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Hey everyone. Hoping someone could share some real world experience...
I currently have an RBK853 system. While getting 1GB at the router, the speed drops significantly to sub-300 in my office. I live in a pretty stoutly built house... but that's a pretty big drop off.
The speed drop is not over wireless from Router to client.
Instead, it's wireless from Router to Satellite (wireless backhaul) and then I'm wired into the Satellite.
So this is Router-->over wireless-->Satellite-->wired-->client.
Does the RBE973 use different backhaul frequency/technology that penetrates walls better so I'd see better speeds? Realizing that over wireless, the backhaul will suck vs wired, is it better on the 970 series?
Lastly, if wireless is gonna suck no matter what, MIGHT it be worth it to buy one of those stupid adapters that use the house wiring as ethernet for the backhaul?
I neglected to mention Multimedia over Coaxial cable (MoCA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance ) There was a time when most houses had television coax running through the house to almost every room. (much like that old telephone cable was run throughout the entire building!) MoCA is capable of very high speed, and the adapters are also inexpensive.
Uses same frequencies that are limited by building materials. Nature of the beast in any MESH system.
What is the distance between the RBR and the RBS. 30 feet or more is recommended in between RBR 📡 and RBS 🛰️ to begin with depending upon building materials when wired or wirelessly connected. If building materials are a factor then you might close the distances some between the RBR and RBS. Most cases you'll see slower performances over wifi after the RBS unless they are ethernet connected.
I'd definitely try the PL adapters to see if this will help in prove the performances at the remote RBS location.
Does the RBE973 use different backhaul frequency/technology that penetrates walls better so I'd see better speeds? Realizing that over wireless, the backhaul will suck vs wired, is it better on the 970 series?
Yes, the 970 product uses WiFi7 encoding (802.11be) for the WiFi link between router and satellite. While the actual radio frequencies are affected by distance and building materials the same way the 850 product WiFi link is, the encoding may result in a higher transmission rate than the 850. As with all WiFi, this link remains "Half Duplex", meaning that when one radio transmits the other radios must listen. The 853 has one router and two satellites, so all three share the 5GHz link. It would be an expensive experiment to discover how much greater performance would be delivered by the 970 product.
Powerline adapters are a much less expensive experiment (under $100 for two). Powerline is also affected by distance, condition of the electrical wiring, and passage through circuit breakers. The highest performance is when two adapters are on the same electrical circuit and are not very far apart. (I have a pair of TP-Link 9020P adapters on the same circuit which report a link rate** of over 1,300Mbps in both directions. A third adapter that is on a different electrical circuit and is more than twice as far away reports only 340Mbps in one direction and 340Mbps in the other.
** TP-Link provides a utility (Windows) which reports information about their Powerline adapters. I have not found a similar utility for Netgear Powerline adapters.
Like WiFi, Powerline is inherently "Half Duplex". All the Powerline adapters on the electrical grid share the bandwidth.
There certainly is a chance that Powerline will improve performance to this satellite. Testing the hypothesis will be relatively inexpensive. (I LOVE this kind of experiment!)
Another inexpensive test would be to purchase a 100ft. Cat6 Ethernet cable (under $20 on Amazon). Ethernet is inherently "Full Duplex". Data flows in both directions at the same time. Also, Ethernet has dramatically less overhead than WiFi (or Powerline). Pick a time when stringing a cable through the house will not a tremendous distraction and connect the router and satellite over the cable. Within five minutes or so, the link should change from 5GHz WiFi to 'Wired'. Measure the speed. Is the increase in speed significant enough to make a difference? If so, it is time to consider the cost/inconvenience of installing a cable vs. the increase in performance.
If you do either experiment, please return to the forum and share the results.
I actually did just order the TP-Link TL-PA9020P KIT you mentioned for the test. 🙂
I also already tested with a 100' Cat6 cable and yes, wired absolutely rocks. Nearly full speed. After this little test with the powerline adapters, we will indeed decide how to proceed with wiring. Since I was just kinda forced by Xfinity into their 2gb service (no data cap), more speed is better.
Unfortunately, the Powerline Adapters are a dud for the need at hand. The secret for their max speed, is all should be on the same circuit, which is just horrible. If I'm close enough to not have to go through a breaker panel, then Wi-Fi wouldn't ever be a problem.
Max speed I can get out of them is 125Mbps.
That being said, I won't be sending them back as I do have an application for a Sonos in my garage in which these should work great. 🙂
But's it's a dud for getting more speed from Orbi into my office.
I neglected to mention Multimedia over Coaxial cable (MoCA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance ) There was a time when most houses had television coax running through the house to almost every room. (much like that old telephone cable was run throughout the entire building!) MoCA is capable of very high speed, and the adapters are also inexpensive.
This is the route I ended up going. I had actually stumbled upon MoCA on my own and returned to this thread and saw your reply suggesting same!
So I have 1gb to office now by moving router to utility room (where they had all the RG6 coming together) and was able to add a couple of the 1GB MoCA adapters to get wired backhaul. Much better.
Next step is to invest in either a Orbi 770 (or, considering ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro) to see if I can get 2.5gb to office. I'd love to go 970, but dayamm those prices...
It may be a bit early to invest a bunch of money on WiFi7. Aside from the expense:
Netgear's 970 and 770 products seem to appear on the Community Forum a lot so far.
The 770 has the appearance of (yet another) attempt to "cheap out" by omitting one of the 5G radios. How this affects overall performance is unknown.
Although MoCA is really solid, I have doubts about the maximum speed, especially if there are multiple devices on the cable. This may call for more research into MoCA.
WiFi7 really "shines" when there are devices capable of WiFi7. PC, Macs, Laptops, Tablets, etc. do not seem to be readily available with WiFi7 capability. There are some add-in PCI cards, but (as yet) zero USB dongles for WiFi7. If only one smartphone in the house can use WiFi7...... so what?
That's why the concern about how fast MoCA can perform. MoCA 2.5 is supposed to offer speeds up to 2.5GB, and there are adapters for sale on Amazon from several vendors. It might worth investing in a pair of these and running some experiments. (There are Ethernet-USB dongles which support 2.5G Ethernet.)
I like the reviews about this product, especially the descriptions of how the users installed them:
