Question Talk to me about my setup (Bridge vs. Mesh)

[agdodge4x4]

I am trying to understand the mesh vs bridge situation. I have read a lot and I just don't think I'm quite smart enough to get it. This is probably why I failed out of Computer Engineering.

Here are a two scenarios. These are real and how my network is setup. I have tested both, and the one with mesh is considerably faster for any PC connecting to it via wifi. As you can see with the bridged setup, some PC suffer which is why I am rearranging some stuff. There is going to eventually be hardwired CAT6 to PC 2 and PC 3. PC 1 in the office simply has no ability to get cat6 to it, or I would do that. I can't even reasonably connect it to a switch from the hardwire in PC2 area. Anyway, that is not done yet so these two scenarios are what I have tested.



How are these different?

How are they the same?

What is good or bad about each?



They both accomplish the same goal of extending the wifi connection to the PC systems.



I just drew these out in visio because there is just no way to write all this crap out.





ORIGINAL SETUP WDS BRIDGE Red and Yellow bolts indicate marginal and poor signal and thus poor speeds to these workstations. It is connected to one or the other, but both options are not great signal.



https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p...4vGD1sGr03nk7UBzA=w981-h721-no?authuser=1.jpg



NEW SETUP: ALL MESH



https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p...jOM7bQGIMy5jDtK3Q=w956-h754-no?authuser=1.jpg

 

[bill001g]

Hard to say it depends on exactly which mesh system you have. The better ones have extra dedicated radio chips to make the backhaul connections. This greatly increases the costs.
Some mesh system though are no different and run WDS bridging even though this is more commonly called repeater mode.

It can also depend on if you are using the 5g or 2.4g radio to talk between the units.

To hard to say way to many variables, can be as simple as the radio channels that the system picks have different amounts of interference.

If you have coax cable in the remote rooms MoCA is going to be a much better solution. Even powerline networks can be better. It might be a bit slower but it will have much more consistent latency which is important if you play online game on the connection.

 

[kanewolf]

Mesh and WDS bridge are effectively the same. WIFI with a wireless uload link. Some mesh hardware has dedicated radios for the wireless uplink.