Ubiquiti Speed Questions

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dzirkelb

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I purchased a new home that have around 5000 sq foot. It's a ranch, lined with double paned windows, and in a Z shape when looking from the sky down. What that means is many barriers for my wireless, and complete dead spots.

I have an electrician coming to run a cable to the east side to fix one dead spot, then, the other AP will be in the middle / west, which should solve all dead spot issues.

I purchased two Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-LR's AP's, which I am pretty excited about, or at least will be once I get it all fixed and electrician runs a cable.

For now, I have one AP set up from a cheapo Trendnet wireless router. However, I really think the two wireless connections are causing issues with one another, and I am unable to turn off the Trendnet's wireless signals, as even though I am about a foot from the AP, working on a Surface Pro 3, my transfer speeds are not all that great, maybe 3-4 mb/sec. I would expect somewhere around 10-20 +.

So, my question is, is there a very SIMPLE router out there that I can simply plug in, turn DHCP on, and be done? If not, any recommendations for a wireless router that I can turn the wireless completely off on?
 
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There are a number of wireless routers you can turn off the radio. I suspect if you are willing to take your current router apart you could unplug the antenna from the main board which should greatly reduce its range.

I suspect you problem is the "roaming" issue wireless has. Pretty much a PC will not change to another device until the signal is so bad it is unusable. It does not even bother to look until this point but when it does it will again connect to the strongest signal. This can be fixed to a point by changing the roaming aggressiveness in the nic...not all device have this option.

I will assume you have done the standard put the AP and router on different channels to prevent interference.

What you can do is put...
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sewalk

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In terms of quality and stability, I'm quite happy with the Asus RT-N16. I'm using mine with DD-WRT firmware, which doesn't fit your requirement of being "very simple", but I can't imagine that the stock firmware wouldn't provide a good experience in such a case. I would recommend upgrading to the latest firmware, but that goes for any good router.

Note: I mention the RT-N16 even though it is 2.4GHz only because the UAP-LR is also 2.4GHz only. The lack of 5GHz support doesn't seem to be an issue for you.
 
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dzirkelb

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I had the 5ghz router first, but noticed no speed increase, so I sent them back for the longer range option. I don't think I have any devices that utilize the 5gz frequency.

I've flashed to DD-WRT before, probably wouldn't be too hard, I just want to be able to turn on DHCP though and that's it, really, I don't want / need anything fancy at this point.

I'll look into the Asus, thanks.
 
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sewalk

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I'm using the Kong 22000M build and it's been really, really stable. The RT-16N is really nice because it has 32MB(!) of flash storage which means you don't have to give up any advanced features. 128MB of RAM means it will run a long, long time before things like UPnP (take the time to turn that feature on under the NAT/QoS tab) start to slow it down.
Be sure to follow the wiki entry for it when flashing DD-WRT: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N16
Bookmark this forum thread if you have problems later: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=88118
It's pretty much impossible to permanently brick this router with a bad flash but the recovery method can be tricky to follow. All three of mine were cheap "bricked" units I bought off eBay.
 
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bill001g

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There are a number of wireless routers you can turn off the radio. I suspect if you are willing to take your current router apart you could unplug the antenna from the main board which should greatly reduce its range.

I suspect you problem is the "roaming" issue wireless has. Pretty much a PC will not change to another device until the signal is so bad it is unusable. It does not even bother to look until this point but when it does it will again connect to the strongest signal. This can be fixed to a point by changing the roaming aggressiveness in the nic...not all device have this option.

I will assume you have done the standard put the AP and router on different channels to prevent interference.

What you can do is put different SSID on the different devices. This would then allow you to choose what you are connected to and you to choose when it switches between devices. If you were to put the trendnet on a non interfering channel and then just ignore its ssid it should be about as good as turning it off. A wireless router that does not have actual users associated with it does not cause all that much interference even if it was on the same channel.
 
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dzirkelb

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I have both the Trendnet set to auto on channels, and the AP on auto also, so that could very well have been an issue.

I have them set to different SSID's for testing as I know the handshake issue will be funky if I didn't. The AP's have a 0 handshake issue, but I am certain the cheapo wireless wouldn't work nearly as well, which is why I want to disable it in it's entirety.

I will also look into the Kong 2200M router.

Quick question, is there really anything I should be looking for in terms of a residential environment? Should I be looking a a new cable modem that has some built in DHCP components maybe?
 
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sewalk

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I would advise against using an integrated modem/router. A problem with one part renders the whole thing useless. They also tend to be either expensive or flaky.
You're already running multiple Access Points. I would get a router that allows you more flexibility than the cheapest one you can get at Wal*Mart.
 
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bill001g

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DHCP is nothing all that special you could run it off a server if you wanted. The ubiquti unifi stuff is very powerful you might be able to run the DHCP on one of the AP. I know their centralized AP control software is a free download unlike most other companies.

You may want to go with the router/security gateway thing ubiquiti sells that is integrated into their unifi stuff. Normally I would not recommend that device on its own but since you are going with ubiquiti already it may be what you are looking for. It is pretty cheap like most the ubiquiti stuff.
 
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dzirkelb

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The ubiquiti router was my initial gut reaction to buy, but it seemed rather complicated. In all honesty, it is probably the best choice, it will just take some tinkering to get right, which is what I didnt' want to do, too many other projects going on right now taking my time.

I don't want to run DHCP off my server for wife usability, aka, if that computer goes down, there's no way I'm walking her through how to get it back up. With a router, I tell her to unplug, then plug in :)
 
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dzirkelb

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Also, with Ubiquit, I found their tutorials a little difficult to follow. I'm in the IT field, but my focus is development, I know enough to set up simple networks, but as soon as it comes to managed switches and tweaking stuff, I'm out :)

But, I'm sure the forum over there would help.

It just makes sense to go with their router, I just wish it was easier to use.
 
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