Network design thoughts?

[dark54555]

My grandparents have asked me to "fix" their wifi coverage. The primary issue is getting signal from their router location to their TV location, opposite ends of the house. Based on attic layout, ethernet isn't practical (nor do they need a ton of bandwith; the most internet they use is streaming Netflix, and if that's going on, it's the only activity on the wifi).

What I have to work with currently:
-1 ATT Uverse router with Wifi ("UVERSE")
-1 Netgear router (N300, I think; might be N600) ("NETGEAR")
-1 current gen Airport Express ("EXPRESS")

Currently the setup is UVERSE ethernet to WAN on NETGEAR, NETGEAR is the functioning router. The EXPRESS isn't being used for anything yet.

If I'm reading the Apple support correctly, I can't use the EXPRESS to act as a wireless repeater for a non-airport router (so UVERSE - ethernet - NETGEAR - wifi -EXPRESS - wifi - CLIENT wouldn't work). Is this correct?

Presuming that is correct, thoughts on this design?

UVERSE - wifi - EXPRESS - ethernet - NETGEAR - wifi2 - CLIENT

Where all clients only connect to wifi2? Or any other idea I should try?

...or should my grandfather be getting an Airport Extreme for father's day (as an early gift) to save me a lot of headache?

...or return the Airport Express for a ...? which would do this simply and reliably?

Chief concern is reliability. Every time this stops working, I'm likely to be getting a phone call.

 

[dark54555]

It occurs to me that perhaps I'm overthinking this.

UVERSE -wifi- NETGEAR -wifi- CLIENT

Where NETGEAR is reloaded with DDWRT. No additional pieces necesary. (Or is the uverse box that horrible?)

 

[Mark Uhde]

My grandparents have asked me to "fix" their wifi coverage. The primary issue is getting signal from their router location to their TV location, opposite ends of the house. Based on attic layout, ethernet isn't practical (nor do they need a ton of bandwith; the most internet they use is streaming Netflix, and if that's going on, it's the only activity on the wifi).

What I have to work with currently:
-1 ATT Uverse router with Wifi ("UVERSE")
-1 Netgear router (N300, I think; might be N600) ("NETGEAR")
-1 current gen Airport Express ("EXPRESS")

Currently the setup is UVERSE ethernet to WAN on NETGEAR, NETGEAR is the functioning router. The EXPRESS isn't being used for anything yet.

If I'm reading the Apple support correctly, I can't use the EXPRESS to act as a wireless repeater for a non-airport router (so UVERSE - ethernet - NETGEAR - wifi -EXPRESS - wifi - CLIENT wouldn't work). Is this correct?

Presuming that is correct, thoughts on this design?

UVERSE - wifi - EXPRESS - ethernet - NETGEAR - wifi2 - CLIENT

Where all clients only connect to wifi2? Or any other idea I should try?

...or should my grandfather be getting an Airport Extreme for father's day (as an early gift) to save me a lot of headache?

...or return the Airport Express for a ...? which would do this simply and reliably?

Chief concern is reliability. Every time this stops working, I'm likely to be getting a phone call.

Don't do repeaters, they're horridly slow and unreliable. Setup the Netgear and the Airport Express as AP's and run Ethernet to them. It's the ONLY stable, reliable option.

Make sure all three AP's are set to the same SSID (network name) and security settings, and that you use each of channels 1, 6, and 11. Do not use any other channels unless you're in an area with channel 13 (then use three of: 1, 5, 9, 13).

Make sure the AP's are as far apart (to cover the most area) as you can reasonably get Ethernet cable ran.

 

[stevech]

My suggestion (as usual)

Put each AP and the router on separate SSIDs. Channel numbers can be same or different.

The WiFi USER must select the "best" (nearest) AP based it its SSID.

WiFi clients often just first-heard, and keep it, even though you move near a much better AP.

That's just the way it is, since IEEE 802.11 has no "mobility management" in it.

 

[Mark Uhde]

My suggestion (as usual)

Put each AP and the router on separate SSIDs. Channel numbers can be same or different.

The WiFi USER must select the "best" (nearest) AP based it its SSID.

WiFi clients often just first-heard, and keep it, even though you move near a much better AP.

That's just the way it is, since IEEE 802.11 has no "mobility management" in it.

No offense, but that's a horrible idea, and it bugs me beyond belief when you see that in public places (small hotels, locally owned malls, anyone who had someone setup Wi-Fi who thinks they know what they're doing). HOW THE HECK am I supposed to guess in the mall which of their SSID's I'm closest to and will work best? Even if I do, I'M WALKING AROUND I don't want to go in and manually change what SSID I'm connected to in each shop (the local mall has their Wi-Fi setup that way). It's terrible. Every time I see Wi-Fi setup that way I cringe.

Good clients determine what AP to associate with, plain and simple. Sure, some "bad" clients will hang on but even then all you have to do is turn Wi-Fi off/on to grab the strongest AP - which is still easier than manually changing SSID.

Channel numbers need to be 1,6,11 or 1,5,9,13. Use the same numbers as rarely as possible and never use any channels outside your selected plan (of those two) they're just noise to each other then.

 

[stevech]

No choice... there's no "best AP" notion in IEEE 802.11.
Client devices do not have to find the best AP, then do it again if mobility causes a decline. And most don't.

That's about it. WiFi isn't like cellular.

If you want real mobility management as it's called, you can get it in expensive managed AP systems like Cisco and Aruba sell. The clients run special software to do smarter AP choices. Usually, these systems use the payload data in the WiFi beacons to advertise what nearby APs exist and can take a secure handoff, etc. These schemes are proprietary.

But this isn't in most all consumer client devices. Using the jargon, in the prior post (good client, bad client)... most consumer clients will hold on to the current AP until many seconds of high error rates/dropped packets occur, etc. Or the user gets mad and does a manual reselection of APs by some knowledge of what AP is where based on SSID naming. If the APs all have the same SSID but same or different channel numbers, the user cannot know which AP is where, nor can they choose among all APs with the same SSID.

 

[Mark Uhde]

Most users are going to make far worse decisions even in their home network than their client device will. Yes, there's no standard, but clients ARE designed to attach to the best AP for them. Some networking stacks are terrible (Windows), some are mediocre (Android), and some are excellent (Mac, iOS).

I still stand by my statement that all of these clients are better than the user picking the AP on their own. Like I said, the user has no clue and will hang onto a bad AP for them much longer than the computer will. Controller-based systems are great, but using a different SSID for each AP even in a controllerless system is insanity. For example, one client of mine (the largest not on a controller based system) has 21 AP's. Are you really suggesting they'd be better off with 21 different SSIDs and guests having to guess which SSID is closest to their room? That's insane.

I've done a lot of testing of roaming performance on controllerless systems (just so you know, even controller-based systems aren't much better. They can nudge a client but not force them. 802.11 has no way to tell a client to associate with a specific AP. THE ONLY system like you describe widely implemented is Cisco CCX). It's not that bad. Windows XP is pretty awful but mobile devices likely to move all do reasonably well.

Just because something doesn't work perfectly doesn't mean that a user-unfriendly mess-of-a-stack-of-SSIDs that you have to remember to manually change constantly as you walk around is better. It's not, it's far worse.