Hey gang, I just bought an RB50 pair and have 2 questions.
Can I adjust the bandwidth of the backhaul channel down to say, 20MHz? If they are .11ac radios, a higher MCS on a 20MHz channel might be desirable in certain instances.
I know the Orbi isn't DFS certified, but what channels are acually selectable for the backhaul radios?
Orbi doesn't support any user configurations of the backhaul. Only the main front haul is available for user adjustments. Only 4 channels available on 5Ghz(36-48). All channels available on 2.4Ghz. The backhaul is handle automatically.
You can set 20/40Mhz or 40Mhz only. This is for 2.4ghz. The backhaul on 5Ghz can't be changed as its max rate is 80Mhz for 1733Mbps on 5ghz on the 50 series Orbi.
That is terrible, you double your noise floor with every channel bonding I would get better results out of a single 20MHz 5GHz channel than sitting there and having to fight CCI contention.
Netgear REALLY needs to make it an ability to hardset the backhaul channels/channel width.
The main design of Orbi is to have the fast backhaul speed of 1733Mbps. This would not be achieved if the channel width was set to 20Mhz. Most home routers don't support 20Mhz on 5Ghz either. 40Mhz is as low as most go when this is supported in the UI. This is MESH so different handling and operation here.
This is broken thinking...If my entire UNII-3 band is busy and I only have a single 20MHz channel, you will get FAR WORSE preforamnce by using busy channels when compared to utilizing a single, clean 20MHz channel at a high MCS rate.
......you double your noise floor with every channel bonding I would get better results out of a single 20MHz 5GHz channel than sitting there and having to fight CCI contention.
.......
Orbi automatically adjusts the 5 GHz backhaul channel bandwidth depending on the quality of the radio environment. In my Orbi I frequently see that my backhaul link is operating with 20 or 40 MHz bandwidth, and this keeps changing.
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft? What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected.
This is broken thinking...If my entire UNII-3 band is busy and I only have a single 20MHz channel, you will get FAR WORSE preforamnce by using busy channels when compared to utilizing a single, clean 20MHz channel at a high MCS rate.
Wait...can someone confirm for me the firmware level for the RBK50 that supports DFS Channels? I was under the understanding that Orbi never recieved DFS certification?
I haven't seen a definitive table ANYWHERE that lists the Backhaul, nor the fronthaul channels as DFS capable..
The only 5G channels the Orbi allows a user to select are 36, 40, 44, 48 which are all "not DFS" in any country. Some of the channels are forbidden in specific countries, such as Israel, China.
The list of backhaul channels the Orbi will select from probably varies by country. In the US, this is what my Orbi shows:
A bunch of these channels are DFS in the US. (100 through 144). As far as I know, my Orbi has never selected a DFS channel. There is a file where Orbi writes a message any time radar is detected: /var/radardetect.log I have never found this file on my Orbi.
Other community members have reported finding the file with contents. For example:
Radar Detected at [Wed Jan 23 23:19:55 CET 2019 ] on channels [116,120,124,128] Radar Detected at [Wed Jan 23 23:26:20 CET 2019 ] on channels [100,104,108,112]
Yeah...I live in a pretty busy 5GHz enviornment and about the only way I can see myself actually keeping the Orbi system is if they can actually Mesh over DFS channels...
Yeah...I live in a pretty busy 5GHz enviornment and about the only way I can see myself actually keeping the Orbi system is if they can actually Mesh over DFS channels...
In Europe the DFS channels are 52-64 & 100-140.
My Orbi is using only DFS channels for backhaul as I can see. Almost always I see the used backhaul channels are either 108, 116, 132 or 140.
Hey gang, I just bought an RB50 pair and have 2 questions.
Can I adjust the bandwidth of the backhaul channel down to say, 20MHz? If they are .11ac radios, a higher MCS on a 20MHz channel might be desirable in certain instances.
I know the Orbi isn't DFS certified, but what channels are acually selectable for the backhaul radios?
Do you have a problem that needs fixing? Or are you just seeking information so that you can redesign how the Orbi technology works?
Problem solving can happen here. Reworking Netgear's engineering is probably beyond the scope of this user-to-user community.
There are third party firmware sites where people craft hand knitted firmware that can subvert Netgear's intentions.
Do you have a link to these sites that have bespoke firmware?
If the Orbi can use DFS channels for Backhaul, that is the main thing I am after. UNII-1 & 3 bands are generally as congested as 2.4GHz due to ISP CPE devices littering these bands.
Fronthaul DFS would be a wonderful tool as well, but I suspect the chipset they are using for fronthaul isn't DFS certified (typically for cost saving reasons).
