RT-AC68U + RT-AC66U for Media Bridge. Is this possible?

[sabesh]

I have an Asus RT-AC66U router. I'm thinking of getting the new RT-AC68U and setting up one of them as a Media Bridge. Is this possible?

This will be my first time setting up a Media Bridge. Some questions:

- In addition to Ethernet, is it possible to have the Media Bridge work as a Wireless Router?

- Which should be the Bridge: 66U or the 68U? Thanks.

 

[geops]

I have an Asus RT-AC66U router. I'm thinking of getting the new RT-AC68U and setting up one of them as a Media Bridge. Is this possible?

This will be my first time setting up a Media Bridge. Some questions:

- In addition to Ethernet, is it possible to have the Media Bridge work as a Wireless Router?

- Which should be the Bridge: 66U or the 68U? Thanks.

It is absolutely possible. Having both as routers is quite pointless since you'll end with a double nat and that is only possible if you actually have ethernet cable from the lan port of the main router to the wan port of the secondary router. You need to look at setting up the 68U as a router and conencting it to your internet connection. Then you can set up the 66U as either media bridge or wireless repeater. As bridge, wifi clients will not be able to connect to it. As a repeater it will work as a bridge and will also serve as an access point. Use that option only if your house is not fully covered by the router (68U) and you need extended range in the area the 66U is in.

 

[sabesh]

It is absolutely possible. Having both as routers is quite pointless since you'll end with a double nat and that is only possible if you actually have ethernet cable from the lan port of the main router to the wan port of the secondary router. You need to look at setting up the 68U as a router and conencting it to your internet connection. Then you can set up the 66U as either media bridge or wireless repeater. As bridge, wifi clients will not be able to connect to it. As a repeater it will work as a bridge and will also serve as an access point. Use that option only if your house is not fully covered by the router (68U) and you need extended range in the area the 66U is in.

What are the pros / cons of setting up the 66U solely as a media bridge vs repeater? Thx very much!

 

[RMerlin]

BTW, I actually tried setting up a media bridge tonight between the AC66 and the AC68, out of curiosity. For some reason I wasn't able to get more than 8-10 Mbits between the two, while having the AC68U bridged with the AC56U gave me the expected 240 Mbits out of it (the AC56 being only 2x2).

So, I'm not entirely sure a media bridge between an AC66 and an AC68 would work properly, since they are quite different.

A media bridge implies that everyone near the bridge will only connect through Ethernet, the wifi being dedicated to the bridge. A repeater will work both wired and wifi, but at half the link speed.

 

[connorm]

Merlin did you get the same result when using the rt-ac68u as router and rt-ac66u in bridge mode?

also one thing you could do is use the rt-ac66u for 5GHz since its essentially the same on the 68, then usethe 68 just for 2.4GHz, since it is one of the only 3 600N Routers i kno of, you could possibly improve the quality of each frequency by only putting 1 frequency per set of antennas

 

[babgvant]

I have an Asus RT-AC66U router. I'm thinking of getting the new RT-AC68U and setting up one of them as a Media Bridge. Is this possible?

This will be my first time setting up a Media Bridge. Some questions:

- In addition to Ethernet, is it possible to have the Media Bridge work as a Wireless Router?

- Which should be the Bridge: 66U or the 68U? Thanks.

Media bridge mode is broken on the RT-AC66U. I'm not sure it if the problem is isolated to the device acting as the router (i.e. connecting any media bridge to a RT-AC66U router exhibits issues) or on both ends.

Repeater mode will provide the desired result (bridging locations wirelessly) with some caveats:

- bandwidth is ~50% of what it is in MB mode
- only 4 ethernet ports are active
- all clients connecting through the repeater come from the repeater's MAC so functionality which relies on a discrete MAC will not work.

 

[RMerlin]

Merlin did you get the same result when using the rt-ac68u as router and rt-ac66u in bridge mode?

also one thing you could do is use the rt-ac66u for 5GHz since its essentially the same on the 68, then usethe 68 just for 2.4GHz, since it is one of the only 3 600N Routers i kno of, you could possibly improve the quality of each frequency by only putting 1 frequency per set of antennas

I didn't try swapping the roles, no. This was just an experiment I did with these two routers as they were already sitting on the LAN, and I was curious to see the kind of performance I would get having two triple stream 802.11ac devices talking to one another. It was easier for me to test with the AC68U as the bridge since I was sitting next to it.

 

[T-Nation]

I have an ac68r set up as the main router and one ac66u plus an ac66r set up as media bridges to the ac68r. Both bridges have been stable on the last two firmwares ( retail ) for the ac68r. current firmware on the ac68r is .339 and the ac66u/r is .979. Now I did screw around with the hidden pages once in media bridge mode to fine tune the wireless settings and turn off the 2.4Ghz channel (maybe it's already off but it killed the led ). I've also tried Merlin's builds ( which kick butt ) but for some dumb reason I always lose signal quality when I test his build... so for now it's the retail firmware

 

[babgvant]

I've also tried Merlin's builds ( which kick butt ) but for some dumb reason I always lose signal quality when I test his build... so for now it's the retail firmware

I have noticed this as well, but only on the "bridge" (actually running as a repeater).

 

[Asusnet]

If you want a media bridge and a wireless access point, use repeater mode. This is a setup I use at home.

I use the RT-AC68U as my main router and the RT-AC66U in repeater mode. Two desktops are wired to the repeater (RT-AC66U) with a couple mobile devices wirelessly connected. I have zero issues with this setup.

 

[DaveMishSr]

If you want a media bridge and a wireless access point, use repeater mode. This is a setup I use at home.

I use the RT-AC68U as my main router and the RT-AC66U in repeater mode. Two desktops are wired to the repeater (RT-AC66U) with a couple mobile devices wirelessly connected. I have zero issues with this setup.

Doesn't repeater mode use WDS? That cuts the throughput from the router in half, right? I currently have an AC68U as my router with a AC66U in media bridge mode. This setup seems to be working fine for me.

 

[thiggins]

Doesn't repeater mode use WDS? That cuts the throughput from the router in half, right? I currently have an AC68U as my router with a AC66U in media bridge mode. This setup seems to be working fine for me.

Even with WDS, throughput is cut in half only to wireless clients connecting to the repeated signal. This is due to the same radio receiving than retransmitting each data packet, which takes up twice the airtime.

Wired clients connected to a "repeater" are using it as a bridge. No wireless retransmission, so no 50% throughput hit.

 

[Asusnet]

Doesn't repeater mode use WDS? That cuts the throughput from the router in half, right? I currently have an AC68U as my router with a AC66U in media bridge mode. This setup seems to be working fine for me.

WDS and repeater mode functions similiarly but both are different methods. WDS limits speeds to 54Mbps. It is not ideal for most modern networks. I recommend repeater mode which can be selected under Operation Mode. While wireless is theoretically halfed, LAN connections in repeater mode should not see a significant cut in bandwidth.

 

[thiggins]

WDS limits speeds to 54Mbps.

This is because WPA2/AES encryption isn't supported, correct?

 

[Asusnet]

This is because WPA2/AES encryption isn't supported, correct?

On the RT-AC66U, it is correct that WPA2/AES is not supported. I have not tested the RT-AC68U in WDS so I cannot confirm. I believe repeater mode is overall a better alternative and is much more user friendly.

 

[RMerlin]

On the RT-AC66U, it is correct that WPA2/AES is not supported. I have not tested the RT-AC68U in WDS so I cannot confirm. I believe repeater mode is overall a better alternative and is much more user friendly.

WDS only works with WEP or Open because it requires the routers to use an encryption scheme that doesn't use a rotating key (which WPA and WPA does, renewing the key every 3600 seconds by default). Therefore I suspect Tim's assumption is right - the speed is then limited to 54 Mbps because of the WEP encryption used between the two routers.

WDS is an old standard that never really got updated. Repeater mode is indeed the way to go.

 

[Junky321]

Actually Media Bridge mode (5Ghz + AC) is the way to go but unfortunately it does not work reliably. Based on this new information, we can conclude that perhaps the router (mode) is the culprit of instability of the Media Bridge.

I am still upset because I bought two of these RT-AC66s for this sole purpose and I WANT to love Asus products.

 

[T-Nation]

For what ever reason media bridge with ac66s is just plan broken... but media bridge with ac68 as the main seems to work pretty damn well. Like I said before minor tweaks to adjust for my set up, and yes 5ghz + ac kick butt!

 

[thiggins]

WDS only works with WEP or Open because it requires the routers to use an encryption scheme that doesn't use a rotating key (which WPA and WPA does, renewing the key every 3600 seconds by default). Therefore I suspect Tim's assumption is right - the speed is then limited to 54 Mbps because of the WEP encryption used between the two routers.

WDS is an old standard that never really got updated. Repeater mode is indeed the way to go.

there are some proprietary WDS implementations that support WPA. But that still won't get you a link rate above 54 Mbps.

 

[DaveMishSr]

Actually Media Bridge mode (5Ghz + AC) is the way to go but unfortunately it does not work reliably. Based on this new information, we can conclude that perhaps the router (mode) is the culprit of instability of the Media Bridge.

I am still upset because I bought two of these RT-AC66s for this sole purpose and I WANT to love Asus products.

That is strange as I have had no problems with media bridge mode. I have used 2 AC66U's, an AC68U with an AC66U and now finally 2 AC68U's.