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Forum Discussion
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Cannot Pair RBS750 Satellites to RBR750P Router
I've been using the RBR750 with two RBS750 (FW 7.2.6.31) satellites with excellent reliability and ease of use for 5 years. Several days ago, after a lightening strike near the house, my router fai...
I see now that the compatibility chart clearly shows that the RBS750 is NOT compatible with the RBR750P. When purchasing the replacement system, Apparently, I need to purchase a RBS760 satellite to be compatible with the RBR750P router. I made the mistake of assuming that the 750 series model numbers would be compatible. I wish I would have looked at that chart sometime during the first hour of my time with the tech support (would have saved us 5+ hours on the phone). Thanks to each of you for your help and Merry Christmas!
Thanks for your quick response. I've confirmed that the product label is RBS750P. Regrettably, I've discarded the packaging for my 750P purchase and Best Buy will not accept the return. I just didn't anticipate this kind of compatibility problem with this family of products.
Seems that the 750P series is from a 350 series hardware, thus this sepecific version of RBS and FW is not compatible. You'll need to downgrade the RBR750 back to prior working version of FW for the P series kit, RBR and RBS.
Could you expand on which devices you are suggesting that I re-flash? The RBR750 is dead. I have two RBS750's. Which firmware version should I upload to them?
It is really frustrating that people who volunteer on the Community Forum do not have access to information which might help in situations such as this one. For example:
- Some products have a "letter after the number", such as 750P. What does that 'P' mean? Nobody can find any documentation explaining it.
- There is no access to the source code. If the source code, for example, contained instructions to examine communication from the satellite for specific information (like, "if the satellite does not say 'RBS750', don't talk to it") that would explain what is going on.
- No one (as yet) has been able to capture the actual communication between router and satellite. The WiFi backhaul channel is encrypted (like all WiFi), so capturing the traffic is not trivial as it is with Ethernet. Even if the communication could be captured, perhaps even the 'wired' connection is also encrypted.
I have a strong feeling that Netgear has a very strict definition of 'compatible'. For example, the WiFi6E and WiFi7 systems support the 6G frequency band. A satellite which does not support 6G WiFi thus cannot possibly be 'compatible' with such a router. (even though it may offer all the same features, such as IoT).
The RBS750 and RBS750P satellites have different hardware:
- RBS750 has six amplifiers and antennas: RBS750P has only four.
- RBS750 has quad core 1.4G processor: RBS750P has dual core 1G processor
- RBS750 has a WiFi chip supporting 1024 QAM for all channels. RBS750P supports only 256QAM on the 2.4G channel
- The amount of RAM and flash memory are different
Thus, they are different. How could anybody think they could be 'compatible'? Answer: a customer who sees "Orbi" and "750" in both product names might think they should work together.
Unfortunately if the RBR750 died and the newer RBR750P which is NOT a actual RBR750, and you have RBS750 actuals, you'll not be able to connect these to the P series system as these are not compatible with this P series system.
You'll need to either get another RBR750 actual model router or give up on the actual RBS750s and go with the P series system.
bzkfrl wrote:
Could you expand on which devices you are suggesting that I re-flash? The RBR750 is dead. I have two RBS750's. Which firmware version should I upload to them?
I see now that the compatibility chart clearly shows that the RBS750 is NOT compatible with the RBR750P. When purchasing the replacement system, Apparently, I need to purchase a RBS760 satellite to be compatible with the RBR750P router. I made the mistake of assuming that the 750 series model numbers would be compatible. I wish I would have looked at that chart sometime during the first hour of my time with the tech support (would have saved us 5+ hours on the phone). Thanks to each of you for your help and Merry Christmas!
