Mesh Networks

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Remus West
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Mesh Networks

Post by Remus West »

I have a bunch of coworkers that are all looking to make their home networks reach more of their homes. Anyone know anything and have suggestions I can pass along. Looking to make sure the wifi signal reaches every where so they can run their virtual classes from any where in their homes.
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wonderpug
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by wonderpug »

Remus West wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 2:50 pm I have a bunch of coworkers that are all looking to make their home networks reach more of their homes. Anyone know anything and have suggestions I can pass along. Looking to make sure the wifi signal reaches every where so they can run their virtual classes from any where in their homes.
I recently got a 3-station Eero setup (the more basic one, too, not the top-of-the-line) and it's been working well for me with sometimes up to 4 Zoom meetings happening at once in my house throughout various rooms. I got it on sale on Black Friday but even without a sale it's pretty reasonably priced other than having to sell a wee bit more of your soul to Jeff Bezos.
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Jag
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by Jag »

I was going to get the new Eero 6, but I already had an Xfinity modem which worked well so I bought 2 of their mesh pods. I need to cover a 2 level, 4500sq ft area and the mesh pods are working really well. My kids said that they barely had internet in their room before and now they actually admit that the mesh system is working much better.

I had tried traditional extenders in the past and those never worked right. I do think mesh is the way to go.
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Remus West
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by Remus West »

I have xfinity so maybe I'll look into that for my house and pass along the information regarding both to my colleagues. Thanks.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
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Z-Corn
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by Z-Corn »

Just before the End Of The Old Times I invested in a Synology RT2600ac and an MR2200ac for the mesh component. Perfect timing as we went to work-at-home shortly after.

Rock solid and blazing fast Wi-Fi through the house. The first thing I did when we moved in here was to drill a hole in the floor in the living room and run CAT 5e so the MR2200ac has a gigbit hard wired backhaul. Blazing fast Wi-Fi.

Not as easy to set up or administer but I kinda know how to do that stuff and I appreciate the granular control I have.
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by JCC »

2-3 years ago I bought two Asus AC-1900/AC68 routers on sale at Amazon and use the Asus' AI mesh feature. It worked pretty well in my old two story 3200 Square feet house. In my current half that size townhouse, I actually have the upstairs router hard wired to the main router which works even better. It's essential too since for some reason my upstairs flooring is all tile which is apprently kryptonite to WiFi. My gaming/Plex PC connects directly to the "mesh" router and gets over 900/Gbps speeds. It''s the only thing in my house with a wired connection. My personal laptop gets about 300-500Mbs down and around the same up.
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The Meal
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by The Meal »

Jag wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 3:48 pm I was going to get the new Eero 6, but I already had an Xfinity modem which worked well so I bought 2 of their mesh pods. I need to cover a 2 level, 4500sq ft area and the mesh pods are working really well. My kids said that they barely had internet in their room before and now they actually admit that the mesh system is working much better.
These are the Plume pods, right? I purchased them (a few years ago, which is relevant info) directly when they became available (regular pod extenders at first, then "Super Pods"). My requirement is a bit different, in that about once a month we have about 25 friends (and their smartphones) over to socialize, and we really needed the 2x2 MIMO functionality so that our in-home devices would continue working. As extenders they are exceptional and they do a great job of handing off duties as folks move about through the house.

Unfortunately the company has since gone to a yearly subscription service for its wifi optimization (with predictable results on internet reviews). Having used these pods for a few years (and knowing how well they solved my particular use case), I'd actually be tempted to pay that extortion charge. But very fortunately for me, I was grandfathered in on the no-fee lifetime subscription (which I'm sure won't transfer to the WiFi 6 protocol when it becomes available).

Plume has partnered with (I believe) Comcast (and some other company in Canada ?) to act as extenders. I'm not sure how many and at what cost Comcast would provide (we have a 3 Super Pod "backbone" and 7 10 room-wide pods strewn about the house), but they do work very seamlessly (once they're set up properly).

[edit:]
All the wires in the house are CAT-5 (or older), so everything is actually run through the WiFi (literally nothing is ethernet connected to our modem). We have Gigabit service through Comcast into the modem, but everything is routed through the Plume pods. Here's my iPhone X speedtest result (MHS was doing a work presentation at the time):
Enlarge Image
I'm on the second floor, extreme east end of the house. The modem is located in the central basement.

Here's the Plume pod network (which is roughly geographical with our floorplan):
Enlarge Image
Each large white dot is a pod extender (I looked it up on the xfinity webpage, they're what Comcast makes available to customers), with the three named with "Super" as Super Pods (not available through Comcast). Each "satellite" dot around the pods are wifi-connected devices (you can see in the lower right that we have 63 wifi-connected devices). The "Basement Super" pod has a globe overlaying it, indicating that's where the ultimate connection to the internet is routed.
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Jag
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by Jag »

The Meal wrote: Thu Dec 17, 2020 11:32 am
Jag wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 3:48 pm I was going to get the new Eero 6, but I already had an Xfinity modem which worked well so I bought 2 of their mesh pods. I need to cover a 2 level, 4500sq ft area and the mesh pods are working really well. My kids said that they barely had internet in their room before and now they actually admit that the mesh system is working much better.
These are the Plume pods, right?
No idea. I didn't do a deep dive into them. I plugged them in and they work. I like that layout map you have, these don't do anything fancy like that.
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Kasey Chang
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by Kasey Chang »

I don't have a mesh network, and my DSL performance is so sucky my LTE is much faster.

My WiFi / DSL is about 16 MB down and 1 MB up

My LTE speed varies, but it can be as fast as 80 MB down and 1.5 MB up. And I actually do have unlimited (one of those Verizon grandfathered options)
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Zaxxon
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by Zaxxon »

I'm on the Google Wifi train, and have had great results both at my house and the in-laws, whose network I also manage.
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Zaxxon wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:04 pm I'm on the Google Wifi train, and have had great results both at my house and the in-laws, whose network I also manage.
Same.

It's covers our small place fine and also get the roof and garage. Don't know the spec but it handles all we can throw at it. Which at times is a lot.
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by hentzau »

LawBeefaroni wrote:
Zaxxon wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:04 pm I'm on the Google Wifi train, and have had great results both at my house and the in-laws, whose network I also manage.
Same.

It's covers our small place fine and also get the roof and garage. Don't know the spec but it handles all we can throw at it. Which at times is a lot.
Same same. The Google wifi more than covers our house. I even bought a set of pucks for my church because I got tired of them bitching at me because the wifi signal wouldn’t penetrate through 2 brick firewalls.
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RunningMn9
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by RunningMn9 »

I use google WiFi mesh as well and it works great.
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by cathpeta20 »

Tsk,tsk. Sneaky spammer. :naughty:
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Re: Mesh Networks

Post by Isgrimnur »

You Must Construct Additional Pylons.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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