Routers & Other Networking Stuff

Daidraco · May 9, 2023

Kajiimagi said:
One of the downsides of living in the middle of nowhere is slow internet. I have 50/10 Mbps for $64 month and that is the FAST service. It's also line of site wireless microwave. Before that it was a little better than dialup. Our local cable company was hot garbage. I could do the spaceX deal but the costs / speed don't seem to make sense.

Best damn internet service Ive ever had was in this little po'dunk town that I lived with my brother in 14/15 years ago while I was commuting. Wireless just like that, and ya, something like 50-100 mb/s. But that shit never went offline, ever. Even when it was storming, windy af, trees going everywhere, lightning AND NO POWER - our generator would kick on and we still had internet. Was the most baller company ever. Now I have Cox, and even though thats better than Shentel, a slight breeze can take my 1gig connection down to ~25-30mb/s.

Kajiimagi · May 9, 2023

Daidraco said:
Best damn internet service Ive ever had was in this little po'dunk town that I lived with my brother in 14/15 years ago while I was commuting. Wireless just like that, and ya, something like 50-100 mb/s. But that shit never went offline, ever. Even when it was storming, windy af, trees going everywhere, lightning AND NO POWER - our generator would kick on and we still had internet. Was the most baller company ever. Now I have Cox, and even though thats better than Shentel, a slight breeze can take my 1gig connection down to ~25-30mb/s.

I've got to agree there. The few times I have had a problem I call and it's fixed immediately. They are also the power company so someone is always there as well. Just speed could be better. I don't really need faster, I just WANT faster. You know how it goes.

Burns · May 9, 2023

Daidraco said:
Best damn internet service Ive ever had was in this little po'dunk town that I lived with my brother in 14/15 years ago while I was commuting. Wireless just like that, and ya, something like 50-100 mb/s. But that shit never went offline, ever. Even when it was storming, windy af, trees going everywhere, lightning AND NO POWER - our generator would kick on and we still had internet. Was the most baller company ever. Now I have Cox, and even though thats better than Shentel, a slight breeze can take my 1gig connection down to ~25-30mb/s.

Our 50/10 microwave connection is shit for gaming, but otherwise been mostly ok for streaming/downloading. During peek times it can, occasionally, go as low as 10% of what we pay for, but it's usually about 50% of max from 6pm to 8pm.

It certainly doesn't hold a candle to Verizon fiber we had in the city.

Rabbit_Games · May 10, 2023

I was stationed in BFE with the military for quite a while and the only Internet I had access to was Dial-up until the last year before I got medically discharged. That sucked major ass, and I swore I'd never deal with shitty Internet again. Thus, my conundrum: I'd love to live away from people, but I can't give up my high-speed hardline. Also, I like delivery services because it keeps me away from people... but I need to be close enough to people for that service. pfft!

Lanx · May 13, 2023

Rabbit_Games said:
Thus, my conundrum: I'd love to live away from people, but I can't give up my high-speed hardline. Also, I like delivery services because it keeps me away from people... but I need to be close enough to people for that service. pfft!

Rabbit_Games · May 13, 2023

lol Hardline is the key word. I'm not sure I want to deal with the latency of Satellite internet just yet.

moonarchia · May 15, 2023

Went from Comcast to Google fiber this weekend. It is very noticeable the speed improvement.

Sardaan · May 20, 2023

UDMP Pro SE has worked perfectly and as expected integrates well with the other Unifi equipment I have throughout the house. The management pane is fast and the internet speeds with the security features enabled works with no noticeable impacts to latency. Same price as the Asus router with a much better feature set....and its rack mountable.

Captain Suave · May 20, 2023

Rabbit_Games said:
lol Hardline is the key word. I'm not sure I want to deal with the latency of Satellite internet just yet.

My dad has Starlink and the latency is surprisingly good. Reliably sub-100ms. Obviously that's a non-starter if you're doing competitive FPS gaming or some such.

moonarchia · May 24, 2023

Just got my cat 6 cables, and I am getting full gig up/down as advertised. Time to download all the things.

Intrinsic · May 28, 2023

I mentioned over in the Home Improvement thread a few upgrades that I did, starting with the Reolink doorbell.

Swapped over to an Amplifi Alien and SB8200 and got rid of the leased Xfinity box. Everything went in smoothly. Even the Xfinity app for registering my own modem only took about 10 minutes and worked perfectly. It was shocking.

What I can't figure out though is that between the Alien and SB8200 something seems to be limiting the speed. At the SB I'm getting 1.2 Gbps from Xfinity, but the Alien only tests to 360 Mbps and claims the ISP is limiting my speeds. I've replaced the cable between the two with a few different CAT6, so unless they're all bunk I'm not sure what is happening at the moment. Need to log in to the modem and see if there's a port setting maybe.

Vorph · Nov 4, 2023

Looking for suggestions for a wifi 6e mesh system.

Previously I was using a TP-Link AX3000 Wifi6 router with their RE700X mesh range extender. When I upgraded to gigabit service I discovered there's something wrong with the router and no matter what I do I can't get more than ~375Mbps out of the wired ports (and even less on wifi). After replacing cables, getting Spectrum tech to come to the house and replace the coax, etc. we narrowed it down to being the router. So I went and got a Spectrum "advanced wifi" kit and have been using that ever since. It works fine for the most part; like 925Mbps wired to my main PC, 600Mbps on the wifi5 and 6 connections, and about 1.3Gbps on my phone using 6e. I have one of their mesh pod things which is connected via ethernet (a big downside I discovered with the RE700X is that you can only use the ethernet backhaul in AP mode, which disables mesh roaming so it's useless to me). Mesh with ability to connect the second node via ethernet is required as I have a ~4000 sq. ft. house that has a brick wall separating the two sides, and wifi doesn't go through that worth a damn.

I could stick with this setup and pay the $8 a month, but I really don't like having a router I have no control over, no ability to effectively setup VLANs, etc. If I could put the base unit into AP mode and connect it to a pfSense box it would be perfect, but of course Spectrum doesn't allow that. Really don't want to spend more than about $120 (Black Friday pricing) per node if I can help it, which has me looking at TP-Link Deco XE75 or XE75 Pro, eero 6e Pro, and Google Nest Wifi Pro. Everything else I see is either too expensive or a brand I never heard of. I guess Ubiquiti is no longer allowed to be sold on Amazon so I ruled that out for now too. I really don't want to mess with PoE either; whenever I replace my current managed switches it'll be with 2.5Gbps ones, and the combo of managed+PoE is ridiculously overpriced.

Anyone have experience with the ones I listed, or a good alternative?

Lanx · Nov 4, 2023

Vorph said:
Looking for suggestions for a wifi 6e mesh system.

Previously I was using a TP-Link AX3000 Wifi6 router with their RE700X mesh range extender. When I upgraded to gigabit service I discovered there's something wrong with the router and no matter what I do I can't get more than ~375Mbps out of the wired ports (and even less on wifi). After replacing cables, getting Spectrum tech to come to the house and replace the coax, etc. we narrowed it down to being the router. So I went and got a Spectrum "advanced wifi" kit and have been using that ever since. It works fine for the most part; like 925Mbps wired to my main PC, 600Mbps on the wifi5 and 6 connections, and about 1.3Gbps on my phone using 6e. I have one of their mesh pod things which is connected via ethernet (a big downside I discovered with the RE700X is that you can only use the ethernet backhaul in AP mode, which disables mesh roaming so it's useless to me). Mesh with ability to connect the second node via ethernet is required as I have a ~4000 sq. ft. house that has a brick wall separating the two sides, and wifi doesn't go through that worth a damn.

I could stick with this setup and pay the $8 a month, but I really don't like having a router I have no control over, no ability to effectively setup VLANs, etc. If I could put the base unit into AP mode and connect it to a pfSense box it would be perfect, but of course Spectrum doesn't allow that. Really don't want to spend more than about $120 (Black Friday pricing) per node if I can help it, which has me looking at TP-Link Deco XE75 or XE75 Pro, eero 6e Pro, and Google Nest Wifi Pro. Everything else I see is either too expensive or a brand I never heard of. I guess Ubiquiti is no longer allowed to be sold on Amazon so I ruled that out for now too. I really don't want to mess with PoE either; whenever I replace my current managed switches it'll be with 2.5Gbps ones, and the combo of managed+PoE is ridiculously overpriced.

Anyone have experience with the ones I listed, or a good alternative?

i have the tplink 6e w/ 2 extenders
it fucking sucks

and i hate that i had to use garbage extenders and there is no wired backhaul, which i previously had w/ asus ai mesh and that worked fine (as you probably noticed the shitty tp link deco DOES have wired backhaul)

so this last amazon blitz i got 2 eero pro 6 (there was no use to get the 6e, cuz i don't even have a fucking device that could use it, AND ppl have tested it as slower than pro 6)

i didn't know why my connection got so much better (a little bit slower, it's not like i'm fucking torrenting on wireless, i just need instant connection). i have wireless in weird places like on my roof for security cams and they work better

then i see that my new alexa echos also act as an eero extender, so yea thats how i finally have good coverage.

eero is really dumbed down tho, you can't even change your fucking wifi channel lulz

Vorph · Nov 4, 2023

Lanx said:
i have the tplink 6e w/ 2 extenders
it fucking sucks

and i hate that i had to use garbage extenders and there is no wired backhaul, which i previously had w/ asus ai mesh and that worked fine (as you probably noticed the shitty tp link deco DOES have wired backhaul)

So wait, you had something other than the deco ones I guess, since you since there wasn't a backhaul? What's shitty about the decos that do have it then?

Lanx said:
so this last amazon blitz i got 2 eero pro 6 (there was no use to get the 6e, cuz i don't even have a fucking device that could use it, AND ppl have tested it as slower than pro 6)

I should probably consider that option too I guess. I just have the one device (phone) that can use 6e and I don't download anything on it. Not sure how much faster 6e even would be, since the reason I get 1.3Gbps from my current setup is because Spectrum Mobile gives a massive boost when you use their phone on their advanced wifi equipment. And even that only works when the phone is connected to the main router; the mesh pods Spectrum gives out are just wifi 6.

Thanks for the reminder about Echo devices. I have half a dozen of the things around my house so that's another mark in favor of the eero system. I think I can live without having a ton of control over the eero as long I can just put it in AP mode and more or less forget about it. My actual router/firewall will be a pfSense box with VLANs setup in it and the managed switches that I already have. It sounds like the eero intelligently chooses the channels to use, and I don't think I've ever manually changed the channels on my wifi anyway since I have very little interference from neighbors to worry about.

Definitely leaning towards getting the eero Pro 6 once the Black Friday prices drop, based on price history it looks like I should be able to get a 2 pack for about $120 (after trading in an old Fire tablet thats just collecting dust).

Lanx · Nov 4, 2023

Vorph said:
So wait, you had something other than the deco ones I guess, since you since there wasn't a backhaul? What's shitty about the decos that do have it then?

deco wasn't shitty, it's the tp link implementation that is shitty

a regular ax3000 tplink w/ wifi6e that supports "onemesh" does NOT have wired backhaul, so if you purchased this wondering where is the fucking wired backhaul, it doesn't exist and tplink says thats why you have to buy the deco if you do want wired backhaul.

Lanx · Nov 4, 2023

Vorph said:
Thanks for the reminder about Echo devices. I have half a dozen of the things around my house so that's another mark in favor of the eero system. I think I can live without having a ton of control over the eero as long I can just put it in AP mode and more or less forget about it. My actual router/firewall will be a pfSense box with VLANs setup in it and the managed switches that I already have. It sounds like the eero intelligently chooses the channels to use, and I don't think I've ever manually changed the channels on my wifi anyway since I have very little interference from neighbors to worry about.

Definitely leaning towards getting the eero Pro 6 once the Black Friday prices drop, based on price history it looks like I should be able to get a 2 pack for about $120 (after trading in an old Fire tablet thats just collecting dust).

no, i mean it's like really really really basic lul

also the echos have to be 2022+ models fyi (they make so many models)

if you are getting the eeros

remember amazon has the 20% off trade in, click to see if you have any devices that apply

Captain Suave · Nov 4, 2023

Vorph said:
Looking for suggestions for a wifi 6e mesh system.

Previously I was using a TP-Link AX3000 Wifi6 router with their RE700X mesh range extender. When I upgraded to gigabit service I discovered there's something wrong with the router and no matter what I do I can't get more than ~375Mbps out of the wired ports (and even less on wifi). After replacing cables, getting Spectrum tech to come to the house and replace the coax, etc. we narrowed it down to being the router. So I went and got a Spectrum "advanced wifi" kit and have been using that ever since. It works fine for the most part; like 925Mbps wired to my main PC, 600Mbps on the wifi5 and 6 connections, and about 1.3Gbps on my phone using 6e. I have one of their mesh pod things which is connected via ethernet (a big downside I discovered with the RE700X is that you can only use the ethernet backhaul in AP mode, which disables mesh roaming so it's useless to me). Mesh with ability to connect the second node via ethernet is required as I have a ~4000 sq. ft. house that has a brick wall separating the two sides, and wifi doesn't go through that worth a damn.

I could stick with this setup and pay the $8 a month, but I really don't like having a router I have no control over, no ability to effectively setup VLANs, etc. If I could put the base unit into AP mode and connect it to a pfSense box it would be perfect, but of course Spectrum doesn't allow that. Really don't want to spend more than about $120 (Black Friday pricing) per node if I can help it, which has me looking at TP-Link Deco XE75 or XE75 Pro, eero 6e Pro, and Google Nest Wifi Pro. Everything else I see is either too expensive or a brand I never heard of. I guess Ubiquiti is no longer allowed to be sold on Amazon so I ruled that out for now too. I really don't want to mess with PoE either; whenever I replace my current managed switches it'll be with 2.5Gbps ones, and the combo of managed+PoE is ridiculously overpriced.

Anyone have experience with the ones I listed, or a good alternative?

I've tried Eero and Orbi. Bad experiences with both.

I eventually ponied up and got a Ubiquiti UDM-Pro (the Dream Machine is probably good enough but was out of stock when I needed it) and set up several U6 Pro PoE ceiling mounted access points. I'm in the process of expanding the system to include a video doorbell and cameras.

I know you say you don't want Ubiquiti or to deal with PoE, but it was all well worth the extra cost based on how often I used to have to troubleshoot bullshit, IMO. Coupled with symmetric gigabit fiber and my home NAS/media server I finally feel like my house is in the 21st century.

Vorph · Nov 4, 2023

Lanx said:
deco wasn't shitty, it's the tp link implementation that is shitty

a regular ax3000 tplink w/ wifi6e that supports "onemesh" does NOT have wired backhaul, so if you purchased this wondering where is the fucking wired backhaul, it doesn't exist and tplink says thats why you have to buy the deco if you do want wired backhaul.

That's exactly what I have now. AX3000 with the RE700X mesh, which is useless because wiring it deletes the mesh part and turns it into a plain old AP. Unfortunately at the time I bought the AX3000 router I didn't have a need for the mesh part, or else I would have bought a full system back then. Now I'm stuck with a POS that not only can't do what I want, but also needs warranty service just to do the half-assed version.

Lanx said:
no, i mean it's like really really really basic lul

Yeah, I'm seeing that now. They make you put the eero system into bridge mode if you want to just use it as a wireless AP, and that disables a bunch of other features. Not sure I care about anything that's lost though, as long as it doesn't interfere with what I need to do in pfSense.

Lanx said:
also the echos have to be 2022+ models fyi (they make so many models)

Gay. I was thinking it went back to the 3rd gen (last ones that looked like hockey pucks) but it's just the 4th and 5th gen (the balls). Maybe I'll upgrade a couple of them during the BF->Xmas deals though, there's usually at least one dirt cheap sale on Dots every year.

Lanx said:
remember amazon has the 20% off trade in, click to see if you have any devices that apply

I've got an old Fire HD 8 that's worth like 20-25 bucks, plus the -20% for whatever you buy next. The trick is sending in the trade now so that it's all processed and ready to use come Black Friday week. The store page for eero Pro 6 is weird though. The single pack shows the trade-in stuff, but buying a 2 or 3 pack does not. Can probably bug Amazon support to get it to apply though.

Captain Suave said:
I know you say you don't want Ubiquiti or to deal with PoE, but it was all well worth the extra cost based on how often I used to have to troubleshoot bullshit, IMO. Coupled with symmetric gigabit fiber and my home NAS/media server I finally feel like my house is in the 21st century.

Yeah, I'd love to do it that way, but my house is still in the 19th century in a lot of ways and especially anything to do with running cable is a complete nightmare. Going to try the eero system and hope that since I'm bridging it and using ethernet backhaul I'll avoid most problems and it'll be at least as good as the Spectrum gear I have now. I only use wifi when absolutely necessary anyway; anything in my house that has an ethernet port on it has a cable and switch nearby. If it doesn't work right, at least we're in Xmas return season and I have til the end of January to punt it.

Lanx · Nov 4, 2023

Vorph said:
I've got an old Fire HD 8 that's worth like 20-25 bucks, plus the -20% for whatever you buy next. The trick is sending in the trade now so that it's all processed and ready to use come Black Friday week. The store page for eero Pro 6 is weird though. The single pack shows the trade-in stuff, but buying a 2 or 3 pack does not. Can probably bug Amazon support to get it to apply though.

actually i don't know how many times you've done it, but i've done it at least 6x? in just the past few months

it's automatically applied to your order, so when you click TRADE IN

it puts you into a pop up and you select which devices from your account they'll accept and then they'll email you a ups pdf for your device and the 20% off is automatically applied

they then will apply the additional $5-30 trade in credit to your account after they receive your device.

also for the eeros if like you said, it shows weird one the 1pack/ 2pack

if you look at my order, it says i bought a 1pack, but i have 2, so... idk

Foler · Nov 4, 2023

Captain Suave said:
I've tried Eero and Orbi. Bad experiences with both.

I eventually ponied up and got a Ubiquiti UDM-Pro (the Dream Machine is probably good enough but was out of stock when I needed it) and set up several U6 Pro PoE ceiling mounted access points. I'm in the process of expanding the system to include a video doorbell and cameras.

I know you say you don't want Ubiquiti or to deal with PoE, but it was all well worth the extra cost based on how often I used to have to troubleshoot bullshit, IMO. Coupled with symmetric gigabit fiber and my home NAS/media server I finally feel like my house is in the 21st century.

This is the way. Also running a udm pro with multiple U6 pros and outdoor mesh APs

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Routers & Other Networking Stuff

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Kajiimagi

Burns

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Rabbit_Games

Molten Core Raider

Lanx

Rabbit_Games

Molten Core Raider

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord

Sardaan

Trakanon Raider

Captain Suave

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Lanx

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Lanx

Lanx

Captain Suave

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Lanx

The_Black_Log Foler

Stock Pals Senior Vice President