn't describe the process as easy.
Soldato
Doing my absolute nut with these Huawei ax3s, they keep just disconnecting even when connected with ethernet into my main sky router. Light on the front just keeps periodically going red and I lose connection to the network. So I can't do anything. This is after plenty of restarts.
I've been able to set them up and get Internet out of them, but have not been able to get anything set up and useful. They also have less range than my sky broadband hub, despite the 4 rather large antenna.
Not at all intuitive or user friendly so far
That’s NOT what you wanted. You wanted one as your main router and the others as meshed access points. And this is the first time you mentioned Sky. Which is infamously tricky to replace the main router because of Option 61.
Soldato
Thanks for replying, was a bit short of patience last night.
When I plugged in the first ax3 I realised the signal strength was actually stronger on my sky broadband hub. And it's not actually convenient in terms of plugs to have a 'main' ax3 next to my sky router. And wired access points are in theory better than a WiFi mesh anyway? So I thought to just set each up as a wired AP instead. Is that not supposed to be doable? They have an AP mode that I could turn on, but like I said before it was very unstable.
When you mean replace the router, you mean keep my sky router but turn off the wireless access on it, so it's only providing wan to the main ax3? I tried that and then tried following the instructions in the video we talked about above to mesh another unit but it just simply didn't work. It said the light on the second unit would start flashing green after a minute of being sat next to the main unit, but it just stayed red.
@ChrisD. do i need It.? No but I wanted to maximise wifi performance on a faster internet connection.
Anyway I will not be doing that anymore as the Gig1 from Virgin media that was activated for me yesterday is pathetic when it comes to upload speed.
In peak hours upload speed drops as low as 20Mb/s at times so I will be cancelling that.
Anyway I will not be doing that anymore as the Gig1 from Virgin media that was activated for me yesterday is pathetic when it comes to upload speed.
In peak hours upload speed drops as low as 20Mb/s at times so I will be cancelling that.