[SOLVED] Mesh thoughts and experiences?

[Witterings]

Interested to hear what people's thoughts are on Mesh Systms and also their compatibilty of one make working with another i.e. TP Link Router with Netgear Range extender and if they play together or if it all needs to be the same.

I was going to upgrade my router and get some mesh range extenders and rang a reputed broadband equipment supplier and he mentioned they're not nearly as good as they're made out to be (became very evident during lockdown apparently) ... you're much better off wiring in access points instead.

The way our house is layed out with the ADSL line in the worst place it could be and lots of flat roof, wiring is a complete PITA so would rather a decent alternative but don't want to spend money that's wasted.

Was looking at the Archer MR600 as a router (need 3/4g as a failover) and interested to hear what may be compatible and work well with it giving half decent network transfer speeds as well.

 

[bill001g]

What you want to justify using mesh rather than wired AP ?

A key that shows what is best is enterprise class customers who have pretty much unlimited money use wired AP, none use mesh. Mesh is something sold to home users mostly.

You should never use mesh if you have any other option. Cabled ethernet to AP is best, then Moca to AP if you have coax tv cable and Powerline units. Only if none of those is a good option do you choose mesh. In addition you must get the mesh units that have dedicated radios for the backhual to the router. A lot of so called mesh stuff is just the old repeaters in new boxes. Mesh takes very careful placement to ensure that the remote unit can get a strong signal from the main router and still send it to the remote location. Mesh though still have 2 wifi radio signals that can be interfered with and in most cases you are using all the radio channels available, since you have 2 wifi signals, which guarantees you get interference from neighbors.

I agree with the recommendation you where given use wired AP if you have any ability to do that.

In the end it may not matter what solution you go with DSL is so slow compared to modern wifi speeds.

 

[Witterings]

^^^ Cheers for that, it's running the wiring with the layout of the property that's causing us the issue.

I have run a wired accesss point to one part of the house where WiFi's used a lot and that works brilliantly but it's trying to get wiring to the far end of the house (bungalow) that's causing the problem and dead spots, I've have also tried powerline and it keeps disconnecting.

 

[bill001g]

Powerline the newer av2-1000 and av2-2000 units work much better than the older stuff. You might consider running wire on the outside of the house if you can't get into attic/basement

 

[gggplaya]

I would run the ethernet cable outside the house and keep it tight up under the eave, make sure you use outdoor UV rated ethernet cable.

Also, since it's a single story, you can get direct burial ethernet cable and bury it along the perimeter of the house.

Or, if your house doesn't have a basement, it may have a crawl space underneath that you can easily go down and then back up to another room.

I use this long shank bit to run ethernet down walls into basements/crawl spaces: https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Tool-EA75072-Installer-72-Inch/dp/B00IP87D5Y

Using mesh systems as wired access points is perfectly fine. But I've had bad bandwidth experiences with wifi repeaters and wifi only mesh systems.