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Forum Discussion
JonnieD
Jun 10, 2022Aspirant
Router / satellite positioning - for highest performance
I have a 3000sq ft house, mainly on one floor with a lot of thick walls and separate rooms. The router is positioned at one end only, so I'm mainly having to daisychain my satellites. I currently hav...
CrimpOn
Jun 10, 2022Guru - Experienced User
It would be helpful to know the composition of "thick walls". (Brick? Concrete? Stone?)
One floor houses sometimes are more amenable to Ethernet wiring than two-story buildings. (If the attic is accessible)
Having the ISP service at one end (or one corner) of a building leads to a lot of frustration. I was surprised when my next door neighbor changed ISPs recently and the installer located the cable modem square in the middle of the house. I was tempted to ask my ISP until I realized that over the years I have created my "IT Department" in that corner room: desktops, printer, switches, PoE cables to security cameras...... No way I can move all that now.
When dealing with WiFi coverage issues, I like to make a WiFi "Heat Map" of the building using a free app on an Android tablet. (I found carrying a laptop around the house a LOT more cumbersome.)
The answer to that original question of "Does Daisy Chain affect performance?" is "Yes, it does."
Every WiFi packet to and from a device has to be transmitted twice (or three times) This ties up the 5G WiFi frequency used for backhaul because only one radio can use it at a time. Back in the days when internet speeds were well under 100mbs, there was so much capacity in the backhaul that the ISP was the limiting factor. With speeds now very much higher and there is so much streaming, Daisy Chain can become an issue.
JonnieD
Jun 15, 2022Aspirant
CrimpOn wrote:It would be helpful to know the composition of "thick walls". (Brick? Concrete? Stone?)
One floor houses sometimes are more amenable to Ethernet wiring than two-story buildings. (If the attic is accessible)
Having the ISP service at one end (or one corner) of a building leads to a lot of frustration. I was surprised when my next door neighbor changed ISPs recently and the installer located the cable modem square in the middle of the house. I was tempted to ask my ISP until I realized that over the years I have created my "IT Department" in that corner room: desktops, printer, switches, PoE cables to security cameras...... No way I can move all that now.
When dealing with WiFi coverage issues, I like to make a WiFi "Heat Map" of the building using a free app on an Android tablet. (I found carrying a laptop around the house a LOT more cumbersome.)
The answer to that original question of "Does Daisy Chain affect performance?" is "Yes, it does."
Every WiFi packet to and from a device has to be transmitted twice (or three times) This ties up the 5G WiFi frequency used for backhaul because only one radio can use it at a time. Back in the days when internet speeds were well under 100mbs, there was so much capacity in the backhaul that the ISP was the limiting factor. With speeds now very much higher and there is so much streaming, Daisy Chain can become an issue.
Many thanks for this, and useful info re the daisy chaining. I suspected that was the case, so I want to tray and avoid any more than one Satellite in a chain. I'll experiment moving them around to see what I can do. My latest experiment trial saw two daisy chains coming from one Satellite, that can't be good for performance!
My walls are mainly concrete and brick, with some metal lined (insulation) thrown in for good measure. I could possibly make one long run from the router to the other end of the house via the attic, that might be possible and would help greatly.
The idea of a heat map is a good idea, I'll try that.