Any ideas on which bridge to use

[siri_uk]

Hi guys,

 

I'm running an hp gen 8 microserver with xpenology. I would like to make the unit wireless so am looking at buying a wireless bridge. I have the option of trendnet tew-800 and linksys/Cisco wumc710. Both are ac and will be connecting to an Asus rt-ac68. Anyone any ideas which would be the best for my needs, I stream lots of movies that range from from 720p to 4k.

[IG-88]

i can only give you advice on a general base

lots of client devices are not up to all the technical possible and not good with drivers or software so heaving headroom and only using basic technology might help

 

 

1. plan to use 5GHz you will need the bandwidth, the theoretical number on the colorful packages are misleading and frequencies in 2.4GHz are overrun (you share the media with all around you, even 5GHz can be overrun this days)

having a AP with all the features like mimo is nice but when you 3 year old tablet only has one antenna and 2.4 and 5 GHz for everything from 1080p and above you will need 5GHz

 

2. "bridging" to your server means you plan to use the the existing as AP and that means if streaming you will use bandwidth for the client to AP and AP to server bridge at the same time, that can be a problem, it could be a problem with 1080p and more

!!! did you take powerline into account, it will be a independent backbone to the server not eating up any bandwidth in wifi, clients need wireless more then a server

 

3. plan to use optional antennas (external connector on AP, bridge device, also take directional antennas into account), as long as its short distance and line of sight its ok but going through walls and rooms can cost a lot, going through steel enforced concrete like basement to 2nd floor ...

 

you quickly end up shelling out money for additional repeaters and other stuff and will find out that using over the air for everything at the same time (more then one person using it) will not be reliable (like it work yesterday but today it doesn't and the movie stutters)

there is a reason why mesh wifi is using different band and frequencies to connect AP's

 

just for basic calculation, if theory says 75MBit just calculate with half of it as max. usable without distance loss, the 75MBit is often a single antenna stream of 2.4GHz and it will often not be enough for a 1080p bluray rip to replay nicely (that why i suggest to use 5GHz in general for client connection and powerline as backbone)

 

edit: also look for a gigabit network port, if a device is proclaiming a 300 or more MBit wifi speed and comes with a 100 MBit network port you should we warned

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by IG-88

[sbv3000]

As @IG-88 says, the 'real world' results will be a lot different to what the specs say. Walls, antennae layout, distance, nearby other wifi all lead to signal loss and I think you would never get the results you need. Google 'Link Budget' to get an idea of the theory.

I'd vote for the suggestion to use Powerline, these have improved a lot in recent years based on better signalling technology and although they are synchronous and sometimes need to be on the same electrical circuit,  I think would be easier to setup and more reliable than wifi.