Suggestions for fast WiFi bridge

[Aqualung]

Need a fast Ethernet to Wifi bridge, preferably dual band, AC or N. I was looking at Trendnet's TEW-800MB (not reviewed by SmallNetBuilder) or Asus' EA-N66. Suggestions and comments greately appreciated.

 

[azazel1024]

A media bridge or an actual wireless bridge? For a media bridge, I'd lean toward the EA-N66 if on a budget. Otherwise I'd look at just getting a regular, inexpensive, N600 or AC1200 router and placing it in bridge mode (or faster if you need it).

Media bridges are usually kind of crappy.

If you need an actual wireless bridge, what kind of speeds do you need? For a dedicated bridge, I'd look as something like Engenius line of outdoor wireless bridges. If you need faster speeds, I'd look at getting a nice AC1200 or 1750 router with external antennas and put high gain antennas on it.

 

[Aqualung]

A media bridge or an actual wireless bridge?

I was not aware that there is a difference between these. What would that be please?

 

[Miyuo]

If you want to build a wifi bridge to make your WiFi signal becomes stronger, you should buy a pair of antennas, so that your WiFi signal coverage will be expanded,

 

[azazel1024]

I was not aware that there is a difference between these. What would that be please?

A media bridge is generally something you'd connect one or more devices to that do not already have wifi when you are currently in range of your network. These generally have low gain omni-directional antennas and often just aren't terribly fast

A wireless bridge is generally something you'd use to actually extend your network when you are likely are not actually in range of you're routers wifi. For example, wanting to extend your network out to a dettached garage or something similar. These generally have a high gain antenna(s) and likely much higher radio power.

A final option is putting a router or access point in to bridge mode (WDS bridging) and you can tweak things to your desire. If it has external antennas you can put high gain antennas on them to use it like a wireless bridge above, or you can leave the antennas as is and use it more like a media bridge possibly.

Media bridges tend to be the cheapest option, but a router/AP is probably going to be the highest performance option. A dedicated wireless bridge is often the way to go if you need to extend your network across a large distance.

They all effectively do the same thing, more or less, but vastly different use cases and performances (and costs).

 

[htismaqe]

I was not aware that there is a difference between these. What would that be please?

To add on to what azazel posted:

"Media bridge" is sometimes used interchangeably with "client bridge". In general terms, it is bridged on the wireless interface and used to connect wired devices that don't have wireless connections to a wireless network.

 

[Aqualung]

Thank you. It is, indeed, a media bridge that I am looking for. I am looking to add WiFi capability to this. An AC-capable media bridge would have been nice, but I am guessing the Asus will fit the bill.

 

[azazel1024]

Yes, probably. That trendnet 11ac bridge, from what I recall, actually has really terrible performance. Most media bridges aren't very good, but IIRC the Asus is the best of a not so great bunch.

 

[funkahdafi]

A wireless bridge is generally something you'd use to actually extend your network when you are likely are not actually in range of you're routers wifi.

Sorry, but that's just not true

What you are talking about is called a range extender or sometimes also called a "repeater". And they have a very distinct negative feature: They half your total wifi bandwidth (because everything has to be sent twice).

A meda bridge and a "normal" wifi bridge are actually the exact same thing. Some vendors just came up with the brilliant marketing idea to rename the boring sounding bridge to media bridge and plaster it with "HD streaming" stickers. I guess they are trying to reach the less tech-savy people with this. Which makes sense.

Technically, a bridge is just one thing (no matter whether you add the "media" word or not): it bridges from one medium (ethernet) to the other (wifi).

 

[htismaqe]

Sorry, but that's just not true

What you are talking about is called a range extender or sometimes also called a "repeater". And they have a very distinct negative feature: They half your total wifi bandwidth (because everything has to be sent twice).

A meda bridge and a "normal" wifi bridge are actually the exact same thing. Some vendors just came up with the brilliant marketing idea to rename the boring sounding bridge to media bridge and plaster it with "HD streaming" stickers. I guess they are trying to reach the less tech-savy people with this. Which makes sense.

Technically, a bridge is just one thing (no matter whether you add the "media" word or not): it bridges from one medium (ethernet) to the other (wifi).

A bridge doesn't necessarily mean your bridging two different media. A "range extender" with 2 wireless radios, as many of them now have, is a wireless to wireless bridge.

 

[azazel1024]

Sorry, but that's just not true

What you are talking about is called a range extender or sometimes also called a "repeater". And they have a very distinct negative feature: They half your total wifi bandwidth (because everything has to be sent twice).

A meda bridge and a "normal" wifi bridge are actually the exact same thing. Some vendors just came up with the brilliant marketing idea to rename the boring sounding bridge to media bridge and plaster it with "HD streaming" stickers. I guess they are trying to reach the less tech-savy people with this. Which makes sense.

Technically, a bridge is just one thing (no matter whether you add the "media" word or not): it bridges from one medium (ethernet) to the other (wifi).

key ommision "wireless". I said extend your network, I was refering to wireline network, not wireless network. A wireless bridge is generally used to extend your wire line network by bridging using a wireless medium.

Also sometimes used to specifically connect one or a small number of client devices to an existing network.

A wireless repeater is just a wireless to wireless bridge.

At any rate, semantics. As for wireless bridge versus media bridge, the later generally refers to relatively low cost devices geared toward connecting a small number of clients using low powered radio(s) and omni directional antenna(s). A wireless bridge generally refers to something using a high powered radio and a high gain directional antenna.

Generally. They both do the same thing in effect, but they generally have vastly different hardware.

 

[funkahdafi]

As for wireless bridge versus media bridge, the later generally refers to relatively low cost devices geared toward connecting a small number of clients using low powered radio(s) and omni directional antenna(s). A wireless bridge generally refers to something using a high powered radio and a high gain directional antenna.

Just not sure why you say that it is "generally" so. I don't think that it is generally so.

Wireless bridges have been around for ages (well before range extenders came up). They have alway been used to bridge ethernet to wifi. Then they came up with media bridges, which did... well... exactly that, bridge ethernet to wifi. I wouldn't say that the media bridge "generally" uses low powered radios and non-media bridges "generally" use high-gain equipment.

Let't not make this more complicated than it is. The "media" in the media bridge is just a sticker to sell age-old technology to people who don't know what a bridge is (not saying this is a bad thing, but it's just marketing).

Or do you have any reference that the media bridge generally (read: almost always) uses low-power radios?

 

[azazel1024]

By low power, I mean similar to what a consumer wifi router is likely to be using.

If you look at most dedicate wireless bridge equipment that is truely mean to act as a dedicated bridge, most of them have VERY high power radios compared to a consumer router/media bridge that are pushing the edge of FCC limits, with probably higher quality amplifiers and a high gain antenna(s).

 

[funkahdafi]

By low power, I mean similar to what a consumer wifi router is likely to be using.

If you look at most dedicate wireless bridge equipment that is truely mean to act as a dedicated bridge, most of them have VERY high power radios compared to a consumer router/media bridge that are pushing the edge of FCC limits, with probably higher quality amplifiers and a high gain antenna(s).

We can agree on that

 

[stevech]

We can agree on that

Usually, the radios are about the same power (chipsets/PAs) as consumer, but these bridges often have about 14dBi of antenna gain versus 0-3dBi for omni's in consumer gear.

The FCC doesn't regulate the transmitter power; it regulates the effective radiated power (ERP) which is mostly influenced by the antenna gain. And in the US, and other places, the regulations permit higher ERP with directional antennas. The principle here is that unlicensed band sharing is all about managing interference, and as an antenna gets more directional, it interferes less due to its radiation pattern.

There are antennas that are omni-directional on the horizontal and quite directional on the vertical axis. Some 12-14dBi omnis are common. Many feel that the ERP regulations should be revised to reflect that such high gain omnis are not in the intent of the regulations.

 

[azazel1024]

Usually, the radios are about the same power (chipsets/PAs) as consumer, but these bridges often have about 14dBi of antenna gain versus 0-3dBi for omni's in consumer gear.

The FCC doesn't regulate the transmitter power; it regulates the effective radiated power (ERP) which is mostly influenced by the antenna gain. And in the US, and other places, the regulations permit higher ERP with directional antennas. The principle here is that unlicensed band sharing is all about managing interference, and as an antenna gets more directional, it interferes less due to its radiation pattern.

There are antennas that are omni-directional on the horizontal and quite directional on the vertical axis. Some 12-14dBi omnis are common. Many feel that the ERP regulations should be revised to reflect that such high gain omnis are not in the intent of the regulations.

I can certainly get that, but at 12-14dBi for an omni directional antenna, you are going to have a very tight vertical gain, so if you are more than a handful of degrees off, you are going to see massively reduced signal strength gain. Also the range is still just not huge with obstructions. LoS range is increased quite a bit, but with the limits on radio power, if you follow FCC regulations, LoS range to something with a more typical 0-3dBi omni directional antenna is just not going to be that huge, maybe 1,000ft where you could legitimately consider it significant interference (LoS!). If you add structures, trees, etc, shrink that significantly.

I do care about interference, but there are plenty of situations where having coverage over, say, a few acres (LoS) is important and resonable for the radio power/antenna gain for omnidirectional coverage and to me it just isn't resonable to have to get a license to operate gear for what I would consider a fairly common situation (public parks, county/state fairs, corporate open spaces, etc). Switching to be a better penetrating radio frequency doesn't solve that either, because LoS, 650MHz vs 900MHz vs 2.4GHz vs 5GHz all have almost the exact same range (dependent upon slight changes in surface reflection, water vapor absorbtion, etc. varying that ever so slightly).

I don't think it is resonable to have unlicensed radios for any frequency that can cover miles or even ONE mile for omni-directional coverage, but hundreds of feet to even a thousand or so feet for a single base station seems pretty resonable to me.

Of course it really doesn't matter what you or I or almost anyone else thinks is resonable. It matters what the regulators at the FCC think is resonable.