Re: Orbi - why can't we change channels on satellites?

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-06-20

MESH systems are based on wireless extender and repeating design and methods. These use same channel connections. Been like this since the beginning.

Besides if NG was to implement something to suite your needs, it wouldn't happen any time soon if at all on current product lines.

jimbojames79 · ‎2018-06-21

Yes it would be really helpful to be able to adjust the powers levels individually.

My house is just too big to have a router on its own but when I add a satelitte and reduce the power, a chunk of the house is effectively wifi free because the devices get confused about whether to join the router or the satelitte. It's not too bad with fixed devices but for phones/tablets etc its a nighmare.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-06-21

How big is your house? SqFt?

I used one router and one satellite in a 5000sq ft home. Router and satellite at opposite ends with 40 feet in between them.

@jimbojames79 wrote:

Yes it would be really helpful to be able to adjust the powers levels individually.

My house is just too big to have a router on its own but when I add a satelitte and reduce the power, a chunk of the house is effectively wifi free because the devices get confused about whether to join the router or the satelitte. It's not too bad with fixed devices but for phones/tablets etc its a nighmare.

astrojohn · ‎2018-06-21

I've been experimenting with power level and I find 50% is too low but 75% seems to still be OK. I also reserved IP addresses for most of my clients and the Apple dropouts seem to have stopped. And by setting up the clients themselves with static addresses, the incessant DHCP pinging has stopped, not from the Apple products of course, but they seem to be less than before.

My house is 2400 sq ft and maybe 2 satellites is too many since I can't control individual power levels. I'm seeing connections to far more distant units than I would expect and that leads me to believe the devices are also being confused. May try unplugging one leaving only the most distant one online.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-06-21

2400 sq ft is average to medium size home. 1 router can cover this however depending upon building materials and layout. Yes, Try just the router and 1 satellite and see how it goes. I think having two satellites is too much.

Also use manual channels 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4ghz.

@astrojohn wrote:

I've been experimenting with power level and I find 50% is too low but 75% seems to still be OK. I also reserved IP addresses for most of my clients and the Apple dropouts seem to have stopped. And by setting up the clients themselves with static addresses, the incessant DHCP pinging has stopped, not from the Apple products of course, but they seem to be less than before.

My house is 2400 sq ft and maybe 2 satellites is too many since I can't control individual power levels. I'm seeing connections to far more distant units than I would expect and that leads me to believe the devices are also being confused. May try unplugging one leaving only the most distant one online.

toe · ‎2018-08-26

Netgear needs to look at how something like Aruba InstantAP works. The APs assign themselves non overlapping channels to each other.

schumaku · ‎2018-08-26

@FURRYe38 wrote:

MESH systems are based on wireless extender and repeating design and methods. These use same channel connections. Been like this since the beginning.

Sorry, this does not make much sense - Orbi and Orbi Pro does much more than a Wireless Extender (repeater).

Orbi (most if not all versions) make use of a dedicated radio - thus Netgear does talk of Tri-Band - for the dedicated backhaul, nick-named FastLane3 Technology provides a dedicated WiFi Tx/Rx: 2x2 (866 Mbit link rate) up to 4x4 (1.7 Gbit link rate) in a Mesh. Different from a series of hard configured wireless bridges, the associations in a Mesh are dynamic and can change.

Unlikely they operate the backhaul radio and the 5 GHz front lane on the same channels - this is what a generic Wireless Extender would do (except if FastLane is enabled where one radio is used for a wireless bridge, and the other radio for the client access).

@FURRYe38 wrote:

Besides if NG was to implement something to suite your needs, it wouldn't happen any time soon if at all on current product lines.

The Orbi access side is built with LAN ports and two dedicated radios, one on 2.4 GHz, one on 5 GHz on each router and satellite. Can't see why there should not be a possibility for implementing some channel optimisation and RRM (radio resource management).

astrojohn · ‎2018-08-26

I show the backhaul on ch 157.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-08-26

Maybe it doesn't however thats probably what the chipset vendor intended and how they designed it. Remember, most router mfrs don't design there own chip sets, Mfrs like Broadcom, RaLink and others do. Router and wifi MFr use these vendors and just implement them in there environment. So in ways, Mfrs are limited on what they can do. From what I know, The high 5Ghz channels all dedicated for the wireless back haul, regardless of wired backaul. NO user access or configuration enabled in the UI. Not sure why they couldn't open up those channels when connected wired back haul. Would make more sence. However, it is what it is. The future will tell if this changes or not.

@schumaku wrote:

@FURRYe38 wrote:

MESH systems are based on wireless extender and repeating design and methods. These use same channel connections. Been like this since the beginning.

Sorry, this does not make much sense - Orbi and Orbi Pro does much more than a Wireless Extender (repeater).

Orbi (most if not all versions) make use of a dedicated radio - thus Netgear does talk of Tri-Band - for the dedicated backhaul, nick-named FastLane3 Technology provides a dedicated WiFi Tx/Rx: 2x2 (866 Mbit link rate) up to 4x4 (1.7 Gbit link rate) in a Mesh. Different from a series of hard configured wireless bridges, the associations in a Mesh are dynamic and can change.

Unlikely they operate the backhaul radio and the 5 GHz front lane on the same channels - this is what a generic Wireless Extender would do (except if FastLane is enabled where one radio is used for a wireless bridge, and the other radio for the client access).

@FURRYe38 wrote:

Besides if NG was to implement something to suite your needs, it wouldn't happen any time soon if at all on current product lines.

The Orbi access side is built with LAN ports and two dedicated radios, one on 2.4 GHz, one on 5 GHz on each router and satellite. Can't see why there should not be a possibility for implementing some channel optimisation and RRM (radio resource management).

schumaku · ‎2018-08-26

@FURRYe38 wrote:

The high 5Ghz channels all dedicated for the wireless back haul, regardless of wired backaul. NO user access or configuration enabled in the UI.

This is done because only the higher channels allow using the higher power, what is required for a fast and reliable wireless backhaul.

@FURRYe38 wrote:

Not sure why they couldn't open up those channels when connected wired back haul.

Not sure how flexible things are. In a pure wired backhaul environment the more powerful (and depending on the model variant more capable) backhaul radios could serve as additional 5 GHz APs, too. But then, what has to happen if somebody does ad-hoc add a wireless satellite?

toe · ‎2018-08-27

@schumaku wrote:

@FURRYe38 wrote:

The high 5Ghz channels all dedicated for the wireless back haul, regardless of wired backaul. NO user access or configuration enabled in the UI.

This is done because only the higher channels allow using the higher power, what is required for a fast and reliable wireless backhaul.

Not entirely true. Max transmit power of wireless devices is strongly regulated, you can get FCC/CRTC fines if you exceed it. For the US, the 4x4 radio on the Orbi is transmitting at 1000mW or 30dbM, exactly the same power level as the 802.11n on the 2x2 radio.

toe · ‎2018-08-27

@tln741 wrote:

Why can't we change the WiFi channel for each unit? It would be nice if we could also adjust radio power on each unit

I can change channels and adjust Tx power levels on mine, just not through the Web UI.

schumaku · ‎2018-08-27

@toe wrote:

Not entirely true. Max transmit power of wireless devices is strongly regulated, you can get FCC/CRTC fines if you exceed it. For the US, the 4x4 radio on the Orbi is transmitting at 1000mW or 30dbM, exactly the same power level as the 802.11n on the 2x2 radio.

Hm, pretty much convinced Orbi does use 802.11ac on the 2x2 radio, too. Of course it's regulated:

- Originally, U-NII Low (U-NII-1) was on 50 mW indoors only, current is 1 W power and max 4 W EIRP (max antenna gain 6 dB) for non-point-to-point.
- U-NII Mid (U-NII-2A) is max power 250 mW and max 1 W EIRP.

- U-NII Upper (U-NII-3) is max power 1 W and EIRP up to 200 W.

Further limitations apply without TPC.

Hope this clarifies why Netgear does use the high channel set for the wireless mesh.

tln741 · ‎2018-08-27

@schumaku wrote:

@toe wrote:

Not entirely true. Max transmit power of wireless devices is strongly regulated, you can get FCC/CRTC fines if you exceed it. For the US, the 4x4 radio on the Orbi is transmitting at 1000mW or 30dbM, exactly the same power level as the 802.11n on the 2x2 radio.

Hm, pretty much convinced Orbi does use 802.11ac on the 2x2 radio, too. Of course it's regulated:

- Originally, U-NII Low (U-NII-1) was on 50 mW indoors only, current is 1 W power and max 4 W EIRP (max antenna gain 6 dB) for non-point-to-point.
- U-NII Mid (U-NII-2A) is max power 250 mW and max 1 W EIRP.

- U-NII Upper (U-NII-3) is max power 1 W and EIRP up to 200 W.

Further limitations apply without TPC.

Hope this clarifies why Netgear does use the high channel set for the wireless mesh.

And yet the power output on the 5G backhaul is the same as the 5G wifi channels: 36 dBm.

schumaku · ‎2018-08-27

Black magic 36 dBm from 250 mW on the middle band using the same antennas?

astrojohn · ‎2018-08-27

Yes, you can change channel/power but not individually. Ok, so what's the non-UI method?

markalan · ‎2018-12-28

It has been suggested on this thread that Mesh networks by definition share the same channels for satellites, that is simply not true. The Google Wifi mesh network negotiates channels amongst the satellites and each can be on its own channel to avoid interference.

I see that people have asked for manually setting the channel, I would much rather that Orbi was smart and picked optimal channels for each and every satellite. To be honest, I niavely assumed that Orbi did just that and have some regret about not discovering the limitation before my purchase.

As someone mentioned, the only advantage is more seamless low-latency switching between access points. However, in my home the latency is hardly an issue when compared say to cellular tower switching.

I certainly hope a software update might add channel optimization !

tln741 · ‎2018-12-28

The problem with auto channel assignment is radios tend to pick in between channels. In 2.4 Ghz, there are only 3 non-overlapping channels: 1, 6 and 11. If the radio picks Channels 4 and 7, there will be a lot of noise.

Wireless 101 for 2.4 Ghz is to have the two APs on the same channel spaced so the signal level from AP1 when you are standing at AP2 is under -72 dBm. Otherwise you have co-channel interference that reduces throughput.

That is not really achievable with the Orbi since the 5G backhaul would likely be too weak (5G is shorter range than 2.4G). Add in the complexity of competing wifi signals from your neighbors, and you have quite a problem. I can see the wireless networks of 12 of my neighbors.

schumaku · ‎2018-12-29

@markalan wrote:

It has been suggested on this thread that Mesh networks by definition share the same channels for satellites, that is simply not true.

This idea in people head comes from very basic designs where mesh and client make use of the same radio.

@markalan wrote:

I see that people have asked for manually setting the channel, I would much rather that Orbi was smart and picked optimal channels for each and every satellite. To be honest, I niavely assumed that Orbi did just that and have some regret about not discovering the limitation before my purchase.

Agree. Critical point is that many legislation require using a DFS process (to avoid collisions with weather radar systems) before using the higher bands of the 5 GHz network - what can require more than one minute wait before actively sending would be allowed.

@markalan wrote:

As someone mentioned, the only advantage is more seamless low-latency switching between access points. However, in my home the latency is hardly an issue when compared say to cellular tower switching.

There is no problem - roaming does happen anyway, and using the same process, same standard, regardless of the next AP radio channel. However I doubt it's smart to have heavily overlapping wireless range from routers and satellites on the same channels for the obvious reasons.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-12-29

On Orbi systems, you can pick primart non overlapping channels.

Users need to remember that the reason why you can't pick channels on the satellites is that they are acting as REPEATERS/Extenders, thus when repeating, they have to be on the same channel as the source wifi signal channel. This doesn't work if the satellites was on a different channel from the source wireless. Repeatersand Extenders work on the same channel for this configuration.

ekhalil · ‎2018-12-29

@FURRYe38 wrote:

On Orbi systems, you can pick primart non overlapping channels.

Users need to remember that the reason why you can't pick channels on the satellites is that they are acting as REPEATERS/Extenders, thus when repeating, they have to be on the same channel as the source wifi signal channel. This doesn't work if the satellites was on a different channel from the source wireless. Repeatersand Extenders work on the same channel for this configuration.

Orbi -and any other mesh system- IS NOT a repeater or extender and it works totally different than a repeater/extender. Yes it's possible to have the AP's on different radio channels (as some vendors implemented their mesh systems) but Netgear chose to have all APs on the same channel. Both implementations have their advantages and disadantages.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-12-29

For lamens terms, there repeaters or extenders.

Thanks.

Being more techinal:

Wireless repeaters and mesh networks are both technologies that can be used to extend network coverage over a given area. Wireless repeaters work by taking an existing wireless signal and re-broadcasting it, while mesh networks see every device on a network directly connected to every other device without the use of a central router or switch. Wireless repeaters are usually best suited to extending the range of a small wireless network, while mesh networks are often used for high-performance business networking.

Operation
A wireless repeater is a device designed to receive wireless signals and then re-transmit them. The main difference between wireless repeaters and regular wireless routers is that repeaters can only re-transmit signals they have already received, rather than generating wireless signals of their own. Mesh networking, on the other hand, is a form of network design rather than a specific technology. In a mesh network, data travels from device to device in short hops until it reaches its destination, rather than being directed by a central device. Both wired and wireless networks can use a mesh topology.

Reliability
The principle advantage of mesh networks is their resilience. Mesh networks do not have a single point of failure, meaning that there is no chance of an individual device failure bringing the whole network down. This contrasts with regular hub-type networks, where a failure in a central router or switch could cut large parts of the network off from each other. Repeaters, on the other hand, do not increase a network's resilience. If the router or access point broadcasting the original wireless signal goes down, all repeaters on the network will be affected.

Scalability
Repeaters can help to scale a wireless network, increasing the network's range while ensuring that devices on the edge of the network still get a reasonable service. You can simply add more repeaters as the network grows, although a signal that has been repeated multiple times will not be as strong as the original signal. Mesh networks, however, do not scale well, as every new device must be connected to every other device, a process that can consume a lot of time and money.

Complexity
Mesh networks are almost always more complex than their hub counterparts, requiring specialized equipment and trained administrators to keep the network running. This complexity has a bearing on the overall cost of the network, making mesh networks expensive to set up and maintain. Wireless repeaters, on the other hand, allow you to keep your network design reasonably simple even as the network's coverage areas grows, as the signal always originates from the same wireless router.

schumaku · ‎2018-12-29

@FURRYe38 the Orbi Satellite are not extenders or repeaters like the older exenders (leavling alone the Mesh Extenders) - much more they compare to a normal wireless access point where either a dedicated Ethernet port or a dedicated radio can be used to connect to the backhaul. There are three independent radios, one 5 GHz for the backhaul, two dedicated to clients (a 2.4 and a 5 GHz).

Therefore, it should be possible that the client oriented radios can operate on any set of channels - except of the channel set in use for the backhaul of course. With the wired backhaul, this limitation isn't in place at all. Would be nice to get an answer from Mark Merrill as he is leading the Netgear RF lab (among other activities) and he gave me some great tour on the labs a while ago.

PS: Similar, I can't figure out why the Arlo Base Stations are seeking the very same channel configuration like the nearest, most powerful wireless access point on 2.4 GHz.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-12-29

I know, however to keep things simple for the average home user to understand. Just saying that, at least for orbi. There using same channels as set by NG and the Chipset dev's. I presume there keeping like this as to keep things simple for everyone. Ya, hoping to get more out of Orbi, would be nice. The 3rd radio could be useful when wire connected. I saw something on my Orbi that NG maybe putting out, disabling each radios. Nothing official though.

@schumaku wrote:

@FURRYe38 the Orbi Satellite are not extenders or repeaters like the older exenders (leavling alone the Mesh Extenders) - much more they compare to a normal wireless access point where either a dedicated Ethernet port or a dedicated radio can be used to connect to the backhaul. There are three independent radios, one 5 GHz for the backhaul, two dedicated to clients (a 2.4 and a 5 GHz).

Therefore, it should be possible that the client oriented radios can operate on any set of channels - except of the channel set in use for the backhaul of course. With the wired backhaul, this limitation isn't in place at all. Would be nice to get an answer from Mark Merrill as he is leading the Netgear RF lab (among other activities) and he gave me some great tour on the labs a while ago.

PS: Similar, I can't figure out why the Arlo Base Stations are seeking the very same channel configuration like the nearest, most powerful wireless access point on 2.4 GHz.

ekhalil · ‎2018-12-29

@schumaku wrote:

@FURRYe38 the Orbi Satellite are not extenders or repeaters like the older exenders (leavling alone the Mesh Extenders) - much more they compare to a normal wireless access point where either a dedicated Ethernet port or a dedicated radio can be used to connect to the backhaul. There are three independent radios, one 5 GHz for the backhaul, two dedicated to clients (a 2.4 and a 5 GHz).

Therefore, it should be possible that the client oriented radios can operate on any set of channels - except of the channel set in use for the backhaul of course. With the wired backhaul, this limitation isn't in place at all. Would be nice to get an answer from Mark Merrill as he is leading the Netgear RF lab (among other activities) and he gave me some great tour on the labs a while ago.

PS: Similar, I can't figure out why the Arlo Base Stations are seeking the very same channel configuration like the nearest, most powerful wireless access point on 2.4 GHz.

Well described @schumaku. Thank you