Wireless Routers or Access Points

[Lewis]

In looking to setup a wireless network for a client that wants max performance and price is not an issue, I'm looking at either using ASUS RT-AC66U OR ASUS RT-AC56U's - with one set as the router/primary wifi and then one or two others, because it's a large house with thick walls, as access points (both connected via ethernet back to the primary ASUS).
OR
An Router Firewall device connected to and using Ubiquiti access points.

Suggestions from real world usage?
Alternative ideas?
Again, speed, range, coverage is goal, pricing is less important.
Thanks in advance!

 

[mobei]

Unifi + the right country setting

in my house I started with 2 RT-AC66U in access point mode to cover an aprox indoor area of 4400 sqf, but having a lot of concrete walls made the Asus look useless. I then moved to Unifi, I installed 3 access points (AP Pro, AP AC, and AP Outdoor), everything is connected to a UBNT edgerouter lite through a PoE switch. Playing with the country settings and transmission power; I get all bars anywhere inside my house and outdoors all around the block, signal never disappears while I'm walking my dogs in the neighborhood.

I only use Asus for wireless bridging now where I don't have ethernet access.

 

[chadster766]

in my house I started with 2 RT-AC66U in access point mode to cover an aprox indoor area of 4400 sqf, but having a lot of concrete walls made the Asus look useless. I then moved to Unifi, I installed 3 access points (AP Pro, AP AC, and AP Outdoor), everything is connected to a UBNT edgerouter lite through a PoE switch. Playing with the country settings and transmission power; I get all bars anywhere inside my house and outdoors all around the block, signal never disappears while I'm walking my dogs in the neighborhood.

I only use Asus for wireless bridging now where I don't have ethernet access.

When your wireless device goes from one AP's range to another does it disconnect and reconnect? Do you have to switch your device to the strongest signal AP?

The reason I ask is because not all AP's support seamless transfer of the client between each other and I'm curious about hardware that does.

 

[Lewis]

Unifi + the right country setting followup

mobei, let me see if understand this, your UBNT edgerouter lite is fed by your ISP's ethernet out, it then connects to the Unifis via POE ethernet? or do you have/need any other device in the loop?
Also, I can see the reason for the outdoor Unifi, why both the AP Pro and AP AC?
Thanks Lewis!

 

[stevech]

One LAN, one router.
Add APs to improve coverage and/or capacity.
Lots of APs? Don't use consumer products. Don't use WiFi router.

That's all there is to it.

 

[azazel1024]

I'd really love to see a deffinition of seamless transfer. I kind of know what you are getting at...but I see seamless transfers constantly on my setup. I've shared numerous times and boy do I have a mix of gear, both client side and base station side.

I now currently have a Netgear 3500L V1 as a router also running its radios in my basement and serving one side of my upstairs. I have a TP-Link WDR3600 serving my living room, garage and the other half of my upstairs as well as a large part of my front yard. I have a TP-Link 841nd in my garage with the antennas run through the backwall providing coverage to my entire backyard and a bit of the side yards (the aluminum siding acts pretty much as a faraday cage there. standing 5ft away behind the garage I get -28dBm of signal. If I stand in the garage 5ft away I get -72dBm. My WDR3600 in the living room which the garage is attached to is also through an exterior wall, that is insulated, but without aluminum siding on it and is also about 40ft away and the signal is -62dBm).

Roaming is danged seamless. After a number of questions I've been testing out video chat a lot more (mostly facetime, but I've been doing some skype testing). Its pretty danged seamless going between the access points and router walking around my house and outdoors. About the only time I drop a connection, either loading a webpage, transfering a file, streaming netflix/youtube or doing a video chat (I don't have VOIP stuff I can test with) is on my phone (iPhone 5) or my wife's iPad 2 and ONLY if I am REALLY hauling butt. Both of those seem to take around 20s or so to connect from the living room AP to the outdoor AP for whatever reason when walking to the outside. It transfers to the indoor one a little faster, but still not super fast.

So if I go from outside and then walk all the way through the house to my bedroom on the opposite side of the house from the outdoor AP and by walk I really mean power walk, sometimes the facetime session or skype session will halt door to poor signal strength for a couple of seconds before it switches over to another AP in the house and the connection resumes (I've observed one full drop when this happens).

If you walk like a normal person does, its seamless. With all my other devices it transfers between APs much faster. My laptop and tablet and my son's tablets all transition from the indoor/outdoor APs within just a few seconds of entering/leaving the house (like 3-5s) in part because of the strong difference in signal strength. Basically the same thing with the basement and living room APs.

Its not oodles of gear I have to test with, but its with 5 different OS (Windows 8, 8.1, iOS6/7, Android 4.3) and 6 different clients with differing wifi chipsets in them (iPad 2, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, HP Envy 4t with Intel 7260ac, Asus T100, Asus Media pad 7 hd).

It doesn't meet the standard of "fast transfers" and it might not be as seamless on VOIP as it doesn't transfer the instant you cross whatever signal strength threshold you want to set as it relies on the clients doing it, but it works extremely well. It deffinitely passes the wife standard as she has never once complained about it or mentioned it...and trust me, she would gripe the INSTANT something wasn't "perfect".

There very well might be a saturation point where this wouldn't work well, like if I increased the density significantly more than I have it right now. I am planning on possibly rolling 1 more AP at some point, possibly 2. I am kind of just playing around with 5GHz within my house right now with the purchase of the WDR3600. It works better than I had expected, but I am still skeptical how well it'll penetrate through the basement ceiling to the upstairs once I replace my Netgear 3500L with an AC router or maybe even a WDR3600 as a stop gap (I might wait to move to AC gear once MU:MIMO is wide spread and cheap). I may put a low power 5GHz AP in the middle of my house to cover the upstairs better depending on results once I replace the basement router.

I think the issue becomes more one of users than it does number of APs. You increase client density and client count enough and consumer gear just starts falling apart. My in-laws with their old wifi router had it happen a couple of years ago the last time they hosted Thanksgiving. There were 19 people at their house with probably around 25 wifi devices total counting the fact that all adults (13) had a smart phone, several had a tablet or a laptop also and a LOT of them really were connected and in some kind of at least light active use at once at certain points in time. The router kept locking or refusing to assign out new DHCP leases and it had to be rebooted at least once a day while everyone was there.

 

[azazel1024]

Oh and for clarification, if I set seperate SSIDs for the differing APs and/or set differing SSIDs for the different bands, I DO have roaming issues. If everything is set to the same SSID it is all very happy to go between APs.

Seperate SSIDs and it either has issues connecting to the best band. Nothing really wants to connect 5GHz with the living room AP if using seperate SSIDs for the two bands, even if I set the AP to 20MHz 2.4GHz and 40MHz 5GHz. If I set 20MHz 2.4GHz and 40MHz 5GHz and the same SSID for both bands almost all devices that are dual band will connect to and prefer 5GHz until the signal starts getting pretty weak, then it may switch to 2.4GHz before its really in range of one of the other APs (IE the other AP has stronger signal). If I set to 40MHz for both bands and the same SSID, a few of my devices will still prefer 5GHz over 2.4GHz (iPad 2 and I have my laptop set to prefer 5GHz as its about 5-8% faster than 2.4GHz is in testing). However, if I set seperate SSIDs for the differing bands, everything wants to go to the 2.4GHz SSID still unless I tell it to just connect to the 5GHz one and even then, if I roam off to the 2.4GHz router/outdoor AP and it eventually switches over to those and I roam back to the living room AP, all devices will connect back to the 2.4GHz SSID on the living room AP.

If I set seperate SSIDs for each AP then some of my clients get sticky and don't want to switch between SSIDs unless they effectively move far enough away to completely or almost completely lose signal. Even the non-sticky clients (ALL of them) take a lot longer and require a greater signal strength diffence to shift between the APs if the SSIDs are all seperate. The switch still seems to be seamless, but the roaming behavior is much, much worse.

One SSID to rule them all seems to be the way to go unless you want/need a guest SSID.

 

[sfx2000]

Oh and for clarification, if I set seperate SSIDs for the differing APs and/or set differing SSIDs for the different bands, I DO have roaming issues. If everything is set to the same SSID it is all very happy to go between APs.

Seperate SSIDs and it either has issues connecting to the best band. Nothing really wants to connect 5GHz with the living room AP if using seperate SSIDs for the two bands, even if I set the AP to 20MHz 2.4GHz and 40MHz 5GHz. If I set 20MHz 2.4GHz and 40MHz 5GHz and the same SSID for both bands almost all devices that are dual band will connect to and prefer 5GHz until the signal starts getting pretty weak, then it may switch to 2.4GHz before its really in range of one of the other APs (IE the other AP has stronger signal). If I set to 40MHz for both bands and the same SSID, a few of my devices will still prefer 5GHz over 2.4GHz (iPad 2 and I have my laptop set to prefer 5GHz as its about 5-8% faster than 2.4GHz is in testing). However, if I set seperate SSIDs for the differing bands, everything wants to go to the 2.4GHz SSID still unless I tell it to just connect to the 5GHz one and even then, if I roam off to the 2.4GHz router/outdoor AP and it eventually switches over to those and I roam back to the living room AP, all devices will connect back to the 2.4GHz SSID on the living room AP.

If I set seperate SSIDs for each AP then some of my clients get sticky and don't want to switch between SSIDs unless they effectively move far enough away to completely or almost completely lose signal. Even the non-sticky clients (ALL of them) take a lot longer and require a greater signal strength diffence to shift between the APs if the SSIDs are all seperate. The switch still seems to be seamless, but the roaming behavior is much, much worse.

One SSID to rule them all seems to be the way to go unless you want/need a guest SSID.

That's how it's supposed to work, BTW...

There are use cases where having a unique SSID may be preferred, but common SSID across both bands (and multiple AP's) in a single WLAN is a sound approach - then manage channels as needed.

It's more about AP location relative to the STA's (clients)...

Guest SSID's - I agree and would recommend only using a GuestSSID when and if needed... I have a guest SSID, but I only turn it on when I actually have guests at the house, otherwise it's off, one less security thing to worry about

sfx

 

[fistv]

My best results are with the following hardware/software, the POE adapter is an internal daughter card that turns the first 4 ports into POE ports for the aeronet waps, two minute install, open cover, plug in, close cover, done. The 891w has a built in WAP w/antennas. I never used the rack mount kits and just included them for reference, the three antennas sticking up from the 891w make rack mounting somewhat awkward if your rack has doors. I keep smartnet coverage on all my cisco stuff, 4 hour replacement. It is not a cheap solution but it is professional grade hardware with minimal boxes. One other thing you may want to include is a good sized UPS, a line interactive type not a cheaper standby type, you just have to keep up with battery maintenance/replacement every 3 or so years. It all depends on the customer.
1 CISCO891W-AGN-A-K9 CISCO891W Gigabit Ethernet Wireless Security Router
1 CON-SNTP-C891WAK9 Cisco 24 x7 Smartnet
1 ACS-890-RM-19 Cisco Rackmount Kit
1 800-IL-PM-4 Cisco 4-port POE Adapter
3 AIR-SAP1602E-A-K9 Cisco Aironet 1602e Standalone AP
1 CON-SNTP-S1602EA Cisco 24 x 7 Smartnet
3 AIR-ANT2524DW-R Aironet 2.4Ghz Dipole Antenna, White

 

[mobei]

When your wireless device goes from one AP's range to another does it disconnect and reconnect? Do you have to switch your device to the strongest signal AP?

The reason I ask is because not all AP's support seamless transfer of the client between each other and I'm curious about hardware that does.

I have zero handoff enabled, so basically all my wireless devices roam mostly between the AC and the Pro APs, unless I step outside then the outdoor AP kicks in. I've never had to restart an AP yet but during setup I've noticed that all clients seamlessly switch to a different AP if the active one is disconnected.

 

[mobei]

mobei, let me see if understand this, your UBNT edgerouter lite is fed by your ISP's ethernet out, it then connects to the Unifis via POE ethernet? or do you have/need any other device in the loop?
Also, I can see the reason for the outdoor Unifi, why both the AP Pro and AP AC?
Thanks Lewis!

I have a L2 managed PoE switch between the ubiquiti router and the APs.. the switch must be able to feed 48v to the APs, otherwise you will have to use the PoE injectors shipped with the APs.. any switch would do then.

You can skip using the switch if you use a PoE router capable of feeding 48v.

how do you segment your network? and do you want to keep room for future adjustments? this could be simpler than you imagine if you size your network right.

 

[sfx2000]

In looking to setup a wireless network for a client that wants max performance and price is not an issue, I'm looking at either using ASUS RT-AC66U OR ASUS RT-AC56U's - with one set as the router/primary wifi and then one or two others, because it's a large house with thick walls, as access points (both connected via ethernet back to the primary ASUS).
OR
An Router Firewall device connected to and using Ubiquiti access points.

Suggestions from real world usage?
Alternative ideas?
Again, speed, range, coverage is goal, pricing is less important.
Thanks in advance!

If cost is no object - Ruckus ZoneFlex R700 (2 of them) and a ZoneDirector 1100...

It's about $3500USD worth of gear - but this is carrier-grade/enterprise grade equipment - fast and very stable, with very fine-grained controls for security and services...

I recently had a chance to work with this gear for a Carrier WiFi Offload project, and I was very impressed with it - range and stability...