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Forum Discussion
EX8000 backhaul options
I have a dual band R7800 (AC2600) roouter. I was considering purchasing an EX800 but had a couple of questions that I can't find the answer too.
1. I know if I had a tri band router then on...
lemmy999 wrote:
I have a dual band R7800 (AC2600) roouter. I was considering purchasing an EX800 but had a couple of questions that I can't find the answer too.
1. I know if I had a tri band router then one of the 5GHz channels is used for backhaul and then I have full use of the other 5GHz and the 2.4Ghz channels. But since I have a dual band router, how does it work? Is the 5GHz not available to my devices or would that single 5Ghz channel be shared with backhaul and connections to devices?
lemmy999 - Nighthawk Mesh works with dual-band and tri-band routers. The third band from EX8000 will always be dedicated to connect to the router so the extender does not need to cut its bandwidth in half. The router may however have to share the 5GHz between its connected devices and the extender backhaul. Even in this case, the performance should be significantly better than having a shared backhaul.
2. I am pretty sure wired backhaul isn't possible with the EX8000 (which is dissapointing, especially since I have a dual band router), but I have read that a wired connection back to the router is an option in AP mode and that I can configure it to have the same SSID as the router. So how would this differ from a mesh extension with the EX8000 in extender mode. If I had a wireless device connected to the router would it seamlessly move to the EX8000 when I moved away from the router and behave like a mesh network?
lemmy999 - In AP mode you can configure to have Same SSID and password as router and enjoy all benefits. Smart Roaming is supported and you also get three bands on your extender WiFi available in AP mode.
Thanks.
Thank you for the response.
So there is no difference in functionality (regarding smart switching between the router and the EX8000 for my devicesssss) when using the EX8000 in AP mode (same SSID and password as router) with wired backhaul to the router versus using the EX8000 as a mesh extender with wireless backahual?
Yes, it should work fine.
I connected my ex8000 to my r7900 router which is also triband. In extender mode, I can connect to either a 2.4 Ghz band or a 5 GHz band. However, the R7900 has two 5GHz channels. One which is channel below 60 and the other is above channel 160 or something. It recommends connecting to above 161 or something and not the below 60 channel. If I connect the backhaul channel to the below 60 channel at 5GHz, then I can get up to 1733Mbps and the back channel is limited to below 866Mbps. If I connect to the above 161 channel, then my back haul is limited to 1733 Mbps and my wifi on the extender is limited to 866Mbps. This is what it says on my setup. If it is true that I can use a ethernet to setup an access point and get three bands of wifi, this will be great. I don't have ethernet long enough but can get a 2000 Netgear powerline adapter to use as the backhaul ethernet. I hope this works.
rccolata77 wrote:
If it is true that I can use a ethernet to setup an access point and get three bands of wifi, this will be great. I don't have ethernet long enough but can get a 2000 Netgear powerline adapter to use as the backhaul ethernet. I hope this works.
You could do that, but I wouldn't. The real-world performance of Homeplug AV2 (used by the 2000 powerline products) is 200-350 mbits (and can often be less). So you would likely end up with worse performance.
I'd go with the 5G-2 radio for backhaul (high channels), since in my experience it will have a bit more reach. Also, if you are using the EX8000 ethernet ports for local devices, you'll want the higher backhaul speed.
