Hello, long time lurker here finally posting. Very nice to be acquainted with this well informed community.
I am currently using an Archer C7 with DDWRT and OpenVpn (NordVpn) which is using a Zyxel LTE7460 pole mounted modem for the WAN and some old ADSL routers as AP's (hardwired through an Asus switch) in the areas without Wifi in my thick masonry walled house and yard. The system runs with double NAT as the C7 drops the WAN regularly if connected with the Zyxel in bridged mode. Apparently this is due to the Atheros chipset.
On the network are the usual phones and laptops and some Rpi based home automation stuff (most of that is on Zwave and Zigbee) and Kodi with all the media on a 6Tb HDD connected to the C7. There are no gamers in the house and no ports exposed to the outside. I normally Torrent at night. I have a long list of static IP's.
Recently the LTE signal has dropped due to contention issues from 14Mb maximum download to about 3Mb and in the last 2 weeks the LTE signal has disappeared and the Zyxel is now operating in CDMA/3G mode.
So I bit the bullet and ordered the residential Starlink with a rented dish which arrived this week. The speeds seem to be up to around 300Mb. I am still waiting on the arrival of the LAN adaptor.
Which brings me to my question(s)...
I am considering upgrading the C7 to something more modern but still very much a budget solution. The Starlink can operate in bridge mode and has CGNAT but other than that the included router is pretty basic. I would also like to upgrade the wired AP's to Wifi6, ideally with POE. It would be nice to be able to keep my LTE connection as a fallback somehow but I can always manually do this.
The Asus RT-AX56U with Merlin firmware looks promising and I haven't yet fully researched the AP's.
There is always the option of different firmware for the C7. Any advice welcome as I am trying to minimise compatibility errors and it would be nice to hear of any recommended solutions.
I am currently using an Archer C7 with DDWRT and OpenVpn (NordVpn) which is using a Zyxel LTE7460 pole mounted modem for the WAN and some old ADSL routers as AP's (hardwired through an Asus switch) in the areas without Wifi in my thick masonry walled house and yard. The system runs with double NAT as the C7 drops the WAN regularly if connected with the Zyxel in bridged mode. Apparently this is due to the Atheros chipset.
On the network are the usual phones and laptops and some Rpi based home automation stuff (most of that is on Zwave and Zigbee) and Kodi with all the media on a 6Tb HDD connected to the C7. There are no gamers in the house and no ports exposed to the outside. I normally Torrent at night. I have a long list of static IP's.
Recently the LTE signal has dropped due to contention issues from 14Mb maximum download to about 3Mb and in the last 2 weeks the LTE signal has disappeared and the Zyxel is now operating in CDMA/3G mode.
So I bit the bullet and ordered the residential Starlink with a rented dish which arrived this week. The speeds seem to be up to around 300Mb. I am still waiting on the arrival of the LAN adaptor.
Which brings me to my question(s)...
I am considering upgrading the C7 to something more modern but still very much a budget solution. The Starlink can operate in bridge mode and has CGNAT but other than that the included router is pretty basic. I would also like to upgrade the wired AP's to Wifi6, ideally with POE. It would be nice to be able to keep my LTE connection as a fallback somehow but I can always manually do this.
The Asus RT-AX56U with Merlin firmware looks promising and I haven't yet fully researched the AP's.
There is always the option of different firmware for the C7. Any advice welcome as I am trying to minimise compatibility errors and it would be nice to hear of any recommended solutions.