SIRO and Mesh WiFi

cracker

Hi

I am thinking of moving from VM to an SIRO Provider, probably DIGIWEB or Vodafone. But I am also looking to get a mesh WiFi solution like Orbi or google mesh. Has anyone used a mesh solution with either Vodafone or DIGIWEB? And if so do you replace the supplied modem/router or Bridge it?

Thanks

Dave

Digiweb

Either with ourselves If replacing our Fritzbox, just make sure router that you choose supports Vlan ID's

ED E

Google Wifi does not support VIDs so is a bad choice.

MBSnr

cracker wrote: »

Hi

I am thinking of moving from VM to an SIRO Provider, probably DIGIWEB or Vodafone. But I am also looking to get a mesh WiFi solution like Orbi or google mesh. Has anyone used a mesh solution with either Vodafone or DIGIWEB? And if so do you replace the supplied modem/router or Bridge it?

Thanks

Dave

I use the supplied Digiweb Fritzbox 7560 and a separate 7530 which I bought afterwards. They both run as a WiFi mesh. The master sets the WiFi settings to the slave devices.

However the WiFi mesh is a little misleading. From my understanding, to get the access point to actually instruct your device to move to another access point with a better signal, your device has to support 802.11v 802.12k and 802.11r standards. A lot of Android devices don't. iPhone does As such even with a mesh network your Android device will make the switching decision about which access point it connects to, kinda defeating the mesh setup.
You could effectively just use different access points setup on different WiFi channels and the effect is the same. Since most of my devices are Android and don't support the standards, I'm not benefiting from the mesh setup as much as an iPhone user would.

These kind of explain it

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT202628

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/network/fast-roaming-with-802-11k--802-11v--and-802-11r

ED E

MBSnr wrote: »

A lot of Android devices don't. iPhone does

Ehm, thats a bit misleading. SOME iPhones do. The same goes for Android. In fact lots of the most popular devices support 11v.

Just as one example, Samsung:

Galaxy S10e (SM-G970)
Galaxy S10 (SM-G973)
Galaxy S10+ (SM-G975)
Galaxy Note 9 (SM-N960)
Galaxy S9+ (SM-G965)
Galaxy S9 (SM-G960)
Galaxy Note 8 (SM-N950)
Galaxy S8+ (SM-G955)
Galaxy S8 (SM-G950)
Galaxy A8 2018 (SM-A530)
Galaxy J3 POP (SM-J327)
Galaxy A5 2017 (SM-A520)
Galaxy Xcover 4 (SM-G390)
Galaxy S7 Edge (SM-G935)
Galaxy S7 (SM-G930)
Galaxy Note 5 (SM-N920)
Galaxy S6 Edge+ (SM-G928)
Galaxy S6 Edge (SM-G925)
Galaxy S6 (SM-G920)

If you've an S5 you may as well be on windows 95 in terms of keeping current.

OnePlus 5T and 6T have it too though the 6 doesn't so there are exceptions but if your device isnt ancient the odds are pretty good.

MBSnr

ED E wrote: »

Ehm, thats a bit misleading. SOME iPhones do. The same goes for Android. In fact lots of the most popular devices support 11v.

Just as one example, Samsung:


If you've an S5 you may as well be on windows 95 in terms of keeping current.

OnePlus 5T and 6T have it too though the 6 doesn't so there are exceptions but if your device isnt ancient the odds are pretty good.

From the link I posted all iPhones from the 5c/s support 802.11v and the 4s onwards support 802.11k. Both required for full Fritzbox mesh functionality. I'm not sure many are still using the iPhone 4s that buy mesh devices...

As for Android devices. Of the 8 in my house, only the Samsung has both k and v. These include Honor devices only a few months old. My guess is that many cheaper Chinese Android devices probably lack 802.11v support and they make up the larger percentage of devices out there - certainly tablets anyhow.

65535

Fritzbox FRITZ!OS: 07.01 supports Mesh working

MBSnr

65535 wrote: »

Fritzbox FRITZ!OS: 07.01 supports Mesh working

Yeap it does, but v7.10 is required for mesh steering (auto move from one access point to another). Earlier versions support band steering (auto move from 2.4Ghz to 5GHz Freq and vice versa).

Anyhow according to Fritzbox all clients have to support 802.11v/k for mesh and band steering to function.