Routers and AP's

[DeadKerbal]

Hi All,

 

I currently own a generic modem/router provided  by Virgin Media (my ISP). I live in the UK. I have had some cat5e cables installed around the house and would now like to add an AP to one of these to allow the wifi to work well at the other end of the house.  To do this I am looking at purchasing the ubiquiti AP lite:

 

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-lite/

 

My question is will I end up with two different wifi's?  As in  will my wireless devices need to choose between the router and the AP as I move around the house?  I would like to avoid this as devices can often 'stick' to the wrong one.  I have used power line extenders before and some from TP-Link had the ability to clone the routers wifi thus allows the wifi to appear as one seemless connection.   I'm happy to purchase a new router as well if this is the best solution,.

 

 

Thoughts and advice kindly appreciated.

 

DK.

 

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, DeadKerbal said:

Hi All,

 

I currently own a generic modem/router provided  by Virgin Media (my ISP). I live in the UK. I have had some cat5e cables installed around the house and would now like to add an AP to one of these to allow the wifi to work well at the other end of the house.  To do this I am looking at purchasing the ubiquiti AP lite:

 

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-lite/

 

My question is will I end up with two different wifi's?  As in  will my wireless devices need to choose between the router and the AP as I move around the house?  I would like to avoid this as devices can often 'stick' to the wrong one.  I have used power line extenders before and some from TP-Link had the ability to clone the routers wifi thus allows the wifi to appear as one seemless connection.   I'm happy to purchase a new router as well if this is the best solution,.

 

 

Thoughts and advice kindly appreciated.

 

DK.

 

 

you can buy two, disable the modem/router wifi and use the ubiquity unifi thing

[Oshino Shinobu]

Set the SSID and password to the same on both the AP and router and devices should automatically switch between them based on which signal is best. Most modern WiFi capable devices handle switching between multiple access points using the same SSID fairly well. 

[Brightglaive]

Wireless roaming has ALWAYS been a problem for 802.11 wireless connections. It is still an issue to this day, even in the enterprise. A lot of wireless vendors have implemented their own workarounds to get around this issue. 802.11f interAP protocol and 802.11k and 802.11r are standards meant to ease your roaming woes. Unfortunately, 802,11f was rescinded and interAP communication for seamless roaming is now purely in the hands of each manufacturer. Regrettably, most times your key is simply cached by the client and will only roam after the signal drops to extremely low levels and times out. 

 

There are 3 ways you can accomplish wireless roaming by configuring it yourself:

1. Place both APs on the same channel with the same SSID and encryption types and adjust power levels manually to avoid heavy interference

2. Place the APs on separate channels with the same SSID and encryption types

3. Place one AP with the appropriate SSID and encryption and set the second as a repeater/clone of the first AP with the same SSID and encryption

 

None of these are truly ideal but until the IEEE comes up with a standard that everyone must adhere to for wireless roaming the solution remains in the Wireless AP manufacturers hands. 

 

That being said, Ubiqiti is reportedly one of the better roaming implementions for consumer/prosumer-grade wireless hardware.  They makes this a lot easier by automating the configuration process of it's APs and have (as I understand it) implemented some roaming intelligence in their APs.

 

If you mix-and-match wireless equipment vendors your results may vary.  

 

Just my $0.02

 

[Donut417]

Yes it will be two different WiFi signals. How well devices roam depends on the manufacture. From my understand there are at least 3 protocols that can be used to do roaming between access points. Because of this its good practice to install all the exact same access points with them being on different WiFi channels with the same SSID and Password. Also, another issue is some clients tend to be sticky to one access point. Even if the access points are the same, roaming could interrupt certain things. I remember Linus testing this a while back. Most stuff wont notice, but streaming games to an Nvidia Shield could be an issue. 

 

I think Windows devices tend to be sticky. Im not sure, Im sure I read it here on the forum or Linus stated it. But consider how often you will need to roam between access points. Most of the time its going to be your phone and I think most phones now lock on to the best signal. 

[gamerking]

12 hours ago, DeadKerbal said:

Hi All,

 

I currently own a generic modem/router provided  by Virgin Media (my ISP). I live in the UK. I have had some cat5e cables installed around the house and would now like to add an AP to one of these to allow the wifi to work well at the other end of the house.  To do this I am looking at purchasing the ubiquiti AP lite:

 

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-lite/

 

My question is will I end up with two different wifi's?  As in  will my wireless devices need to choose between the router and the AP as I move around the house?  I would like to avoid this as devices can often 'stick' to the wrong one.  I have used power line extenders before and some from TP-Link had the ability to clone the routers wifi thus allows the wifi to appear as one seemless connection.   I'm happy to purchase a new router as well if this is the best solution,.

 

 

Thoughts and advice kindly appreciated.

 

DK.

 

 

i just bought that AP but the PRO version so the same thing . as long as you set both AP's to the same SSID/password it will change automatically {see note } . but from what ive been playing in their software that you need to host  it on a pc/ras pi it needs to run for handover duties , or if you like to watch your wireless traffic .

they have a cloud key that hosts it but its just a over priced ras pi from looking at its specs .

 

fair warning its not as simple or quick to set up the Ubiquity stuff  as a off the shelf wireless router . took me a few hours to get it fully working .im fairly good at networking .

 

the one i bought you can daisy chain them together has in a main Ethernet and a slave .which may help you 80$ vs 130$

 

i would also pick up a POE switch since i dont think you can use more then 1 POE injector on your network at a time i didnt temp to even try  . and the one that came with my AP's i dont think could power more then just the 1 AP its meant for . 

 

if you want some screen shots or help in this thread or PM me

[Guest]

3 hours ago, gamerking said:

i would also pick up a POE switch since i dont think you can use more then 1 POE injector on your network at a time i didnt temp to even try  . and the one that came with my AP's i dont think could power more then just the 1 AP its meant for . 

So let's dispell some myths - firstly you can use as many PoE injectors as you like. I've even seen businesses buy PoE injector racks purely so they didn't have to pay the ludicrous cost of PoE enabled switches which can be many thousands more when you start looking at L3 managed switches.

 

Ubiquiti AP's provided they are configured correctly with a wireless controller (UniFi software OR Cloudkey), will use the same wireless SSID's that you assign. Where you run into issues is using repeaters or different brands.

 

You also don't need to set the devices to the same chanels. Simply leave them to auto channel however make sure that you let them perform a wireless scan first off so they know the environment.

 

If you have questions, ask away - I've used and sold these for quite a while.

[DeadKerbal]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.  The gist seems to be that I can get this to work, but that I would be best having two access points and disabling the router wifi.  I'm happy with this solution but am wondering if it would be better to lose the ISP router modem and replace it with an equivalent Ubiquiti product.  Does anyone have a suggestion which one i should use?

 

Oh and (sorry) is there a minimum distance that would be recommended for the two devices?

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, DeadKerbal said:

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.  The gist seems to be that I can get this to work, but that I would be best having two access points and disabling the router wifi.  I'm happy with this solution but am wondering if it would be better to lose the ISP router modem and replace it with an equivalent Ubiquiti product.  Does anyone have a suggestion which one i should use?

 

Oh and (sorry) is there a minimum distance that would be recommended for the two devices?

If you want to go Ubiquiti, go the ERL or ER PoE. You'll want to complete the following steps though.

1. Upgrade the firmware to latest release (currently 1.9.1)
2. Use the wizard to configure it based on basic setup - If you've got the ERL, don't bridge the LAN connections. If you've got the PoE, you can bridge the LAN connections. Note that when bridging the LAN connections in a Ubiquiti router, you're enabling a software switch which does have a lower level of performance.
3. Enable hardware offloading via CLI
   • configure
   • set system offload ipv4 forwarding enable
   • set system offload ipv4 pppoe enable
   • set system offload ipv4 gre enable
   • commit
   • save
4. For port forwarding under the firewall tab, ensure you designate the WAN port (eth0) and the LAN port (eth1). Otherwise port forwarding does not work.

 

 

[DeadKerbal]

Crikey, cheers Windspeed.  I might have some more questions when I actually give it a go, but thanks for a really comprehensive answer.

 

 

[Blake]

On 2/6/2017 at 3:39 AM, Oshino Shinobu said:

Set the SSID and password to the same on both the AP and router and devices should automatically switch between them based on which signal is best. Most modern WiFi capable devices handle switching between multiple access points using the same SSID fairly well. 

Sorry, going to have to disagree on that part.Your right on the rest of it though. I have never seen any device (really, you can go check it yourself), actively migrate to the AP with the better signal, it normally only does it when it looses connection to the first AP, then is just set to auto connect to a list of SSID's in the area. 

 

Read up on this: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/emob41dg/emob41dg-wrapper/ch2_Arch.html#wp1028197 

for more info.

 

EDIT: to clarify, I am referring to device managed migration versus controller managed migration.

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

5 hours ago, Blake said:

Sorry, going to have to disagree on that part.Your right on the rest of it though. I have never seen any device (really, you can go check it yourself), actively migrate to the AP with the better signal, it normally only does it when it looses connection to the first AP, then is just set to auto connect to a list of SSID's in the area. 

 

Read up on this: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/emob41dg/emob41dg-wrapper/ch2_Arch.html#wp1028197 

for more info.

 

EDIT: to clarify, I am referring to device managed migration versus controller managed migration.

 

From what I've seen in my own network, my devices will switch between access points based on which connection is better. I've tested it before while doing a large local file transfer and walking from one access point to the next. I notice the signal strength dropping a bit, with the transfer slowing down, then it will pick back up when I move closer to the next access point. 

 

I use three Ubiquiti APs (two regular UAPs and one Outdoor +) and it seems to work flawlessly on them. They're all on the same channel, but Zero handoff was never configured on them because I never had any issues with roaming on them. I don't know if they're automatically managing roaming rather than my devices, but from what I've seen on my own network, that's how it worked. 

[Donut417]

4 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

From what I've seen in my own network, my devices will switch between access points based on which connection is better. I've tested it before while doing a large local file transfer and walking from one access point to the next. I notice the signal strength dropping a bit, with the transfer slowing down, then it will pick back up when I move closer to the next access point. 

 

I use three Ubiquiti APs (two regular UAPs and one Outdoor +) and it seems to work flawlessly on them. They're all on the same channel, but Zero handoff was never configured on them because I never had any issues with roaming on them. I don't know if they're automatically managing roaming rather than my devices, but from what I've seen on my own network, that's how it worked. 

There are 3 standards for WiFi Roaming. Maybe all of your AP's use the same standard. Thats what it comes down to. If you just stick 3 AP's on your network with out considering different models or manufactures then you might get an issue where the hand off of clients does not happen. 

 

Again your using the same manufacture. Thats where it comes down to it. They probably use the same roaming techniques all of their AP's. But I clearly remember what I was taught in my networking class for my CIS degree. Roaming is not an guarantee. You generally use the same manufacture and in best case the same AP's to ensure it works correctly. Even then some service might get cut off in the roaming process. Linus demonstrated this with shadow play on his sheild device. He had Ubiquity AP's setup. He even stated that some of his clients were sticky. Preferring one AP to another. 

[paddy-stone]

On 05/02/2017 at 5:39 PM, Oshino Shinobu said:

Set the SSID and password to the same on both the AP and router and devices should automatically switch between them based on which signal is best. Most modern WiFi capable devices handle switching between multiple access points using the same SSID fairly well. 

This is how I have mine set up now, handles it pretty well IMO, and I'm only using a cheap device that supports AP, router, client, bridge and repeater operation modes for around £15, it's only 150mbps max data rate though, and only b/g/n... so if you wanted it for file transfers/faster internet speeds than this can't handle, then I'd look elsewhere, but if you just want a cheap device that can give you internet access to a part of your house, then this is ideal. Have personally had this get upto around 64mbps or so when I had around 68 max, and range isn't bad, will transmit through a wall and ceiling about 20 metres away and still get around 30-40mbps from my now 52mbps max line (I switched ISPs and packages since then).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006PYGWG6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It's quite handy as a travel router tp plug into a hotel's wired port so that you and others can share wifi too.

[Blake]

9 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

From what I've seen in my own network, my devices will switch between access points based on which connection is better. I've tested it before while doing a large local file transfer and walking from one access point to the next. I notice the signal strength dropping a bit, with the transfer slowing down, then it will pick back up when I move closer to the next access point. 

 

I use three Ubiquiti APs (two regular UAPs and one Outdoor +) and it seems to work flawlessly on them. They're all on the same channel, but Zero handoff was never configured on them because I never had any issues with roaming on them. I don't know if they're automatically managing roaming rather than my devices, but from what I've seen on my own network, that's how it worked. 

If your running the controller app or the cloudkey on your network somewhere, that handles the roaming.