Recommended router/mesh solution, with capacity for 500 Mbit fiber

[grr]

I have a 500/500 Mbit fiber connection. One router is not enough, it has to be some sort of mesh network, due to the size of the house. My current configuration is three Asus routers (AC68U/AC66U B1), and whilst they do offer enough range both outside and inside, they are unstable (the connection drops for half a minute or so several times every day), which is the biggest problem, and they max out around 350/350 Mbit.

I do need the solution to have built in router/firewall capabilities, and it looks like some of the "ready to run" mesh solutions does not offer that? They are just add-ons to extend an existing network?

Any recommendations on what to buy?

 

[Tech Junky]

One router is not enough,

You only need 1 router to handle the FW / routing functions. Everything that feeds into the router will be protected.

size of the house

Need to know the size / construction to provide a solution. Budget of course is a key item as well.

Asus routers (AC68U/AC66U B1)

You need to determine which one is providing the best bandwidth in regards to the bottleneck of 350/350 Mbit.



Depending on the size of your location 2-3 AP's should provide enough coverage. If speed is the goal then daisy chaining routers together may/not provide the speeds you're looking for. If you use dedicated AP's instead you'll get better coverage and throughput. If they're wired back to the originating router you'll get better performance as well vs wireless backhaul.

 

[grr]

Yes, you are correct, obviously I only need one router, what I was trying to say is that I want to have three APs in total, one also being the router. The router is located in the technical room on the first floor, then I have one AP at the 3rd floor, and one AP on the loft of the separate garage, to cover computer and stuff in the garage and outside, for cars, EV charger and mobile phones in the garden etc. The house is about 3300 sq ft., first floor has concrete walls, but everything else is wood and plaster boards. I think the current setup is fine when it comes to number of APs, the real issue is stability. Dropping out is very annoying.

The reason I mentioned I need the mesh net to also include a router is that the mesh net cannot just be APs for the ISP-router, as I also have a second network connected to that ISP-router, to have two separate LANs (separate apartment).

The mesh net I have today is already wired, and I plan to continue with that. Only issue I have seen with that is that with Asus they have to be connected directly to the main AP/node, it does not work when they go through a switch.

I prefer wired for anything I can, so anything related to TVs, most of the Sonos speakers, computers, smarthome gateway, heating systems, printer, etc. is on wired connections. Wi-fi is for smoke detectors, solar panel inverter, EV chargers, cars, cell phones, ipads, laptops, 3-4 Sonos speakers (I also have a Sonos boost), etc., but it does add up to a number of clients, and some of them are probably very low bandwidth, maybe affecting the quality of the network for other clients as well.

I have tried with separate APs with different SSIDs before, but it was a definite improvement with AiMesh and the same SSID all over (although one for 2.4 Ghz and one for 5 Ghz).

Budget wise I am of course hoping to pay as little as possible for the desired functionality, but I rather pay a little bit more to get a decent product.

I do not think I have any Wi-Fi 6 devices at the moment, so not important, but I appreciate something future proof.

 

[Tech Junky]

Ok, well 3000 sq ft isn't too bad and an AP/1000 sq ft is a good rule of thumb to keep performance and coverage adequate.

The first thing I would try to figure out is the network performance of the primary router connected to the "modem" provided by the ISP. I had an Asus that seemed to work fine until I upped the bandwidth to gigabit and then it failed miserably.

Post failure I tried several different routers and landed on a Netgear R7800 for a period of time before getting fed up with buggy firmware and random dropouts and built my own router setup out of a PC instead. I now run the PC router with a NWA210AX ($160/ea) AP from Zyxel and get great coverage and speeds hitting 1.5gbps internally.

I've been using the AP for a couple of years now and the pricing has come down considerably by about 30% in that time. The kinks in the FW have been worked out and matured since initial release. Coverage is pretty good for my 1300 sq ft with sustained speeds.

I don't see any issue feeding these into a SWX either as they're designed for SMB / ENT use including POE if desirable as well as an AC adapter option. They have a 2.5gbps + 1gbps port on them for some flexibility. They're also 802.11ax / WIFI6 for future proofing.

They also have the option of setting up to 8 SSID's per band giving you a total of 16 if each were unique.

For management you have a couple of options as well either by IP / web GUI or Nebula controller via app / web. If you use Nebula it's more like an enterprise experience being able to push the config to a set of AP's or individually.

Since AX uses a bundle of channels vs just a single channel like AC and prior you could setup each one the same way other than the IP you assign and they will workout the channels on their own. Also, these are one of the few AP's that support 160mhz bandwidth giving you the full speeds you're paying for over WIFI.

 

[grr]

Thanks for thorough input. However... I would like to buy something that is ready out of the box. I have had my years with my own servers on various *n?x and BSD distros for various tasks, and I have now given myself completely over to anything ready to run - and cloud based. Even the two NAS servers is unplugged and only collecting dust.

Any recommendations? It looks like various TP-link Deco mesh kits are receieving good reviews. And what about getting the RT-AX86U and pairing a couple of my existing routers to it? I do understand that I will not get Wi-Fi 6 coverage from the two old ones, but I do not think I have any Wi-Fi 6 devices at the moment. Or is the AX86 too gaming based? Any other good option?

I do appreciate a good app, and decent parental control, without significant impact to performance.

 

[Tech Junky]

RT-AX86U - $250
TP-link Deco - $250

To me it doesn't make sense to add ROUTERS for WIFI. Especially with the AP's coming down in price.

Take them out of the box and connect the ethernet and configure them. You would have to do the same with the routers. Converting a router into a bridged AP is a waste of HW and they lack the specific performance design for WIFI.

For $70 more than the router / mesh options you get rock solid performance and less bugs to deal with. I leave my AP up and running for months at a time and the only reboots are for power outages or FW updates.

Once you setup the AP's you don't need to touch them unless you want to make changes.

 

[grr]

Why do you see aimesh as any different than the TP link solution? They are not acting as routers when connected as aimesh nodes.

Anyway, got the chance to test with another router now, so the current setup now is ISP fiber router with two connections:

1. AC66U B1 for the apartment, has been factory reset, configured for NAT, and is located beside the ISP router with a 1 meter cat 5e patch cable. Testing internet speed from the built in speed test is showing 240 Mbit down and 293 Mbit up (2.21 ms ping). Locally on the router... so obvious performance issues on the WAN connection with this router. It used to be one of the aimesh nodes.

2. AC86U for the rest of the house, has been factory reset and configured in NAT mode and as aimesh hub, with two factory reset AC68U as nodes, wired. Using the same built in internet speed test on the AC86U shows 513 Mbit down and 516 Mbit up (1.74 ms ping).

They all have wifi activated, but no other configurations has been made to any one of them. Not sure if there is any way to tune the WAN.

I know the AC66U B1 is an old router, but it is quite surprising to me that it cant even handle 300 Mbit through the WAN connection.

The AC86U is in a different league. Hopefully it does not drop out for half a minute, like the AC68U used to do...

I havent tested wired or wireless on the AC68 aimesh nodes yet. Maybe they have the same limitations as the AC66 B1, as they are very similar.

 

[L&LD]

I too would be looking at an additional (Asus) router instead.

The following link may also be interesting to you.

Asus AX/AXE Slow Upload Speeds

Does Merlin's firmware fix the issue? Nope at the beginning I thought it could be software bug, but after a long time missing with fw and contacting support and they give up then end up just telling me we will issue RMA just to close their support ticket. Now I think it could be a “hardware...

www.snbforums.com

 

[grr]

Looks like the AC68Us are also performing well as aimesh nodes. Might be because they dont have to handle NATing? Or they are simply more powerful than the AC66U. Getting full speed on a computer wired to the one in the garage. And easily 350 Mbps via wifi to my phone, even on a floor below where the router is placed.