NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.

Forum Discussion

tjm1962's avatar
tjm1962
Aspirant
May 01, 2022
Solved

Can I use a mesh network to provide wired interent?

I'm using wireless internet (T-Mobile). But I live in a rural area and have to place the T-Mobile modem in a barn to get a good signal (barn has a good one of sight view of the cell tower).

 

Is there a way to drive the router ("Internet port") of a mesh system with a wifi signal?

 

I would like to setup the router to use the wifi signal as the "Internet" port and then use one of the ethernet ports to drive my home network, where I would drop satellites of the mesh off the wired network.

 

Thanks!

 

 

  • tjm1962's avatar
    tjm1962
    May 23, 2022

    I got my configuration up and running.

     

    T-Mobile Home Internet in the barn, with ethernet cable going to RBR, which is placed in front of a single pane window.

     

    RBS in line of sight of RBR, about 70 feet away, in front of a dual-pane window.

     

    Additional RBS on other side of house.

    No wired backhaul.

     

    Backhaul status for 2nd satellite listed as poor, but still seems to have good connectivity.

     

    I have connected the 1st RBS to my wired network in the house, which goes to a netgear switch (GS316).

     

    Attached to the netgear switch is a AC1000 wifi router that devices in my basement use. Not important, I just wanted to point out that the RBS did handle connecting to my switch and the ability for other routers/access points to use (which I confirmed with Netgear support).

     

    However, speed tests when connected to the AC1000 were low (20 MB/s), so that would not be a viable method for everyday use. It works for me because the devices down there (water leak detector, energy monitor) are low bandwidth.

     

    I connected a single device (laptop) to the 2nd satellite via ethernet and did not see the same speed reduction, the speed seemed appropriate for the backhaul status being reported (around 100 MB/s).

     

    It appears that the wifi of the Orbi is much better than that provided by the T-Mobile Home Network device. When measured back to back I got 125 MB/s from the T-Mobile wifi, and 140 from the Orbi wifi.

     

    Once I had the Orbi I was able to relocate the T-Mobile device to a better location, and I now get results in the 160-200 MB/s for my network (from an iMac located in the same room as the 1st satellite.

     

    Summary: You can connect a satellite to a switch and it will handle multiple connections, but the speed through a router connected to that wired network does not come close to the speed of a direct connection (I only saw about 5 MB/s). 

     

    Very happy with my purchase (RBK753), before the rest of the house had very limited bandwidth (could not see the T-Mobile internet device), and now I have excellent bandwidth in the entire house.

     

    Thanks for all the help! Much appreciated.

     

     

     

     

15 Replies


  • tjm1962 wrote:

     

    Is there a way to drive the router ("Internet port") of a mesh system with a wifi signal?

     


    In effect, you want a wireless to wireless connection between the first router and another device?

     

    Not easy.

     

    How far is the barn from where you need the wifi?