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Forum Discussion
Re: Is there any benefit to have a wired backhaul for an Orbi Mesh system?
In my experience no!
I’ve had an RBR750 and 5x RBS750s for a couple of years. Although for some of that time I’ve had pretty good Wi-Fi network, I’ve spent countless hours/days/weeks fiddling trying to improve connectivity problems. For the price I paid for it all, I’ve been pretty disappointed with how it’s all performed. Netgear seem to be more focused on selling subscriptions for bolt on services than producing robust mesh systems. A lot of this was made worse with a wired backhaul. I’ve tried every available settings and way of connecting them to try and improve things, including firmware updates, numerous different channels, CTS/RTS ratios, preamble settings, transmit powers, router and satellite placement, soft resets, factory resets with re-sync wireless, factory resets with re-sync wired then wireless, new Cat7 cables, gigabit switches in between, hub/spoke, daisy chain….. and my final conclusion is that the network is much better without any wired backhaul at all. With a wired backhaul I was consistently plagued by frequent disconnections, very slow re-connections, and patchy connection to other devices on my LAN. All or most of this disappeared when I sacked the ethernet backhaul. I live in quite an old house with some big thick walls, and lots of nooks and crannies which probably doesn’t help.
I now have a relatively stable network with an entirely wireless backhaul, although I do have some ethernet patch cables connected to some satellites and the router feeding various bits of kit. These seem to work well.
I initially went down the wired backhaul route as I was under the impression it would help me build a more robust network with full duplex etc. But in my experience, it’s been a complete waste of time. Coupled with the other frustrations about the Orbi system (hard sell on trying to get us to pay subscriptions for what should be basic router functions, inability to set DNS settings for LAN etc) I’m pretty close to sacking my Orbi system and buying something better. Let’s hope that it continues to be robust for a good stretch now that I’ve threatened it with being disbanded otherwise.
I’ve had an RBR750 and 5x RBS750s for a couple of years. Although for some of that time I’ve had pretty good Wi-Fi network, I’ve spent countless hours/days/weeks fiddling trying to improve connectivity problems. For the price I paid for it all, I’ve been pretty disappointed with how it’s all performed. Netgear seem to be more focused on selling subscriptions for bolt on services than producing robust mesh systems. A lot of this was made worse with a wired backhaul. I’ve tried every available settings and way of connecting them to try and improve things, including firmware updates, numerous different channels, CTS/RTS ratios, preamble settings, transmit powers, router and satellite placement, soft resets, factory resets with re-sync wireless, factory resets with re-sync wired then wireless, new Cat7 cables, gigabit switches in between, hub/spoke, daisy chain….. and my final conclusion is that the network is much better without any wired backhaul at all. With a wired backhaul I was consistently plagued by frequent disconnections, very slow re-connections, and patchy connection to other devices on my LAN. All or most of this disappeared when I sacked the ethernet backhaul. I live in quite an old house with some big thick walls, and lots of nooks and crannies which probably doesn’t help.
I now have a relatively stable network with an entirely wireless backhaul, although I do have some ethernet patch cables connected to some satellites and the router feeding various bits of kit. These seem to work well.
I initially went down the wired backhaul route as I was under the impression it would help me build a more robust network with full duplex etc. But in my experience, it’s been a complete waste of time. Coupled with the other frustrations about the Orbi system (hard sell on trying to get us to pay subscriptions for what should be basic router functions, inability to set DNS settings for LAN etc) I’m pretty close to sacking my Orbi system and buying something better. Let’s hope that it continues to be robust for a good stretch now that I’ve threatened it with being disbanded otherwise.
11 Replies
In my experience it is a lot easier to make things worse than better. Especially when the actual problem hasn't been identified. And especially when the basic settings don't work. That's a red flag that something fundamental is likely a problem rather than something esoteric. When I see people starting to go down the path of CTS/RTS settings and grasping for the latest "CATx" spec cable, my sense is that it won't end well until the grasping at straws is over.
I appreciate that you had issues and that you have stabilized things, but "wired backhaul" as the culprit is probably a red herring and something else you did inadvertently settled things down.
For the 3 systems I have owned, RBR50, RBR850, and RBR960, wired backhaul has always been better. Not by a lot with the 960, but still better - even with my old 1996 installed CAT5 cables. And there's zero reason that "old house with some big thick walls, and lots of nooks and crannies" would make wired backhaul work worse than wireless. If anything, it would very likely be the opposite.
Wireless backhaul works well, but there is no reason wired backhaul shouldn't be better if it can be done. Just as a wired connection to any networked device is going to generally be better than WiFi. WiFi is for convenience, but the most robust performance will be wired given reasonably modern equipment.
JamesSimpson wrote:
In my experience no!
I’ve had an RBR750 and 5x RBS750s for a couple of years. Although for some of that time I’ve had pretty good Wi-Fi network, I’ve spent countless hours/days/weeks fiddling trying to improve connectivity problems. ...
A lot of this was made worse with a wired backhaul. I’ve tried every available settings and way of connecting them to try and improve things, including firmware updates, numerous different channels, CTS/RTS ratios, preamble settings, transmit powers, router and satellite placement, soft resets, factory resets with re-sync wireless, factory resets with re-sync wired then wireless, new Cat7 cables, gigabit switches in between, hub/spoke, daisy chain….. and my final conclusion is that the network is much better without any wired backhaul at all. With a wired backhaul I was consistently plagued by frequent disconnections, very slow re-connections, and patchy connection to other devices on my LAN. All or most of this disappeared when I sacked the ethernet backhaul. I live in quite an old house with some big thick walls, and lots of nooks and crannies which probably doesn’t help.- I’m sure in general you are correct, wired will usually be more robust than Wi-Fi, which is why I wanted to go down that road in the first place. All I know is that the end result for my network has been very clear. After a huge amount of time and troubleshooting (new cables, setting everything up from scratch etc), the network is significantly more stable with a wireless backhaul. Handoff when roaming between APs works much more smoothly and devices connect much more quickly. I’m not sure why, that’s just my experience. Perhaps I’m just unlucky!
Would need more details and feedback on questions given to better help you figure out the "I’m not sure why".
Just curious, what is the size of home you have all this in? In Sq Ft please.
Brand and model of switches used?
FW version currently loaded?
Lots of factors can contribute to wired BH not working, # of deployed RBS, configuration, placement and distances, cables used, condition of cables used, ethernet ports and pins.
All Orbi systems I have and tested, all work well with ethernet BH sans the use of any managed or smart switch.
