Access Points in a Mesh Network / Switch to Switch Questions

[James Gowan]

Hi All

Apologies if these are obvious answers and I hope someone can help!

I currently use a Netgear RBK50 Mesh setup and have them positioned one either end of our home. We'd like to connect up our garage and the satellite closest to the garage doesn't quite cut it so we've run ethernet out there. Is it possible to have an Access Point out there and have the SSID the same as the mesh network SSID or will that cause issues with overlap? Or is it just best to change it to another SSID and maybe find a clear channel?

My other question is about switches. My plan is to run ethernet up to our loft and then down to one of our bedrooms where we will have four devices with ethernet connections. To connect all four devices and hopefully only have to run one cable down from the switch (and to prevent having to install four sockets in patch panels) can I just use a switch in the bedroom and switch in the loft and only use one ethernet cable between the two or does this limit which devices can be used simultaneously?

Thanks for your advice!

 

[Trip]

Regarding the remote wireless node, yes, it's possible, but if you already have tri-band Orbi in place, I'd highly recommend just sticking with the ecosystem and buying a RBS50 to run in the garage. More costly than just a cheap standalone AP, but you've already made the investment in upgrading your wifi access layer, and throwing a standalone AP into the mix would kind of mire that experience (completely separate control plane, roaming likely not as smooth, separate management, etc.). Sure, there's an upfront cost savings by going with a simple cheap AP, but a good chunk of that may be lost on the opportunity cost of dealing with futzing with it too much if you get channel interference issues, etc.

Regarding the cabling and switches, in a perfect world you want as few daisy-chained switches and instead as many unique "home-runs" (from endpoint to core switch) as possible, which makes for fewer bandwidth bottlenecks, fewer cascading points of failure, lower broadcast overhead, lower switching latency and easier management. That said, it's entirely possible to do what you're proposing without too much performance penalty, and it's done all the time in small SOHO networks. The primary thing you'll notice is all devices behind those switches will be bottlenecked by a single link (1Gb/s) between them and to the router (core switch). But most home networks whose traffic levels are on the low side (ie. just a few wired devices that need simple, low to medium speed internet access) can get away with that layout well enough.

Hope that helps!

 

[James Gowan]

Great, thank you for the response and advice!

 

[coxhaus]

Some point in the near future that 1 wire is going to be able to run at a higher speed than 1 gig. It is coming so having 1 wire is a good thing.