Improving home wifi

[ant0n1j4]

Hi all,

Apologies if this has been asked before, I wasn't able to find answers. Please point me to relevant thread if so.

My current network looks something like this:
FTTH -> ISP optical switch/router (I have no control over it, it asisgns public IP adress to my router's WAN port) -> (my) router Asus RT-N66 running FreshTomato (wifi disabled, does NAT, static DHCP, ...) -> LAN switch (link agregation for NAS, ...) -> AP (second Asus RT-N66 running FreshTomato) -> wifi clients (PCs, phones, ...).

It has been stable for years, I never had to reboot anything, unless I was doing an update or there was a longer power outage (current uptime of router is ~400 days ). The only thing that has become kind of obsoleted over the years is the wifi bit.

I live in a house, where I'd like to have wifi from basement to attic and both floors in between. Currently there is only one wifi device (AP) located in ground floor and it covers ground floor, first floor and basement. Later two more like OK-ish, while attic is hit and miss, depending on where you stand. Now I would like to install multiple APs around the house, each would be connected to it's own LAN cable running back to my LAN switch. So kind of like a mesh, but with wired backhaul. All devices will have power socket nearby, so POE is not required.

I don't have any experience with multi-AP networks, so I'm completely lost right now.
My wishes are to:
1. have much better wifi signal in house and around
2. client devices roam between APs and use fastest band with best signal (I'm not sure this is even decided on AP end?)
3. separate SSID for main LAN, another one for IOT LAN, and yet another one for guest LAN
4. for all devices to be at least as stable as my current setup (this one should actually be much higher in this list...); I just don't wan't to reboot devices in weekly/monthly basis "just because"
5. no/minimal data leak to vendors/3rd party (no cloud, all local config via web page would be ideal)

I'd like to keep most of my current hardware if possible, only changing/adding wifi APs. If any other part of network has to be replaced, so be it. I'd also like that new devices are in a more budget category (much like Asus RT-N66 was back in the day, at čeast compared to enterprise solutions).

Does anyone know of a device(s) that would fit the bill?
I found a bunch of mesh systems that looked really cool (TP Link Deco for example) but most of them force you into cloud configuration, which I hate will all my heart
If it helps, I'm based in EU and can buy from any EU country.

Any advice/help will be appreciated.

 

[bbunge]

Sounds like a modern Asus router with AiMesh nodes would fit the bill. If the mesh does not work out the nodes can be switched to AP mode.

 

[Tech Junky]

You could keep everything and disable the WIFI on the old routers and add true APs to cover things. MESH is a MARKETING term. Ignore it and anything mentioning it because you lose bandwidth when enabling it.

I use a NWA210AX and you can pick them up for under $150/ea but, in the EU you're better off with the TPLink Omada option due to pricing. A couple of them should cover your space and just use the same SSID and clients will roam from one to the other as they detect better RF signal strength.

 

[ant0n1j4]

So... just get few modern APs, set them all to same settings, link SSIDs to their respective VLANs and that's it?

I was looking at Omada line of products and I do like their self hosted controller, as well as option to just configure stuff using web interface. Thanks for the info, I'll start digging into it a bit more!

 

[bbunge]

Asus AiMesh would allow guest WIFI across all nodes which will be isolated from the router LAN traffic. Using AP's would not do that.

 

[Tech Junky]

@ant0n1j4

For the most part you're on track. I would set the channels for the APs as well instead for letting them pick and change channels. They should support all of the features you're wanting though. If you need 2.5ge speeds for the lan then rebuilding the entire network would be needed to get higher speeds. If you have recent ADL/RPL systems you can use the newer Intel ax411 card on them and get 1.5gbps potentially as well.

 

[ant0n1j4]

Asus AiMesh would allow guest WIFI across all nodes which will be isolated from the router LAN traffic. Using AP's would not do that.

Could you elaborate on this one?

I don't have much experience with this, but the way I understand it, is that I would create separate VLANs on router (each with it's own NATed IP range, etc.), then bridge them to respective SSIDs on APs. Since clients connected to VLANs will only see what's in their VLANs (and in turn respective SSIDs), this would isolate guest, IOT and main network clients from one another. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, as I said before I don't have a lot of experience with more complicated network setups, only what I played around with my home networks.

For the most part you're on track. I would set the channels for the APs as well instead for letting them pick and change channels. They should support all of the features you're wanting though. If you need 2.5ge speeds for the lan then rebuilding the entire network would be needed to get higher speeds. If you have recent ADL/RPL systems you can use the newer Intel ax411 card on them and get 1.5gbps potentially as well.

I'm not sure if 2.5ge is an option... cables in my walls are cat6a UTP IIRC. I had cables installed 10+ years ago, they are installed in tubes, but there are some quite aggressive bends in the tubes (couldn't be done otherwise due to age of building and limited options when I had it renovated), so it just about impossible to jank old cables out and thread new ones in. My patch panel is also cat6a I think, not sure about the sockets in the rooms... but that would be easy to upgrade if needed. Oh, and they have really thick outer insulation coating, triangular-like, so very inflexible (but also very robust I suppose). Anyhow, 1ge works fine for now, and is also max what current clients support. On the other hand NAS is aggregated onto 4 1ge cables, so it can feed more clients at once without issues.

You mentioned to pick channels manually... I see conflicting info about this on internet. Currently I do it manually, but currently I have exactly one AP device to set. I'm planing on having 3-4 devices after upgrade. If I were to manually set channels, what are best practices? I will be scanning the spectrum to find available slots (or at least the least saturated ones), and I suppose each SSID/AP should get it's own channel if possible. Anything else to be mindful of?
Does situation change if I have neighbors that use auto channel on their devices, and channels get saturated unpredictably? Would auto channel picker work better in this case?

 

[Tech9]

I'd like to keep most of my current hardware if possible

Your router with some interesting FreshTomato features enabled (like IP Traffic) can't process more than 150Mbps WAN-LAN traffic. If NAT acceleration is disabled the old MIPS CPU is dead. There is no point investing in better APs when there is nothing to feed them with data unless your goal is strictly WLAN-LAN speed upgrade. You need complete system overhaul. RT-N66U is 12 years old router. TP-Link Omada is the best price/performance SMB system, but still starting from $400-500 for a basic setup with 2x APs. I have posted example setups in this very same forum few times in the past.

 

[Tech Junky]

RT-N66U is 12 years old

That's a good point.

@ant0n1j4
I would do say 36/1xx on one floor and then set the next floor opposite 1xx/36 so they're opposing and facilitate hand off. APs can do vlans and segregate traffic just fine. Most offer up to 8 per radio. You'll probably only need 2 APs though since they work better than cheap routers.

 

[L&LD]

Quality Cat5e cable is easily capable of 2.5GbE speeds (at least in 100' runs or less).

If that Cat6a cable isn't damaged with those aggressive bends, you should be fine for even higher speeds than 2.5GbE too.

 

[Tech9]

I would do say 36/1xx on one floor and then set the next floor opposite 1xx/36 so they're opposing and facilitate hand off.

Don't assume automatically the poster is in the US. In many countries 1xx is DFS range only (may not be clear) and allowed power between lower and upper channels is 5x different (200mW vs 1000mW). If upper channels are available at all (149-161). If I run my APs on 36 and 149 I have to play with Tx power settings to balance them out for example.

 

[ant0n1j4]

Most traffic would actually be internal, to-and-from NAS.
For router I've already noticed it can't process full 500/100 connection my ISP provides (used to be 100/100, ISP just upped bandwidth limit over year for the same package, so I never bothered upgrading router).
But while I was looking into Omada devices, i also checked out their routers and they seemed pretty cheap and quite powerful, small devices. Would it be a good idea to go for the same ecosystem of router+APs, or are there any better options for routers? (one WAN, one LAN; it has to do VLANs, (static) DHCP, NAT, some QoS; if it has any other features for playing around I wouldn't mind; switch filters multicast traffic so it doesn't flood whole network).

Can anyone point me to a good article that would explain best practices for setting wifi channels in multi AP environment? It doesn't have to go into signal interference equations, but I do like to understand stuff I'm trying to do, so I don't mind some theory.

 

[ColinTaylor]

it has to do VLANs

I would avoid Asus AiMesh if you need VLAN support. AiMesh is a proprietary system that uses VLANs in a bespoke way. Some of the "pro" models will be getting "normal" LAN VLAN support, but not all models and AFAIK it's still in beta. IMHO you'd be better served by using devices (routers, AP's, switches) that already provide "normal" VLAN support out of the box.

 

[coxhaus]

I would run pfsense on an old router to save money and see if you like it. Then add a lot of Cisco 150ax APs to every big used room. You don't want walls between you and your wireless as it will slow you down for high-speed wireless.