PoE Access Point

[blazin]

Searched, but could not find enough data to come to a conclusion.

I need a PoE Access Point to extend the signal off my WNDR4000, located in a basement, to a room two floors above. I have about -70dBm in the room and can stream most media without issue; however, the feed from my HDHomeRun is apparently extremely hungry. I get video and sound artifacts while streaming live TV that is not evident when wired.

There is no way to easily run a wired connection from the client to my switch in the basement, otherwise this would be done.

I took a cheap route, in a moment of weakness, and purchased a TP-Link TL-WA901ND. You get what you pay for. Access Point is mounted in the garage approximately at floor level and within 20 feet of client in question. Signal power is reading better than existing solution at -60dBm; however, throughput is obviously lesser as artifacts are worse.

So, this will be returned and replaced with a different unit.


I do not have PoE Switch, so I will need an injector.

EnGenius EAP350 Kit for ~$125
or
Ubiquiti Unifi AP-LR for ~$100

Price is nearly the same, so at this point, which is the better product? The Ubiquiti seems to have great reviews, but again, hard to tell if it is being used in a similar situation.

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

I am confused by your post. You are asking for a PoE powered AP, but say you can't run the Ethernet cable that you would need to power it?

 

[blazin]

I am confused by your post. You are asking for a PoE powered AP, but say you can't run the Ethernet cable that you would need to power it?

I can run ethernet to the AP, I cannot run it to the client.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for clearing that up.

You can convert any router to an AP. Since you are using an injector, PoE support doesn't matter.

Your problem might be due to wireless congestion. Have you run a scan?

What class is the client you are trying to connect?

 

[blazin]

Thanks for clearing that up.

You can convert any router to an AP. Since you are using an injector, PoE support doesn't matter.

Your problem might be due to wireless congestion. Have you run a scan?

What class is the client you are trying to connect?

PoE is for the AP, can routers pull their power off PoE injection? I didn't think that was possible. Already have a cat6 running to AP location to be fed by PoE injector. There is no power available at AP location.

Congestion -- I used android wifi analyzer to determine the selection of Ch 1 for the AP, existing wireless router on Ch 11. There are 3 neighboring networks they reside on Channels 1, 6, and 11. So my 2 networks will have low power signals sitting on any channel I select.

AP is configured as different SSID as the networks actually overlap and the consumer grade equipment will not handle change over automagically.

Client is using a RNX-N180UBE as it is very small HTPC without internal card support. Windows networking reports 270Mbps Speed, I can't imagine I'd truly be getting that speed and having this issue.

 

[thiggins]

You can get non standard PoE injectors that will let you power just about anything. You just need to check the specs and pay attention to the length of the run to ensure you have enough power.

The Rosewill client is an odd duck. It says it is an 1T/2R, supporting 300 Mbps downlink. But with only one antenna connected, it is gonna get confused as to the link rate it can actually operate at.

I recommend you replace the Rosewill USB adapter with an N600 wireless Ethernet bridge. That will provide more placement flexibility and will give you a true 2x2 (N300) link.

 

[blazin]

You can get non standard PoE injectors that will let you power just about anything. You just need to check the specs and pay attention to the length of the run to ensure you have enough power.

The Rosewill client is an odd duck. It says it is an 1T/2R, supporting 300 Mbps downlink. But with only one antenna connected, it is gonna get confused as to the link rate it can actually operate at.

I recommend you replace the Rosewill USB adapter with an N600 wireless Ethernet bridge. That will provide more placement flexibility and will give you a true 2x2 (N300) link.

You think bypassing the AP all together and replacing the USB adapter with a bridge will perform better? Trying to understand the topology you're referring to.

 

[thiggins]

You could try that. Or just use the arrangement you have and substitute the bridge for the USB adapter at the client.

 

[blazin]

You could try that. Or just use the arrangement you have and substitute the bridge for the USB adapter at the client.

Good Idea, I'm going to try bypassing the AP first and see what happens. Rather 2 devices than 3.

 

[blazin]

Flashed an old WRT310N to DDWRT last night, tried that as a bridge. Believe the performance was a bit better, this leads me to believe it is related to the Rosewill USB adapter performance.

After doing some more reading on the site, a few questions:

If WMM is disabled, will link speeds still be listed per the PHY output? ie 54Mbps true link but 300Mbps listed in the windows utility?

There was an issue a while back where my WRT310N was becoming flaky, but at the same time my wife's Ipad 2 was super slow and I believe the fix required disabling WMM. I'll have to double check this evening, but if Windows will say 54Mbps when WMM is disabled, then I can rule that out remotely.

Old post about topology suggests utilizing the equipment for one task rather than catch-alls. I agree with this, do you think there's potential to increase throughput if I disable my router's wireless and rely on the AP solely to provide the wifi?

I plan on running the NetMeter tonight on these machines to have true relative data comparison of each method, but any insight up front would be useful.

Thanks!

 

[blazin]

In the interest in helping others in the future:

1. Flashed TP-Link with latest firmware to allow for Static IP (yes didn't work out of the box)
2. Enabled WMM on Netgear Router (disabled originally because I believe it slows Ipad2 performance with old Linksys)
3. Ran NetMeter on wired unit running HDHomeRun to gauge throughput needs.. just as suspected 25Mbps MAX.
4. USB Rosewill <-> Netgear 120Mbps link speed, seems to be fixed now that WMM is enabled
5. USB Rosewill <-> TP-Link 270Mbps link speed, still borked.

Weak link here seems to be TP-Link device or the PoE/Cat6 routing path. I was not particularly careful with spacing it appropriately from HD OTA RG6 and 120V so there could be interference on the backend causing the wireless link to be questionable, but with 10x the bandwidth I'd expect this to be a non-issue.

End of story I think still comes down to my original conclusion, you get what you pay for. RMA for the TP-Link is already in hand, just awaiting some more real world data to print and ship this thing out the door.

Thanks for the help, hope this thread aids someone else in the future!