Question Wifi/optical fiber interference?

Sep 13, 2021
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Hi all,

I have an optical fiber extension from my work desk router to the living room. I had to go for optical fiber because no Wifi system would cover the distance/walls/metals. The thing is that the end media converter (ACTELSER ACT1003) where the optical fiber is converted to 3 ethernet ports, 1 for the Wifi access point, 1 for the Digital TV decoder and 1 for a Zidoo Z9X multimedia player.

The problem is that when the Wifi AP is off I get the 1Gb connection (through the media converter ethernet ports) I have in contract, the same I get from the router but when the Wifi AP is on that number falls to 120Mb if I'm lucky (through the same media converter ethernet ports)
So my question is, does the Wifi AP interfere with the media converter and if so, why?

Best,
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
This media converter?

https://actelsershop.com/gb/converters/38-211-snap-data-media-converter-act1003.html

Make and model information: Router, Wifi Access Point?

My thought is that the problem is network configuration related and not interference.

Maybe a duplicate IP address....

How have you made the physical connections out of the router and set up the IP addressing (DHCP, static) for each of the network devices?
 
Sep 13, 2021
13
0
10
This media converter?

https://actelsershop.com/gb/converters/38-211-snap-data-media-converter-act1003.html

Make and model information: Router, Wifi Access Point?

My thought is that the problem is network configuration related and not interference.

Maybe a duplicate IP address....

How have you made the physical connections out of the router and set up the IP addressing (DHCP, static) for each of the network devices?

Yes, that media converter.
The Router is an Askey RTF3505VW and I tried with 2 different Wifi APs:
  • Aruba Instant On AP11
  • Netgear EX6250

The physical connections out of the router are all ethernet CAT7 cables.
The IP addressing is set to DHCP with a range from 192.168.1.33 to 192.168.1.199
Wifi channel is WPA2(AES)
DHCPv6 mode is in Automatic

Need any other info?
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
My first thought is that Cat 7 cable to the Access point.

Where did you get the Cat 7 cables? There are a lot of counterfeit cables being sold and Cat 7 is not at all necessary for home use.

FYI: as a reference and not as a Tripp Lite endorsement.

https://www.tripplite.com/products/ethernet-cable-types

(You can easily find other similar links.)

That said:

Is the cable pure copper and not copper clad aluminum (CCA). Should be AWG 22-24 twisted pair - round. Not flat.

Take a look at the plugs on each end of the cable - the plugs may not be properly terminated.

Do you an available Cat 5e cable to test in place of the Cat 7 cable? If not try swapping (if possible) in one of the other Cat 7 cables.

There may be other thoughts and suggestions.
 
Sep 13, 2021
13
0
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My first thought is that Cat 7 cable to the Access point.

Where did you get the Cat 7 cables? There are a lot of counterfeit cables being sold and Cat 7 is not at all necessary for home use.

FYI: as a reference and not as a Tripp Lite endorsement.

https://www.tripplite.com/products/ethernet-cable-types

(You can easily find other similar links.)

That said:

Is the cable pure copper and not copper clad aluminum (CCA). Should be AWG 22-24 twisted pair - round. Not flat.

Take a look at the plugs on each end of the cable - the plugs may not be properly terminated.

Do you an available Cat 5e cable to test in place of the Cat 7 cable? If not try swapping (if possible) in one of the other Cat 7 cables.

There may be other thoughts and suggestions.


I'll try that cable switch and let you know but, if it is a cable problem, it should fail all the time and not only when the Wifi AP is on... wouldn't it?
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Not necessarily: A bad connection/termination could be intermittent. Or even just the cable itself if poorly made.

Every time the Wifi AP is "lost" then the entire handshake process with the router must start over.

Which just triggered a late thought: take a look in the router's logs (if logs are available and enabled). The router may be capturing some problem or issue.
 
Sep 13, 2021
13
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Not necessarily: A bad connection/termination could be intermittent. Or even just the cable itself if poorly made.

Every time the Wifi AP is "lost" then the entire handshake process with the router must start over.

Which just triggered a late thought: take a look in the router's logs (if logs are available and enabled). The router may be capturing some problem or issue.


I'm not sure I explained myself correctly. When I said that with the Wifi AP turned on the signal fell dramatically I meant the signal coming from the ethernet cable (tested on all 3 RJ45 ports from the Actelser)
Let me draw a map of the cables/devices, I think it will help.
 
I am assuming you drew that backwards. The ISP connection must go to the router.

Can you disable the wifi radios in the AP. Mostly I wonder if it is the AP just being plugged in or is it the device connected to the AP via wifi causing the issue. Maybe change the wifi password and maybe even the SSID and then reconnect 1 device at at time. Make sure you disable the WPS feature this will allow devices to get the new password without you having to configure them. This is kinda bad thing in general but when you want to control what devices are connected it is even more important.
 
Sep 13, 2021
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I am assuming you drew that backwards. The ISP connection must go to the router.

Can you disable the wifi radios in the AP. Mostly I wonder if it is the AP just being plugged in or is it the device connected to the AP via wifi causing the issue. Maybe change the wifi password and maybe even the SSID and then reconnect 1 device at at time. Make sure you disable the WPS feature this will allow devices to get the new password without you having to configure them. This is kinda bad thing in general but when you want to control what devices are connected it is even more important.


Yes, I'm sorry. Here's the correct one: View: https://imgur.com/spnIs8G
 
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I have never seen those devices before. I would suspect they are like much like the more common devices that use glass fiber cables.

At 200ft I would have just run ethernet cables but the site says these cables are smaller so I guess that might be a consideration.

From what I can tell this pretty much acts a pair of switches with a fiber cable between them. The devices themselves should be completely transparent. All they do is take ethernet packets convert them to optical and then convert it back to ethernet. They really don't care about what is inside the data. Like a switch look at mac addresses and keep track of what port they saw them on. There is of course some limit to the total number of devices but it is likely going to be far greater than 3. Most can store thousands even on cheap consumer grade stuff.

If we look at this as if there were switches connected via ethernet my best outright guess would be is you have duplicated the management IP on the AP with the IP of your router. What happens if you plug the AP directly into the router does it kill it there also.
 

ajohnson30

Distinguished
Jul 26, 2012
42
5
18,545
The Router is an Askey RTF3505VW and I tried with 2 different Wifi APs:
....
Wifi channel is WPA2(AES)
Just a thought...are you saying Wifi is enabled on the router? If so, if you're setting the same wifi settings on the AP, they may not be playing nice with each other. Disabling the Wifi radios on the AP as bill001g suggests would bear this out. Generally you want a single wifi vendor if you're going to have multiple wifi units/APs/mesh units, unless one's an extender, and those generally create a seperate wifi network anyway.
 
Sep 13, 2021
13
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10
I have never seen those devices before. I would suspect they are like much like the more common devices that use glass fiber cables.

At 200ft I would have just run ethernet cables but the site says these cables are smaller so I guess that might be a consideration.

From what I can tell this pretty much acts a pair of switches with a fiber cable between them. The devices themselves should be completely transparent. All they do is take ethernet packets convert them to optical and then convert it back to ethernet. They really don't care about what is inside the data. Like a switch look at mac addresses and keep track of what port they saw them on. There is of course some limit to the total number of devices but it is likely going to be far greater than 3. Most can store thousands even on cheap consumer grade stuff.

If we look at this as if there were switches connected via ethernet my best outright guess would be is you have duplicated the management IP on the AP with the IP of your router. What happens if you plug the AP directly into the router does it kill it there also.

I did connect the AP directly to the router and it works perfectly. It creates a subnet but the IPs are assigned from the routers net.
 
Sep 13, 2021
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What do you mean it creates a subnet.

A AP is a really simple device. It acts as a switch with wifi radios. Its only actual use of IP addresses is for the single IP you use to configure it. You do not want to be running DHCP on it.


My router has a wifi with these names MOVISTAR_CFAA and MOVISTAR_PLUS_CFAA for 2.4 and 5Gz
The Aruba AP makes another one called FibraEntera that handles both frequencies automatically.
 
Those are not subnets that is just a different SSID. They all are just different names for the same network. They just represent the different radio chip you can connect to.

At this point it almost has to be something strange with those media converters. If the AP works properly connected to the router then the only real difference is the media converters. They "should" not restrict traffic but I don't know.
 
Sep 13, 2021
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Those are not subnets that is just a different SSID. They all are just different names for the same network. They just represent the different radio chip you can connect to.

At this point it almost has to be something strange with those media converters. If the AP works properly connected to the router then the only real difference is the media converters. They "should" not restrict traffic but I don't know.


I thought so too but media converter 1 is right next to the router (which has it's wifi on) and does not fail at all. It is media converter 2 that fails when the AP is on.
 
Sep 13, 2021
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Have you tried to hook the AP to the remote media converter but disable the wifi radios.

What I wonder is if it is actually the AP itself or could it be a device that is connecting to the wifi on the AP.

I just disabled the Wifi on the access point and connected the cable to the media converter and yes, it affects the signal too.
 
How did you get the AP configured. I assume you set the ssid and password at least.

Aruba sell equipment to mostly enterprise customers so there stuff has many feature and is complex. There are so many options it could be easy to misconfigure it. Also without me spending huge time digging around their site I can't say what exact feature that device has, some of their devices can act as routers.

In general the recommendation is to factory reset the device and the configure it again. In this case I don't know anything about that device. Some go searching for central controllers or want to use cloud based management for initial configurations. Other manufacture who sell to home user tend to have much simpler to configure devices.
 
Sep 13, 2021
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How did you get the AP configured. I assume you set the ssid and password at least.

Aruba sell equipment to mostly enterprise customers so there stuff has many feature and is complex. There are so many options it could be easy to misconfigure it. Also without me spending huge time digging around their site I can't say what exact feature that device has, some of their devices can act as routers.

In general the recommendation is to factory reset the device and the configure it again. In this case I don't know anything about that device. Some go searching for central controllers or want to use cloud based management for initial configurations. Other manufacture who sell to home user tend to have much simpler to configure devices.

Right now it has the IP 192.168.1.48 and clients will get an IP in the same subnet as the local network (os it says in the Aruba Instant On.