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Forum Discussion
EX7300 Mesh with OneName and FastLane hidden network for backhaul
Looking to see if my specific setup is going to be technically supported. I have an R8000 router on the second floor and an EX7300 for the first floor I've been using in standard extender mode using...
apil1 wrote:
If I have to manually configure the network to be similar to OneName do I choose the same SSID and channel as the router or same SSID and different channel?
I don't know the answer for OneName, but Orbi uses the same channels in all the satellites.
After some experimentation I have found some things out.
EX7300 only has FastLane which disables One WiFi Name and thus mesh features. This means the EX7300 can only mesh under basic mode to enable One WiFi Name or run under FastLane and operate as a standard extender.
If you disable this feature, you can set a new SSID and password for the extender’s 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks in the Network Name (SSID) and WiFi Password fields on this page. Mesh functionality will be disabled.
The product would need to support tri-band FastLane3 to enable mesh to utilize a separate band for the backhaul.
https://kb.netgear.com/000046084/What-is-FastLane3-Technology
- Dedicated WiFi Link. Provides a stable connection between your router and extender.
This also means it's useless to disable router 5GHz Smart Connect to create a hidden dedicated 5 GHz network for the backhaul as I would be stuck broadcasting my hidden SSID under One WiFi Name or reverting to standard extender mode with FastLane.
Running the EX7300 as a standard extender and manually duplicating the SSID and channel of the router seems to be sort of supported, but clients will not be roaming necessarily.
I would have to see if the EX7500 or EX8000 allows to manually connect to a hidden network for the FastLane3 backhaul and enable One WiFi Name at the same time for the standard networks or if it disables One WiFi Name when you do that same as the EX7300. If it doesn't mesh like that then it sounds like I would need to replace everything with Orbi units to get all the features I want.
Why do you want to hide the backhaul?
Also, using fastlane means you give up 5 Ghz on the EX7300's client-facing network. That of course creates a bottleneck, and you might find you get better performance without it.
apil1 wrote:
If you disable this feature, you can set a new SSID and password for the extender’s 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks in the Network Name (SSID) and WiFi Password fields on this page. Mesh functionality will be disabled.
Seems to me that they should have some advanced controls on mesh. Or at least explain why Mesh can't be enabled with FastLane on this extender.
Assuming a tri-band extender (or both bands enabled otherwise), I was thinking that clients would roam between the router 5 GHz-1 and the extenders client-facing 5 GHz while creating a dedicated (non client) bandwidth channel for the backhaul between the extenders and the router 5 GHz-2. It was more from a standpoint of creating that dedicated bandwidth on the router side than purely hiding the backhaul. Giving up the 5 GHz is actually fine because the main problem is a client in the basement that only has a 2 GHz wireless card and had issues with signal strength to the router upstairs and I happened to already have the EX7300 around. There are still dead spots in the basement and since mesh has matured I was thinking of adding another extender to increase signal strength and trying to figure out options for connecting them up. I'm probably over engineering the solution and just need to let the router Smart Connect and extender One WiFi Name do it's thing.
Mesh came later for the EX7300 as a feature addition. Even for the EX7500 and EX8000 it may just be a feature addition for adding onto standard routers where they do not include advanced controls for mesh like you would have on dedicated systems like Orbi.
apil1 wrote:
It was more from a standpoint of creating that dedicated bandwidth on the router side than purely hiding the backhaul.
Yes, though if you have a triband router you can accomplish that by using a different SSID for the backhaul - you don't really need to hide it.
OneName gets in the way though, since you want the client-facing extender network to match your client-facing router network.