1gb FTTH Gigabox alternative for 50+ smart devices

woppers

TL;DR I'm looking for suggestions to replace Vodafone gigabox for a router that's fast, good wireless performance and can handle loads of connected devices.

I just got Vodafone 1gb broadband. I used to have Sky 20mb. My Sky Hub router could easily handle the 50+ devices but now I've found out the hard way that the gigabox is absolutely useless for multiple devices.

I've 50+ devices connected to my WiFi and there are more to come. I'm a small bit competent when tackling tech tasks so I'm looking for suggestions to replace the gigabox completely.

I suppose I'm looking to:
1. Comfortably connect 100ish devices in the future
2. Maintain as fast a WiFi speed as possible
3. Completely cover the whole house. 1800sq ft, 2 storey, square shape. The router will be pretty close to the centre of the house

I don't have TV or VOIP with them and I probably never will so if I lose that

I've seen various different versions of the Netgear Nighthawk mentioned on these forums. I'm open to getting my hands dirty and flashing DD wrt onto a router as I've heard it's pretty cool.

I'm not in a position to spend €500 either.

Can anyone suggest a solid replacement router please?

ED E

100 ish?

Are we talking IoT here? If so I's suggest offloading all the doorbells and smart switches onto their own net (RF wise, and maybe logically) and leaving your main net with something normal enough.

Marlow

I'd be very careful with that sort of amount of devices.

A lot of modern wifi routers are actually limited in how many wifi devices they will accept.

A 4G Mifi unit for example will only accept 8 devices. Generally, the maximum amount of devices supported depends on the memory of the router.

So ... with Vodfaones Gigabox ... it's hard to know ... but 50-100 ? Unlikely. You need to look for an enterprise solution at that point. Or something Mikrotik / Ubiquity.

AVM specifies in excess of 100 devices possible for the Fritz!Box routers. And if you mail them for a specific model, they will actually tell you what the limits are.

Just my 2c.

/M

bk

Ubiquiti is a good choice. On the more consumer level, I believe the Gogle Wifi devices have a relatively high limit. You might want to ask this question over on the Home Automation forum. Folks have experience with this over there.

woppers

Thanks for the helpful info everyone.

I was concerned that the Vodafone router was going to be a bottleneck even if I got a different router to handle the WiFi.

I ordered the AmpliFi HD and it arrived today. Amplifi's parent company is Ubiquiti so this router comes from a good pedigree. I was considering going for the Google Wifi but I love messing around with the settings so I decided on the AmpliFi because there is more configuration of you're interested in that sort of thing.

If you're not interested in playing with the configuration then this is still a savage router. Simple setup. Maybe 1-2 minutes. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's awesome.

I even think it's possible to replace the Vodafone router with this AmpliFi HD and take the Gigabox out of the pipeline altogether. I haven't had a chance to try it yet but when I do I'll post up the instructions an some screenshots of my configuration if get it going.

Here's a link to the router on Amazon. I got it for £139 which is a really nice price. for such an awesome router https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmpliFi-Model-Wireless-Router-Display/dp/B07G79VY4G/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=amplifi+hd&qid=1582234146&sprefix=Amplifi+&sr=8-3

woppers

Ok, so I got some time to take a crack at this. I had it done in less than 5 minutes. It actually took waaaaay longer to write this post And all credit and thanks go to @talla on this thread for providing the settings to configure the router. I'll post his settings after the link and add some extra info

https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057857917/1/#post106602118

I'm assuming that this will work for any router that is PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet) compatible with vlan10 tagging.... Please correct me if I'm talking through my hole.

1. Open the AmpliFi app and touch on the image of your AmpliFi HD router:








2. On the next screen click Internet







3. On the next screen click the Network Type drop-down and select PPPoE







4. Then fill in the following info

Username = <modemserialnumber>@vfieftth.ie - serial number can be found on the base of router itself. Type it in without thw angle brackets < >. An example would be something like this E1764JT285014@vfieftth.ie
Password = vodafone

Enable the VLAN ID toggle
And then type in 10 in the ID section

Optional:
Also, I changed the DNS settings to Cloudflares free, privacy first DNS servers. By bypassing your internet service providers (ISP) dns, your connection will be more secure and it will prevent your ISP from monitoring your usage and blocking access to certain websites. You can read more on why you may or may not want to do this here on Cloudflares page -> https://1.1.1.1/dns/

Primary DNS = 1.1.1.1
Secondary DNS = 1.0.0.1






5. Click the save icon and your changes should take effect and you're now in business N.B. the save icon is the checkmark on the top right-hand corner of the last image

kaahooters

id change your secondary dns from clouflare to a diffrent provider, quad 9s is also pretty secure last i checked, apart from that , looks good.

shanec1928

can buy direct from ubiquiti https://eu.store.ui.com

woppers

kaahooters wrote: »

id change your secondary dns from clouflare to a diffrent provider, quad 9s is also pretty secure last i checked, apart from that , looks good.

Nice one! I'll look into that. I'd never heard of that.

shanec1928 wrote: »

can buy direct from ubiquiti https://eu.store.ui.com

Top man, you're dead right. I never thought of looking in the Ubiquiti store. It's actually cheaper on the the Ubiquiti store at €163. It was £160 on Amazon a couple of days ago. Luckily I got it for £139 which was around €165. I'll update my guide above with this info.