Agreed. Or the "hey, can you splice on a new HDMI end on a cable?"

Obviously another trade installed that cabling and somewhere along the line it got damaged. The house in now finished and all closed up. :D I love it!

Copper-Clad Steel is just fine O N L Y for cable service. Solid copper is good for all uses except long aerial drops with a shallow catenary. Since solid copper is good for all uses that we have, that's what we should always be installing.


Isn't google stuff free? And when they make changes... then you get your money's worth! No prior notice, no choices, perhaps they'll even stop offering it.

"Outrageous" should mean accurate and with no holding back for contingencies. The price will be outrageous when it's an accurate price!


This would be read "f to the nth power idiots!" I love that!


Well, good. How is it even possible for the ISP to be responsible for the speed of wifi in the home? Sure, the ISP supplies a router with wifi, but it's up to the client to accept that or to get a better one. You might mention that ISPs also only can guarantee a MINIMUM speed of even wired internet! (And because the marketing dudes always want to cite the biggest number they can cite, it's like pulling teeth to get the ISP to name the fastest guaranteed speed. They'll usually stick HARD with "speed up to _______, which is meaningless.)


Here's where the ISP's dastardly approach makes it hard to pin things down. Are they paying for "up to 400 Mbps," or "at least 400 Mbps"?


You're not willing to say it can handle everything at slower speeds? It does make sense to say that handling something at slower speeds is not handling things!


I've just looked up "backhaul" because I've never heard the term, and I've seen one explanation. Could you give us a short explanation of it? My probably erroneous understanding at this point is that to get the fastest wifi system, you need a wired connection back to the router from each access point. This, even on a mesh network, where not requiring ethernet is one of the advantages of it.


Please explain?

Thank you.

Try this: [Link: windowscentral.com]

Ah-ha!! I now wish I had read this thread prior to commenting on Craigs.

Ask a random group of people what they expect from WiFi and you're going to hear that they believe it will work for everything and everything means every thing. Ask people who are more versed in technology and you'll hear a different answer. It's sold as the golden bullet for peoples' connectivity issues- when was the last time you heard an ISP say that some wired connections are needed in order to achieve the highest speed? NEVER gonna happen. Big numbers = more and more is better, right? They never say "At least 400 Mbps". "Speed up to...." is not meaningless- it goes from zero to the stated number and I was surprised to see that the EERO is showing 480 Mbps since the customer is paying for 400. Usually, it falls short.

I try to manage their expectations bu explaining that they don't actually use or need such high seeds, but that the content will eventually require this because it will reduce congestion in the ISP's infrastructure for now- not everyone is watching TV over the internet, so their demands will be less than someone whose house has a bunch of kids who are streaming and gaming while the parents watch Netflix, or something like it. The problems result when the ISP can't provide the speed, or throttles the service. In this case, more IS better.

I was contacted by the people with the EERO when the speed was very slow- I tested and found it to be around 2Mbps, so I rebooted the network & computers, but it didn't change so I called Spectrum. The tech support guy said that maybe, the computers weren't up to the task. I had already told him they worked fine for days before I called and he just grumbled something about "Oh, I didn't mean.....". Putz.

Has anyone used one of the ASUS routers with 8 antlers?

[Link: bhphotovideo.com]

This is the model that's at the house I mentioned before, where the husband replaced everything. I left a message that I was available to look at the system and he called yesterday- I asked again if he selected TKIP or AES and he said "I think it was the first one", so, I guess he's an expert.

So much of an expert that he took it upon himself to go to the structured wiring enclosure and unplug every cable from the network switch and the cable that connects the router (in the 2nd floor office) to the switch. The Ubiquity AP was in the bedroom and, while it worked OK, the cable was run under some rugs on the floor because he had somehow concluded that "a mouse had chewed the cable in the wall". Couldn't bother to test at the jack, but that wouldn't have mattered anyway, because that's not where the problem existed.

This router has dual WAN ports and he had inserted the cable going TO the switch into the one that was left after connecting to the modem. I connected my computer to this port and had no connection but did when I tried another port. I moved the cable to the same port, connected it to the port on the wall plate that goes to the switch and found that not only did it restore the speed at all of the wall plate jacks, I found that the AP in the master BR wasn't even necessary. The speed tests were all higher than 30Mbps down, although the upload speed varied a bit- still adequate for what they'll be doing and it's very close to the speed they're supposed to see when I tested using a wired or wireless connection.

The house is large and built with materials that make RF coverage a difficult proposition but with the Engenius AP in the Sun Room on the 1st floor, it covers EVERYWHERE, including the pool house. I was actually impressed. OTOH, B&H sells this router for $350, so....

I love billable time.

Sorry Ernie, poor choice of words.

What i'm trying to explain is that for a mesh network to work decently it has to have a radio dedicated for communication between the individual units. This way its not using the same resources it has for the devices connecting to it.

ie: Cellular, wisp and wifi all work on similar principles, a cell tower for instance has either (3) 120 degree sectors on it or (4) 90 degree sectors on it that cover 360 degrees for roughly 20km (12.5miles). it is either connected back to the network via fiber or via a separate wireless link.

In my experience with wifi and wisp anything over 1 wireless hop and performance suffered. What i mean by this is assuming your mesh kit has dedicated radios for communication between the radio's you still DON'T want the one radio hardwired to be at the beginning or the end of the chain. Having it in the middle enables both wireless connected units to talk directly to the unit that is hardwired. If you have the hardwired at the beginning or the end of the chain then one unit is doing a wireless hop to the next before it hits the hardwired unit and you are creating bottleneck.

Ive got a plex server at home and i have zero problems watching 4KUHD disc rips on tv's via wifi using roku or firetv 4K sticks. Most of you are using alot more expensive wireless gear then me so their should be no issues.

Just a link to a PJ media article on unifi mesh and stuff in general:

[Link: pjmedia.com]


Interesting for some.

Someone needs to write an article on this house for an architectural magazine. It's the perfect foil for someone to BUST the myth of wireless everything.

Xfinity also has an app, so does Spectrum.  I believe they both have dvr functionality as well.

I thought I read something that the Xfinity app was supposed to "come with" Sony TVs by 2019. As you may know, that's this year...

The Xfinity app is definitely on Samsung TVs.

Yes, Intent to be a cheap ass........to hell with most builders!

Still in beta, as is DirecTVNow- it is available on Roku but integration kind of sucks due to the lack of direct input of channels from 3rd party control. We’re stuck with guide navigation only unless you just use either the Xfinity or Roku voice functions. Hoping Apple rolls this out for the upcoming event but the buzz seems to lean toward their own network options. We’ll see. The departure from the STB has been interesting, to say the least.

*Xfinity app also requires an X1 DVR on site for recording capabilities...

I've never heard of "Ruckus Mesh". Is this something new or just another phrase for Unleashed?

Unleashed is the zone-controller-less managed wifi feature of some Ruckus products. Mesh is a feature of Unleashed.

Not sure if Mesh can be done with other ruckus products or when a zone director is in the mix and you arent using Unleashed.

[Link: docs.ruckuswireless.com]

the xfinity app sucks