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Forum Discussion
Wireless signal on a hard wired Orbi satellite
Do the Orbi satellites still produce a wireless signal if you hardwire them to your Orbi router? Currently using the RBK853 with two satellites. If it does produce a wireless signal while hard wired to the router, will it produce a stronger wireless signal and increase speeds? Hope that makes sense
7 Replies
Magician1979 wrote:Do the Orbi satellites still produce a wireless signal if you hardwire them to your Orbi router? Currently using the RBK853 with two satellites. If it does produce a wireless signal while hard wired to the router, will it produce a stronger wireless signal and increase speeds? Hope that makes sense
The original Orbi satellites continue to broadcast their 5G WiFi "backhaul" channel even when they are connected with ethernet. If the ethernet connection disappears, the WiFi backhaul is "waiting and ready" to be used. There have been a number of posts from people wanting to eliminate the 5G WiFi backhaul in order to make the channel available for other use, and no one has come up with a method to do so.
It would seem reasonable to assume that the new Orbi system follows the same design. Perhaps someone who has one of the new AX Orbi system has set up ethernet backhaul and can comment on whether the 5G backhaul signal remains. The question could be posted in the community forum set up for the AX products:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/bd-p/en-home-orbi-ax
Yes the 5Ghz AX backhaul is still being broadcast. It can't be disabled.
So the connection rate on the wireless backhaul of the AX series is 2400Mpbs while the wired back haul is 1000Mbps. So you can see there is a difference. This is just a connection rate between the RBS and RBR only.
Magician1979 wrote:Do the Orbi satellites still produce a wireless signal if you hardwire them to your Orbi router? Currently using the RBK853 with two satellites. If it does produce a wireless signal while hard wired to the router, will it produce a stronger wireless signal and increase speeds? Hope that makes sense
If that's the case, Does that increase the speed I should be getting? Getting somewhere around 400mbps WiFi signal on other side of house so wondering if hardwiring it will increase its WiFi speed.
Magician1979 wrote:If that's the case, Does that increase the speed I should be getting? Getting somewhere around 400mbps WiFi signal on other side of house so wondering if hardwiring it will increase its WiFi speed.
Ethernet backhaul will almost always produce greater througput than WiFi backhaul, even the "wonderful" WiFi6 backhaul.
The main issue is that ethernet is a full duplex connection, where data can flow simultaneously in both directions at almost full speed.
WiFi is a "one radio broadcasts at a time" system, while the others back off and wait until the channel is free. So, if one satellite broadcasts packets to anywhere (the router or another satellite), those other two go silent until it is finished. There are also regular "management" frames sent to maintain the WiFi link, which eat into capacity. My guess is that for most systems, a huge percentage of data is flowing from the router to satellites (internet streaming, for example).
There are tools that can be used to measure network throughput. iPerf3, for example, will send packets from one computer to another as fast as can be done. I regularly measure over 950mb/sec between computers connected directly to the Orbi router over gigabit ethernet links. If multiple tests were going on at the same time over the WiFi backhaul, that might give an idea of how much capacity the backhaul link has.
The User Facing WiFi signal is also a function of the actual device and how close it is to the Orbi unit. 2.4 WiFi "tops out" at a link rate of 400mb.
It still broadcasts both the 2.4 and 5G signals while wired, correct?
Magician1979 wrote:It still broadcasts both the 2.4 and 5G signals while wired, correct?
Yes, both the 2.4G and 5G "user facing" channels continue to be active. And, the 5G "backhaul" channel continues to be active, although sending only "management frames" rather than data.
