Mixed Wired & Wireless Backhaul

[darrenkdean]

Do the Orbi's support wired backhaul yet?  If so, is there a reference guide you can point me to explaining how to set it up?

I have an Orbi Router RBR 50, with a total of 3 additional satellites.  This setup covers a 6,000 sq ft home & a 1 acre property.  Everything runs off of this Orbi system.  Wireless security cameras, Ecobee thermostats, Skybell, TV Boxes (minix NEO-U9h), laptops, tablets, etc.  In total we have more than 30 connected devices.  I suspect that the wireless HD security cameras are saturating the wireless backhaul.  If we are watching TV (local network/wireless) & surfing internet at the same time, we sometimes get TV bufferring.

It's my belief that by running a hardwired backhaul to the Orbi Satellite closest to the cameras, would free up the wireless backhaul & greatly improve the performance of our network.

When the security cameras are turned off, I get a minimum of 500 Mbps connectivity in every corner of our home & every corner of our 1 acre property.  

Best-

Darren

[tagteam]

The link below is about the only official reference you will find around here.

https://kb.netgear.com/000051205/What-is-Ethernet-backhaul-and-how-do-I-set-it-up-on-my-Orbi-WiFi-Sy...

[AmitR]

Yes. Mixed backhaul is supported.  For example.  

Sat1. ---ethernet---  Router --- wireless---Sat2

Router ---ethernet---  Sat1 ----wireless----Sat2

[darrenkdean]

Sort of Good News is that Orbi is showing the hard wired backhaul on the two hard wired satellites.  Other news, something has changed.

When I first hooked it up, the two satellites retained their IP Addresses *.242 & *.243 & connected devices began showing up under them.  A few hours later, I logged into the Orbi to find that the IP Address of the satellites have changed to 192.168.1.250 & there are no connected devices showing up.  Strangely, I can still hit the Satellites' GUI's by going to the *.242 & *.243 addresses.  The 192.168.1.* address space does not exist in our network.  The only device carrying this address space is the AT&T Gigapower Modem.

Orbi is setup in Access Point Mode, runs into a Cisco 3750G-24TS 3L switch, & receives DHCP, DNS, from a Microsoft Server 2016 domain controller.

Any thoughts on what is going on here?

[budy]

Yeah… this is the same way, my wired sat is being shown on the router's attached devices page. However, it seems that this is only a glitch in the Orbi's UI. When I log into the sat via telnet, that 192.168.x.x address is nowhere present in the system.

[WAP]

I have a satellite going into my main switch and it appeared in the GUI as a satellite but after I do a orbi reboot from the GUI my wired satellite doesn't show up as a satellite (I'm on the .18 firmware that was released this morning).  Despite the GUI problem do you find that the satellite is working properly?

If so what is your daisy chain setting? Checked or Unchecked?

[budy]

Yes, my satellite is still working flawlessly. After I updated the satellite and the router to .18, I had to reboot the satellite twice, since after the router rebooted, the satellite once again showed up as bening connected via 5G, but the 2nd reboot solved that.

In general, it seems to take quite a while for the router to recognize, in what way, the satellite is connected - not for the Orbi OS, but for the program/script, which hauls all the information in to prepare the attached devices page.

I have taken a closer look at the Orbis via telnet and examined how they set up their bridges and from what I can see, this is a mere error or shortcoming from the developers, who might have some diffuculties parsing the quite complex output of those bridges.

[darrenkdean]

Everything appears to be working properly between the wired & wireless (mixed backhaul).

Notes:

• Upgrading to the latest firmware release, was a manual process.  The wireless Satellite was available for automatic GUI upgrade, however the wired Satellites, were not able to connect to the update server.  As a result, I manually updated all of the satellites (wired & wireless) first & then upgrade the Orbi router.
• Upon restart, the Orbi router did not at first pick up all of the Satellites.  After a short period of time, it did, but kept disconnecting, losing, & then reconnecting satellites.  This went on about 30 mintues.
• At that juncture, I factory reset the orbi & all 3 of the satellites to clear any "ghost" settings from previous firmwares.  Then I reconnected all of the satellites wirelessly, & then plugged the hardwires back in.
• Additional Note: One thing I noted that was each time the Orbi restarts, it loses connectivity with the Wired Satellites.  After reading through the forums, I came accross a post that stated by moving the ethernet connection from the Orbi to the Switch from the WAN port to the LAN port directly next to the WAN Port, the restart connectivty issue could be resolved.  This has been done, but I had to leave for a business trip & have not yet attempted to reboot the Orbi to see if this does indeed fix it.

In terms of overall performance, it seems to be very good.  At some point in the next week, we will implement a new server to map & monitor the connectivty through the switch (net flow analyzer), to ensure data is flowing as expected.

It is my opinion, that with 2x wired satellites directly to a switch, 1x wireless satellite, & 1x wired Orbi Router in AP Mode, the effective backhaul throughput should be 3 Gbp/s.

It would be really hepful if Netgear would post a techinical white paper on the wired backhaul & nuances of the current mixed backhaul setup.

Best-

Darren