reconfiguring our Orbi RBR50 with a new cabled satellite

[olir3]

Our church has an RBR50 Orbi trio with the router connected to a cable modem. The cable modem and RBR are in the office area of the church, but our desired connection is to a satellite unit in the sanctuary, a 150’ reach and in a separate building from the office, too far for the router to reach the satellite.

For the connection to work, we have been putting the second satellite unit in a hallway about halfway between the router and first satellite. Due to the unique features of the Orbi system, this has worked fairly well.

However, tomorrow, we will be running a fiber optic cable with media converters at each end to make the long run from the Router to the Orbi satellite in the sanctuary. We will turn off the second satellite unit in the hallway, and plug the new cable infrastructure into both the Router at one end and the distant satellite at the other.

All things being equal, I am thinking that the satellite RBS in the Sanctuary will “rediscover” its router through the new cable connection and will not use the other satellite as a passthrough to connect any more. We will leave the second RBS in the hallway powered down for a week or two while we make sure the new cable connection between office and sanctuary works well.

It would be nice if this works seamlessly and requires no reconfiguration of the units… however, I have never used Orbis before so there will undoubtedly be a learning curve. I have downloaded the app to my new iphone, and have the password for the system. I will be connected through my laptop as well.

If anyone has any suggestions or notes that would be helpful to us, please post back to us. Thanks!

[CrimpOn · Accepted solution]

I would be really confident if the connection is over ethernet cable. We have reports of dozens of Orbi users who have done so.

150' is well within the distance ethernet can cover.

Fiber media converters are "something new" to most of us.

 In general, Yes. After a few minutes, the Orbi satellite should recognize (what it thinks is) the ethernet connection and switch over.  The status should change from WiFi to "wired".  Computers are never as 'fast' as we expect them to be.

If this does not happen, then the task would be to rule out the fiber link as a problem.

• Temporarily move the satellite to the same location as the router and connect it with an ethernet patch cable.
  This rules out the Orbi and makes the fiber link suspect (but not guilty).
• Connect a computer (anything with an ethernet port) to the fiber link.
  If it connects, the fiber link is good.

Sound to me as if you are fortunate to have someone who works with fiber, is familiar with media converters, and is confident in the installation.  There is probably already a standard protocol to verify the integrity of the fiber and media converters.

[CrimpOn · Accepted solution]

I would be really confident if the connection is over ethernet cable. We have reports of dozens of Orbi users who have done so.

150' is well within the distance ethernet can cover.

Fiber media converters are "something new" to most of us.

 In general, Yes. After a few minutes, the Orbi satellite should recognize (what it thinks is) the ethernet connection and switch over.  The status should change from WiFi to "wired".  Computers are never as 'fast' as we expect them to be.

If this does not happen, then the task would be to rule out the fiber link as a problem.

• Temporarily move the satellite to the same location as the router and connect it with an ethernet patch cable.
  This rules out the Orbi and makes the fiber link suspect (but not guilty).
• Connect a computer (anything with an ethernet port) to the fiber link.
  If it connects, the fiber link is good.

Sound to me as if you are fortunate to have someone who works with fiber, is familiar with media converters, and is confident in the installation.  There is probably already a standard protocol to verify the integrity of the fiber and media converters.

[olir3]

Thanks for the encouragement, CrimpOn. We did the installation on Saturday and it went well. As you indicated, after a few minutes being cabled directly, the Router found the Satellite as a wired connection and we were able to connect all the way to the second building. Testing the speed back to the Router to the Cable Modem and on to Charter Spectrum showed over10MB uplink and almost 100 down.

The service went on for almost an hour this morning, sending the video out to FaceBook without a glitch. Our church new has full wireless networking over the entire campus.

[CrimpOn]

Congratulations. Having people with the right skill set is wonderful.

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