Ethernet cable to connect 2 Mesh Routers

S

spawnfreak

Adept
CAT6 supports speeds upto 10 Gbps. Can easily handle 75Mbps. If you don't intend to upgrade your speeds then even CAT5 would suffice.
 
spawnfreak said:
Looking for a cable to connect 2 Mesh Routers placed approx 20 Metres away. The ISP speed is 75 Mbps.

Is this cable good enough?

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If you get CAT cable with plugs already attached then you might not be able to route it through the wire ducts. So just get the cable and attach the plugs after routing.
 
spawnfreak said:
I think this one is a cheap option for a future proofing the setup.
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Yes. Id definitely recommend getting a Cat6 cable for the following reasons:
1. The price difference between 5 and 6 isn't that much
2. You won't have to change it when you upgrade your router/connection
3. There's no reason to limit your internal network speeds to the ISP speed. If you get a NAS device later, you can take advantage of Gigabit speeds within your home for streaming

And yes, Cat6 is compatible with all routers. There's no compatibility issues between cat5 and cat6.
 
I am intrigued by this. Is not the whole purpose of buying **mesh** router in not having to run wires between them?. Only the main mesh unit requires wired internet connection, while all the satellites are wire-free.

Better mesh routers are so expensive because they generally have a seperate and dedicated wifi radio for the backhaul so they can connect to adjacent accesspoints wirelessly without sacrificing wifi bandwidth.

With a wired backbone connecting all the routers/accespoints, we can use the simpler and cheaper **802.11r Fast Transition** and regular non-mesh wireless access points.
 
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gwrench2000 said:
Is not the whole purpose of buying **mesh** router in not having to run wires between them?. Only the main mesh unit requires wired internet connection, while all the satellites are wire-free.
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You can always run the mesh units wire free. It's optional. However, if possible, I'd have dedicated CAT line between the unit.

Why? there's sooooo much radio pollution in our houses. Whether it's generated by your smart fridge and toaster, oven or neighbors wireless cctv units. 2.5ghz is fully saturated. Devices are literally fighting to get hold of some bandwidth. It won't be long before 5ghz also gets saturated.

So whenever possible I like to run actual cables between devices. I'm now even thinking of connecting TV through ethernet. Ethernet cable gives peace of mind and lower latency.
 
gwrench2000 said:
we can use the simpler and cheaper **802.11r Fast Transition**
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I have seen that fast transition didn't ever work for me. What could I be doing wrong ?

Wireless routers have claimed to use fast transition technology, but I see devices connected to routers 2 rooms away, instead of a router 6 inches away.

Some routers even suggest you name the SSID of 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz identically, and it will use some "smart" technology to switch to the perfect device. Never happened.
 
lockhrt999 said:
You can always run the mesh units wire free. It's optional. However, if possible, I'd have dedicated CAT line between the unit.
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Precisely.
my mesh router is placed quite far from core router and gets barely enough signal to work. I'm joining them via cable for better reliability.
 
kiran6680 said:
I have seen that fast transition didn't ever work for me. What could I be doing wrong ?

Wireless routers have claimed to use fast transition technology, but I see devices connected to routers 2 rooms away, instead of a router 6 inches away.

Some routers even suggest you name the SSID of 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz identically, and it will use some "smart" technology to switch to the perfect device. Never happened.
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You will have the most success with fast transistion when using the same firmware on both rourters, or more accurately the same linux kernel version. With OpenWRT we can configure all the fine settings like the mobility domain for fast transistion which makes it work very well indeed. And yes while we can use mesh router with wire, we are paying extra for mesh to acheive roaming of connected devices. I was able to make it work well using instructions from the video.. Note that 802.11r Fast Transition **requires** the wpad (full) package to be installed on the router after in-built version like wpad-mini has been removed (cause it conflicts). Read the comments in the video.
 
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spawnfreak said:
Precisely.
my mesh router is placed quite far from core router and gets barely enough signal to work. I'm joining them via cable for better reliability.
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Agreed wire is most relaible IMHO. My point is that we would be paying more for mesh router when we can acheive similar funtionality for less with an openwrt supported router and 802.11r Fast Transition. I am personally using fast transition with great success, using old routers which have been flashed with the **same** version of openwrt. Compared to mesh (with wired backbone) the extra work is that we still have to configure each router individually with openwrt. With a true mesh setup the problem of router is too from from the other is solved by adding a (wireless) satellite in between the two. Do have a look at tp-links omada too.. it can do mesh, hotspot, stand-alone and much more using inexpensive hardware and can scale well to cover a multi story building or office. and such large premises.
 
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lockhrt999 said:
If you get CAT cable with plugs already attached then you might not be able to route it through the wire ducts. So just get the cable and attach the plugs after routing.
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We need to use shielded cable with proper grounding to run data cables in the same duct as electricty. Unshielded cables will get electrical inteference and the data bandwith of the cable will suffer badly. We can use ordinary cable when its atleast 6 inches away. It can cross electrical wires at 90 degrees if required.. This means we cannot run the unshielded wire in existing ducting which have electrical wires.
 
gwrench2000 said:
We need to use shielded cable with proper grounding to run data cables in the same duct as electricty. Unshielded cables will get electrical inteference and the data bandwith of the cable will suffer badly. We can use ordinary cable when its atleast 6 inches away. It can cross electrical wires at 90 degrees if required.. This means we cannot run the unshielded wire in existing ducting which have electrical wires.
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How do you ground cat6 cables? Router will ground it?
 
Mumbgamer said:
How do you ground cat6 cables? Router will ground it?
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When using proper structured cabling it get grounded on the patch panel, in a similar fashion as in this video.
. Different manufacturer may have a different arrangement. For a non professional jujad diy, you may simply ground the shield of the CAT6 cable, using a wire. This should be only grounded on one side to prevent ground loop. You also need to use metal-clad RJ-45 and connectors which are specifically ment for shielded cable.
 
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