Finally Sick of UBNT. Need AP -Without- Corp. Network

[Quantum`]

Wow, just what I was looking for Trip.

I now understand what ppl here were talking about, the "controller". In UBNT's case it's their proprietary app or their 'cloud'. But it can also be actually built in to the AP, which it turns out is what I've been looking for.

As is evident above, when in doubt I usually default to Netgear, commercial when possible, and I was vacillating between the NH MK62 and Orbi SRK60 systems.

The Cisco device is apparently good but the Ruckus, although I'm sure it is excellent, is just way too much dough for what it is supposed to do.

And I am all about the scrappy upstart. That's why I originally went with UBNT, but they've just gotten too sewn up in themselves I think. The tech equivalent of a bureaucracy.

Grandstream's GWN7630 looks like just what I have been looking for. No slimey marketing and 'human emotions' (ugh) to wade through only to get to hollow specs. Grandstream's intuitive website indicates compentency, and hard-butt specs are there for us hard-asses. It has everything except 6 or 6E, but is only $108? Incredible. Like UBNT's old days. Worth betting on.

I build ICF houses (concrete, non-combustible), and need workarounds for poor signal in both wifi and mobile, on all three (concrete) floors. I may now have the wifi problem solved but still need a mobile solution. Weboost is the only option I've found in the morass of junk that actually works, but it's >$500. Maybe that's for another time. No idea how common the ability to make wifi calls is on mobiles.

BTW, I've thrown the scanner down the stairs. Now it's fallen and can't get up. Had to go to Office Depot to get my scans. Now forced to research a scanner which I don't have time for.

 

[coxhaus]

I have a scanner I would give you if you are close as I use my iPhone now. Why Grandstream? I would use more main stream APs not an off brand.

I use Wi-Fi calling every day and so does my wife as my old house does not let the cell signal in the house. So the only way to make a phone call on my iPhone in my home is Wi-Fi. Roaming using Wi-Fi calling is a real problem with a lot of APs. Stick with name brands.

 

[Quantum`]

Thanks coxhaus, but I'd lived 50 years in Dallas and that was just enough. No women. Open the door first thing in the morning and the heat slaps you in the face...

There was a time when Ubiquiti was an off-brand. But I could see the merit in their products, and early reviews were almost universally positive, as is the case with GS.

At the price I've taken the risk. Goodbye Ubiquiti.

So iPhone can make wifi calls. If Samsung can that should cover most users. I'll check into whether my Moto X4 can, since I run AFWall+ from F-Droid. (With wifi On in your phone, the WAN is a hole into your LAN without a firewall)

 

[coxhaus]

I like to walk around talking on the iPhone as I may need to look at something or read a code and I hate when the phone call drops because I had to walk in another room. I would trash the equipment as it makes me real mad to drop in the middle of a conversation. So check your roaming if you use more than 1 AP.

I have not heard of any Wi-Fi hacks at home. It doesn't mean there aren't any.

 

[Quantum`]

I have exactly the same problem with calls dropped, especially infuriating when I've been on hold for 45 minutes. (I'm over a hill, TMobile) But it never occurred to me to try wifi calling.

Hmm, it seems that the Moto X4 (non-Amazon versions) does wifi calling, HD voice, volte, Hotspot, and CCF 'beautifully'.

Thanks for helping me solve this beplaguing problem .

 

[Quantum`]

I do seem to have wifi calling enabled but I can't be sure. With wifi on I see network traffic while the call is established, but no more during the call; it may be below the reporting threshold. The real test will be tomorrow.

More good news is that wifi calls are made over a military-grade IPSec tunnel, which is automatically set up. If you have a tight LAN you must open ports 500/udp & 4500/udp outgoing in order for it to set up the tunnel.

 

[ddaenen1]

I have Cisco WAP571 and am very satisfied with them. I have 3 in one cluster and they just do what they have to do without too much hassle. And as coxhaus mentioned, very easy to set up.

 

[Quantum`]

So I cast around to Aruba, Cisco, Netgear, Ruckus, etc, and asked on SmallNetBuilder, and Trip recommended Grandstream. I checked them out and they're the scrappy upstart with great equipment at low prices now AND the controller is -built in- to the device. One AP is the master, and you can add up to 256 slaves which are identical to the master but in slave mode! 4x4 MU-MIMO, which means 4 independent data streams, of different orientations, and beam steering! Unbelievable.

So I bought their GWN7630 ($105, eBat) and got it set up today. Quite a learning process for corporate-scale wifi, but they have been very competent at making it as simple as is possible, given all the new and highly advanced technologies.

When I first connected it (PoE) it would start out with the SSID it should (GWN{last6ofMAC}), but then flopped over to four other SSIDs instead of the default! (IP-COM, IP-COM-Guest, IP-COM-Admin, IP-COM-CORP) Huh? Is this normal? Is this just what Grandstream does, and if so why do the instructions say it should be GWN{last6ofMAC}?

I decided that it is abnormal, and maybe I have a neighbor with this same system since it says "Paired". (Paired"? With what?) Wrapped it in alum foil... same syndrome. Then it hit me: Grandstream's Cloud. You can set these up standalone, or in their 'cloud'. That imbecile had removed (or stolen) the AP from the cloud without disassociating it, and on boot it's reaching out to Grandstream's cloud and finding it 'belongs'. Turning off my router's outside interface resulted in correct behavior, an SSID of GWN{last6ofMAC}.

That little adventure cost me a day. Should have bought new from NewEgg instead of saving $11.

Spent this morning learning my way around the system, setting up exactly as I want and prioritizing wifi calling, beam-steering, etc. Now my notebook *BAM* associates and I get throughput of 433MHz consistently, using an old Intel wifi card in the notebook, and I have twice the signal strength with 5GHz set to Low power.

Clearly though the MAC can still escape to their cloud (likely through port 80 or 443) so I have to block its MAC in my firewall.

Some GWN7630 pr0n:

 

[Trip]

@Quantum` - Glad it appears to be working well for you! Well done!

 

[coxhaus]

Clearly though the MAC can still escape to their cloud (likely through port 80 or 443) so I have to block its MAC in my firewall.

I am not sure that is considered working well. But I am old school.

 

[Quantum`]

True, when GS support told me I have to have the "unauthorized" seller de-register it in their 'cloud', I passed that along to the seller. Quickly I got an email from the seller basically saying, "Ok, Ok, send it back and I'll give you a full refund." (hmm)

I don't want a big loogie hanging out there in case this thing is stolen, so I responded, "Ok send me a label." Then I found a new one even cheaper from CompSource! So that's on the way. My config is dumped and ready to upload.

In any case, Shorewall setting on my WAN and VPN exit points is:
# Stop the AP from getting out:
DROP net:~C0-74-AD-0A-A7-24 outWG all - -

So I guess for the concrete houses I'm building, one GWN7630 for each of the 3 floors should be plenty for wifi and wifi calling. One master and two slaves, and the master can hand out IPs for all. Turning the AP one way, the LEDs look like sad eyes, but turning it another looks like a peace symbol... (showing my age)... but maybe that doesn't matter for ceiling mount.

And I guess it doesn't matter which floor gets the master, but they all must be connected by wire to a PoE switch in the equipment room. Maybe that switch could also be an appliance firewall? Fiber will go to each home, so a direct ethernet line from the ONT to the switch/firewall.

Meanwhile on the scanner, I haven't found a suitable replacement yet. I've about decided I'd like to have a sheet feeder, as long as it actually works. I suspicion many don't.

To connect it, as it'll likely be USB only, I've decided that rather than run yet another wire from my (excellent) Netgear GS728TP with a usb-to-rj45, I might as well get a usb-to-wifi adapter (and USB-B to A adapter from Monoprice).

I'm going with Netgear for this wifi adapter, just because I trust them and it's not a good idea to mix and match too much. Prob the A6150 since it's the most current and is dual-band. Chances are the scanner will be USB2 so doubt 5GHz will work, but this adapter is only about $10 more than an 802.11n. Might as well buy dual-band. I'm the only one in my neighborhood on 5GHz... everyone else is crowded on 2.4 channel 6, lol. (WIFI MAN app, F-Droid))

Anyone know why the WIFI SNR app always registers 0dB for SNR? It's wrong. It's just wrong.

I'm presuming that all such usb-to-wifi are client type...

Now to work out the most advanced HVAC.

I castigate my son for using wifi cameras at 2.4GHz, generating RF pollution for all users in the neighborhood. But he's 44 and usually doesn't listen to my stupid advice.

 

[unmesh]

4x4:4 AP for a hundred bucks is crazy good and they seem to have added DFS support in a recent software upgrade.

They could give the TP-Link Omada APs stiff competition if the software turns out to be good.

Anyone know what chipset they are using?

 

[Quantum`]

Yes I took off the heat-transfer pads after I took the pic, but it wouldn't have helped as the printing is so faint it was almost impossible to read even with my Coil glasses.

The center chip is a Mediatek MT7621AT 5 port switch.

Upper two chips are Mediatek MT7615N highly-integrated AP chips.

Lower-left is an ATO AFND1G08U3-CKA 1GB NAND flash chip.

I am not getting 2.4GHz for some reason. Their support has been responsive so I'll ask them.

On the scanner wifi adapter, I'm beginning to surmise that they need a firmware upload from the client device... this could be a problem.

I would never trust TP-Link. Owned and controlled by Red China.

 

[Trip]

Also nice thing about MediaTek chips is that I believe AQM/SQM is baked into the drivers on both their wired switch and wifi chips, so you get de-bloating on all interfaces -- a very nice addition to the overall package.

 

[Krisbi]

Not sure what a local-only controller option is,

Some/Many noname/named vendors have inbuilt controllers for central management of some dozens of access points which belong to the same VLAN. Personally I use Aruba and started with Grandstream GWN7630/GWN7630LR lately and replaced MikroTik devices with them. What I currently don´t like about GWN7630/GWN7630LR:
- No SNMP support. I found an older manual which described it, but they decided to remove it.

- No airtime fairness. I don´t know that feature really helps a lot when there are more people connected. According to an old wiki.devi homepage the MT7615 supports it. So no big deal. Just compiling some kernel modules and enabling GUI options.
(The older GWN7610 has airtime features enabled, btw.)
For both I created feature requests some months ago. I´m still optimistic that they support both features someday...

 

[Quantum`]

Hmm, on the GWN7630 I find that when creating a new SSID... it just never comes on. I tried making an SSID for 2.4GHz and another for 5GHz, and neither one comes up.

But the (default? existing?) SSID with the grayed-out trashcan works on 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and dual.

I don't want my 5GHz broadcasting the SSID. And I want to be able to choose which band I connect to by SSID.

Latest firmware.

 

[Quantum`]

Update: Agh, nothing from Support in 5 days. it drops out every 5 minutes or so for about 15 seconds.

The new one I ordered from CompSource for some reason took 7 full days to arrive all the way from from Mira Loma, CA. And what did I find in the box? A cheap plastic stand for a microphone instead of my AP. Lost trust so filed for a return and refund from them and bought on NewEgg.

But with Support not responding I am having second thoughts about Grandstream. Only one functioning SSID? So my LAN traffic can randomly connect at 2.4GHz or 5GHz, even though I have Band Steering set to "5GHz in priority"?! And WIFI CALLING DOES NOT WORK?!

Does anyone know whether the Aruba 515 has an internal controller? And whether wifi calling actually works? How about the Cisco 240AC?

 

[Trip]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the GWN APs... it is a young product line, but something as basic as two SSIDs should be perfectly doable with any small biz product. Also disappointing to hear about their lack of support. My personal apologies for suggesting it. Needless to say, I'll probably withdraw them from consideration in any future product recommendations (at least until plenty of evidence to suggest they've cleaned up their act...).

If you're looking for a new solution, in the small biz space I would look at AC-class Cisco WAP300 or 500 series or EnGenius APs. They both have working implementations, especially Cisco's (WAP code has been the same for years and is pretty much completely stable at this point). If you're entertaining enterprise products, I would look at Aruba Instant or Ruckus Unleashed -- Cisco's enterprise offering is Aironet/Catalyst, but I think you may find it to be prohibitively expensive.

 

[MichaelCG]

Not sure how an AP will make WiFi calling not work? Or is it that it isn’t stable? An AP is a Layer2 bridge and for the most part should care less about the traffic type flowing over it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Quantum`]

Thanks Trip, not your fault. You've done nothing but give high-grade advice.

So the Aruba AP-555 is confirmed to have an internal controller and wifi6, but $820? Nah, not for this.

The Cisco WAP581 has way too much sales talk, and is not wifi6 (like the Grandstream) but has similar features. Supports up to 16 slaves, and does appear to have internal controller. I think I can depend on this for smooth wifi calling handoffs. $230.

The Engenius EWS377AP is wifi6, WPA3, 8 antennae, it seems to have stand-alone management, mentions 'mesh' mode, has raucous Tx power of 23dBm in 5GHz. $314.

What sayeth thee?