Cable Modem/router Question

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
Got the router in today and setup was quick and easy. Configuring my Netgear Extender was simple also. I now get the full speed I pay for on all devices that are able.

Also, parts of the house that normally would have had one, maybe two bars of wifi signal now have full strength on the 2.4GHz channel.
 

Tony

Staff member
Awesome. Glad it is working out for you. The 2.4 will penetrate walls better than the 5.0 band. 5.0 can carry more data and faster, but is limited to LoS. Gotta love networking :D
 

Tony

Staff member
Sure you can. Set the SSID and password to the exact same as your new router, and disable DHCP so that you don't start double NAT'ing. You will need to run an ethernet cable for best results.

If you are talking about a bridge, see if you can install DD-WRT on it, and it makes it very easy and some firmwares do not allow it from the factory.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
A cable is my preferred way of connecting. Maybe not as easy but 100% more reliable. I might put the old one out on the back porch to get better signal away from the house.
 

Tony

Staff member
It's not only preferred, it is also way faster. Setting up a client bridge you will lose aprox 50% of your speed. If you are just watching youtube, not a big deal, but if a lot of devices are going to be on the second device, it can start to bottle neck.
 

Tony

Staff member
Again, this is for a client bridge only, not a direct ethernet connection.

It loses 50% theoretically due to it only uses one frequency. Lets say you are on 2.4Ghz and it can do 150Mbps. That is 150Mbps total. So sending and receiving (client talking to main router), the speeds are cut in half.

Of course, if you have one that has MIMO (Multi In Multi Out), it can be faster.
 

RandyDSok

Well-Known Member
I should probably add... that if you do happen to go with a mesh network option... get a tri-band and not just a dual band setup. This allows one band to be used for the back haul connection so it doesn't affect the other two bands being used for devices.

This is where the tri-band routers that I mentioned before come into play and having a separate band ( the third one ) can be used to help keep from using up bandwidth that the other devices are using to transmit/receive on . Typically I see these having 2 2.4Ghz bands and one 5 Ghz. One of the 2.4G bands is just used for the backhaul channel from the bridged router and the remaining 2.4G and 5G bands are used for devices.

Currently on your RAX8 router... you have 2 bands available... the 2.4G band has up to 1.2Gbps of total traffic ( the "up to" part is important here as its the upper limit but depends on each device on how much you'll actually see ) and up to 4.8Gbps total available on the 5G side. Your router can handle up to 8 streams which are broken down into 4 transmit and 4 receive streams ( ie 4x4 ). Each band can't exceed the total amount of bandwidth it's assigned. So if you had 4 devices each using 200Mbps... that would total 800Mbps of the total for the band they are operating on. If that band was the 2.4G band... that would leave you with 400Mbps left unused on that band. If the total number of devices exceed the number of streams you have available to transmit or receive with, the additional devices have to wait their turn until a stream slot is available.

If you had used a wireless bridge setup... it would then have taken up one of the transmit and receive streams available and depending on that bridge routers capability... would have take up part of the 1.2Gbps on the 2.4G band ... or part of the 4.8Gbps if using the 5G band. Typically these are setup to use the 2.4G band since it has a longer range available.

Next... you would take into account the info for the bridged router. Ie how much total bandwidth it has for the number of bands it has available as well as the number of streams it supports for transmit/receive. A portion of it's bandwidth will always be used to talk back ( the backhaul channel ) to the main router, how much is available after that is what you'll see available to devices that have connected to it on that end.
 
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Tony

Staff member
speaking of extending range, I think I'm going to put another access point in my office. Need better signal in here for the wireless devices. Wired of course :D
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
I don't know if my E4200 can do wireless bridge mode. I simply connected a spare port on my AX8 to the WAN port of the E4200.

I have a new question about this router. Would it be a bad idea to install it in a sealed enclosure? I want to put it on my back porch outside but don't want the elements affecting it.
 

Tony

Staff member
Routers, when they have a few devices connected to them, can get quite hot. So you will need to find a way to provide ventilation to it. Even if it is a down facing intake and exhaust with a small fan to circulate the air. Being down facing, rain will not come in except for extreme conditions, and even then, a baffle of some kind can block that. Also, put a screen on the intake and exhaust because of wasps. Little bastages!!!
 

RandyDSok

Well-Known Member
I don't know if my E4200 can do wireless bridge mode. I simply connected a spare port on my AX8 to the WAN port of the E4200.

Read the manual... it explains it completely. If you don't have the manual anymore, it's available on the manufactures website ( at least if its the Cisco/Linksys one )
 

Tony

Staff member
That is the fun thing about a project, it will always wait until you are ready. Unless it's something like finishing installing the front door on your house or something lmao.
 
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