Rock solid WiFi configurations, plans and equipment

[Captain Morgan]

Hello all,

I've been searching through the wifi chats on various boards, would still like to revisit my requirements and know what the best options are.

Does anyone know by what means I could access the Xfinity mesh of hotspots and connect / authenticate with my account?

Secondly, I have a Netgear WiFi router w 4 1GB lan ports and I would still like to use this. Obviously I can't provide an internet path to it via cable modem, but it does have 2.4 and 5gz so I might could use a DD-WRT AutoAP repeater type setup to connect to xfinity or open signals on one of the bands then NET on the other band for a home network.

I'm not really interested in paying for cell coverage but would consider this as a BU plan.

Most of the WiFi boosters and antenna things offered use a USB input to a single device and I would rather try to put that singal in to my Netgear router for multiple devices and wifi rebroadcast.

Bottom line - I'm looking for a way to use an external antenna to grep wifi long range and use free or paid internet in order to reliably work from home. If you are actually DOING THIS I'm very interested in your equipment and service. This is time sensitive and I need to test some solutions in the next week.

Please let me know about your successes or PM me if you don't want to state publically.

Thanks in advance!

 

[8Muddypaws]

Too many unknowns when you're away from home.

Using a DDWRT box as a repeater can indeed boost the range of your home access point/router.  Not sure if the wired ports on a DDWRT extender are active.  Never tried it.  Hooking up a repeater to a hotel/RV park network can be difficult. Depends on how it's managed.

I have never seen an xfinity access point anywhere we've gone in our motorhome.  Seen them in a few restaurants but that's it.  Nor do they work well enough to call them 'rock solid'.

We use RV park WiFi until it gets bad and then switch over to a Verizon hotspot that supports 5 concurrent devices.

 

[Isaac-1]

I am running a TP-Link 842ND (older version before they locked down the firmware) running Open-WRT, similar to DD-WRT in wifi client mode in order to provide wired internet to computers and printers in a detached portable building being used as a small office, overall it seems to work well, though occasionaly requires rebooting (every few months).    It is connecting to another TP-Link router running Open-WRT at the other end of the link about a hundred or so feet away.  This setup is running in Client Bridge mode to share access to the printers, etc.  but I suspect the same sort of setup in non-bridged client router mode might work for you, though I suspect you would have to set up some forwarding rules to allow sign in connection over the link.

 

[Captain Morgan]

Thanks. I'm pretty sure that if I load DD-WRT for this NetGear NightHawk 7500 V2 then I'll be able to bridge from external WAN to internal LAN on this same device.

I really want to do all the connection and auth on the router and not have to log in to xfinity on each laptop etc in order to get internet access.

Plus I run everything through a VPN tunnel.

Even If I buy something like this WAVLINK AC1200 and plug it in to the IN port on my router, I still need an internet source to grep from.

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[Captain Morgan]

After 2 weeks in forums and countless hours in research and phone calls, I think I have the solution I want to try.

Essentially it would include Pepwave Max Br1 MK2 CAT-6 LTE-Advanced Mobile Router and some choice of AIO omni directions antenna or individual antennas.

This Br1 MK2 and antennas will essentially replace the cable modem and talk to the outside world in the ways I've prescribed. It will use the WiFi and cell data together for internet.

I would retain my NetGear NightHawk 7500 V2 as my wifi router and internal network with 4 1gb LAN ports and all the administration and security features I'm used to.

Between the MK2 and my own router there would then be multiple layers of firewall and filtering and NAT.

With regard to the MK2 I have to decide which type antennas to go with. Will I use the longer and more expensive antennas with higher gain or will I just use an AIO that's low profile and a single thing to mount up top.

I've looked at a myriad of products from hotspots to boosters etc and I feel like this is the best overall get it done right for my needs solution.


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[NY_Dutch]

Don't expect blazing speeds from Xfinity, Comcast, Spectrum, etc, "hotspots". They typically are just guest accounts sharing a limited amount of the host business account's bandwidth. Of the various AP's I've tested in our travels, I think the fastest speed I've seen was just a bit under 5 Mbps down and about 1 Mbps up. Shoving everything through a VPN would cut that down a bit as well.

 

[Captain Morgan]

Ya second that, but it's enough bandwidth to WFH without some lame-assed excuse and compensate for the cell data I won't have to encroach upon.

I was just at an Applebees to get get my drink on, and the wifi is pretty abysmal.

A lot depends on the # of customers too to in the wee hours there's less competition.

In the wee hours I can Dl all seasons of "I Dream Of Jeanie" if I care too and I don't really care about the speed then.

.

 

[johnhicks]

  Look for relatively even gain across the frequency range you expect to operate on.

 

[Lou Schneider]

About 20 years ago there was a group in San Francisco who developed an experimental network covering most of the city using regular short range WiFi, before the FCC allowed the extended range WiMax deployment.  I was in an RV park in South San Francisco and tried several ways to connect to their hub on San Bruno Mountain about 2 air miles away from me.

The  problem was the more I improved my antenna, the more WiFi signals I heard and the throughput went down as the modem had packet collisions with the other signals.

I found the most effective arrangement was to use a unidirectional antenna to provide a very narrow transmit and receive aperture (about a 7 degree cone in the main lobe) so I wasn't affected by the off axis signals that would have been received by an omnidirectional antenna.  And they didn't hear my signal either.  In essence I had a private channel between my modem and the mountaintop.

If I rotated the antenna in another direction I could connect to the WiFi in a motel office about 500 feet away across a 4 lane highway, again with minimum interference from other signals.

Here's the type of antenna I used.  Scroll down the page for a good discussion about how different antennas work.

https://www.simplewifi.com/products/parabolic-grid

 

[Captain Morgan]

Hi Lou,

Your experience and explanation is architecturally sound. I've installed long range line of sight WiFi before across college campuses and for private business.

I've even used a cantenna setup to narrowly target wifi and bluetooth from a more than 100 yards.

You recommendation is definitely a good one for some folks looking for a target at a distance.

.

 

[Geotrash]

About 20 years ago there was a group in San Francisco who developed an experimental network covering most of the city using regular short range WiFi, before the FCC allowed the extended range WiMax deployment.  I was in an RV park in South San Francisco and tried several ways to connect to their hub on San Bruno Mountain about 2 air miles away from me.
https://www.simplewifi.com/products/parabolic-grid

I remember this! I sat next to the founder of that startup on a flight from SFO to JFK around that same time and we had a great conversation about the underlying technology involved.