Tag: Mesh

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Home Networking

This article was written to accompany a presentation done on 22nd January 2023. All the videos embedded in the post were current at that date. They could be removed from YouTube, or replaced by later ones, at any time.

The presentation built upon one that Paul de Geus did and which is included below. I’m indebted to him for pointing me to the video from RSAweb, which is a really good and short introduction to improving Home WiFi signal, and also including at least one video in the show from PowerCert. They are so good, I’ve used them as the basis of this presentation.

I’ve also written a couple of articles that you might find it useful to refer to …

“Improving home network performance“, and

“Home networks – some notes“

Also, remember there’s a “Network issues” Forum that has several Topics relating to Home Networking, and if you have discovered a really good bit of technology, or you want help with the kit you’ve got, that would be a great place to look, or contribute to.

First however take a look at Paul’s presentation, of 2019 – yes five years ago, I can’t believe that! You can scroll through the slides using the arrow keys at the bottom of the window and make the text bigger using the +/- keys.

I suppose we should start with perhaps the main problem – a poor WiFi signal – and then work back from that to see whether we can improve our understanding of how networking works and how we can improve our Home Networking experience.

How to improve your WiFi signal at home

A more detailed look at possible quick wins are detailed in this article, and again some of the suggestions it mentions are covered later.

You might be able to improve your home WiFi by following the advice in that video and the article; indeed WiFi Extenders could do the trick (see later), but it’s probably better to understand a little more about the devices you’re using. So we start with Modem and Router. Almost always in new installations combined into one device called a Super Hub, or Smart Hub. Often an Internet Service Provider (ISP) will package that with a streaming TV service which includes the capability of recording TV channels and this will use the Hub to transmit by ethernet, or WiFi, to the TV.

Modem vs Router – What’s the difference?

So we have a device – a modem, that is connected to the internet by either a fibre-optic cable (eg VirginMedia), or DSL copper/fibre connection (eg OpenReach); it will almost always have a router with both WiFi and Ethernet ports included in it. The WiFi will normally offer two bands (wireless frequencies) at 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz. These two bands have different characteristics which are explained in the following video. [NB It’s important to note that Smart Devices mostly seem to prefer to operate on the 2.4Ghz band, so if you’re having difficulty connecting them, it might be prudent to check you have enable that band.]

2.4GHz vs 5GHz WiFi: What’s the difference?

Older WiFi devices will tend to use the 2.4GHz frequency and newer ones the 5GHz frequency. If you were experiencing poor WiFi on the 2.4GHz frequency it used to be recommended that you checked the channels that were being used in the neighbourhood and for you to change to a different one, usually 1 or 11 – the default is often 6. This is easily done by logging into your router (hub) and configuring a default channel.

However another possibility is to install a WiFi Extender. This device, as it suggests) accepts a WiFi signal from your WiFi Router (hub) and extends the signal to a part of the house where the signal is not so strong.

WiFi Extender (Booster) Explained

One of these devices may well suit your purposes and you may well be able to get one that has auto-sync that enables the network name (the Service Set Identifier or SSID) of your router to be used on the WiFi extender, but not always, and you may find yourself with two WiFi networks – one SSID for the router, another SSID for the extender, and you will have to choose your network depending upon the area of the house you are in and seamless roaming between the two will not be possible. Examples of WiFi Extenders (or Boosters) are listed here.

A different approach is to use the electric power circuits in your house to extend an ethernet network from the router (hub) to a power outlet on the same electric circuit. [NB This is the only configuration I’m happy to recommend. If you have more than one ring main, you may find that you don’t get good results when trying to connect between the two.] This technology is called Powerline and you can purchase devices that have both ethernet and WiFi capability. Again, look for ones that have auto-sync that will extend the SSID of the router to provide a single WiFi network. The video below explains how Powerline networking works.

Powerline Ethernet Networking Explained

One of our members (David Hughes) has recently installed this system, a TP-Link AV600 Powerline system which he is happy with. There are a couple of videos on that page which demonstrate how easy these new Powerline systems are to setup.

However, for some people (me included) the houses we live in are not well suited to any kind of WiFi (or ethernet) networking, and so Mesh wireless may be the solution. Interestingly most mesh systems use a dedicated 5GHz channel to let the devices “talk” to each other. In routing terms these are therefore tri-band routers. One example of a Mesh solution is the one offered by Google.

Mesh WiFi Explained

A popular Mesh solution is the one offered by BT …

How to set up your Complete Wi-fi Disc

… whilst Renee Martin has recently installed a TP-Link Deco E4 Mesh WiFi system. However, not all mesh systems are alike; some appear to work seamlessly behind your router in Access mode, others like mine require you to switch your hub into modem mode so that the main mesh hub works in Router mode. For the TP-Link system the difference between Access Mode and Router Mode is described here.

Should you be considering a Mesh system here are a some reviews – here, here and here. My system is a Netgear Orbi RBK53 one and I’m including a few screen shots from the app that you use to manage the network to describe what it does.

You have a main hub device, connected to the internet through a modem (my VirginMedia SuperHub – configured to be in modem mode), it then has two satellite hubs, one connected by an ethernet cable to my office, the other using WiFi to the back of the house which provides a WiFi facility to the upstairs, kitchen and garden. [I have tried connecting it using Powerline but there doesn’t appear to be any benefit from doing so.]

The devices connected to the satellite hub in my office at the time I took a screenshot were …

The devices connected to the satellite in the back of the house (when this map was created) were …

There are then a number of devices also connected to the Main Hub with one port being used to connect the ethernet cable to the Orbi in the office, one port connecting to a switch behind the TV (to connect the TV, HiFi etc), one to Powerline (not being used currently), and of course one to the VirginMedia Hub.

Looking at the configuration of the Orbi in the Office, you can see that it has an IP Address which it has obtained from the Main Hub. All IP addresses within the home network will always start 192.168.1.xxx – the individual devices being recognised by unique MAC addresses which are held against the IP address in the hubs.

… so when you look at the router settings on the Main Hub you can see it’s IP address is 192.168.1.1

Looking at the internet port settings of the router you can see that it has an external IP address of 86.29.24.114. This is effectively the IP address of my house. I am extremely lucky that this IP address does not seem to change – a VirginMedia “bug”, or is it because my VirginMedia Superhub is now just a modem?? This then makes it possible for me to host a server on my network, because I have a quasi-static IP address. Normally the external device is dynamically set so that when there is a power outage you may find you have been given a different external IP address.

The other setting that is interesting is the DNS server. Your ISP will have setup your router to point at their server, but these servers will usually be based in the area that it provides service to. So, it is often a good idea to change the defaults to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), or Google (8.8.4.4, or 8.8.8.8) because their servers are worldwide and so should provide quicker lookup of the directory. [NB what we’re talking about here is the translation of a friendly domain name eg google.com, to a set of four digits.] When your router is given a domain it has to look up it will look first at the the first one in your list; if it’s very busy, it will drop to the second, etc. So My router will look at Cloudflare first, then Google before dropping to VirginMedia.

That’s about it. I haven’t covered a number of topics that you might be interested in, eg

Understanding IP addresses and how they’re constructed
How a DNS Server (Domain Name System) works.
What is a Firewall?
VPN (Virtual Private Network) Explained

A few more refs. that you probably don’t need to know anything about:
Subnet mask explained
DHCP Explained – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
WiFi (Wireless) Password Security – WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA3, WPS Explained

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 28th October 2021

The last shot of me in the loft!

Thanks Jim for the screenshot. One to treasure as I’ve now moved into new luxurious accommodation! The small front bedroom!

Apologies for the delay in posting these notes. I’ve been rather busy on multiple fronts. Hopefully things will begin to settle down now that holidays are out of the way, new Macs, new office setup, etc will become distant but pleasant memories.

We started the meeting reviewing the experience of the History Group’s Hybrid (face-to-face plus zoom) meeting. Generally felt that it worked reasonably well, and once the issue of microphones and cameras were resolved and the need for an external zoom admin added, the format could work well for presentation-style meetings. This raised the possibility of attempting similar meetings for this group, which we discussed and agreed to try after Christmas. The format to be trialled would be a monthly hybrid presentation meeting with a zoom meeting in between. Ann offered to help anyone after the first hybrid meeting try and join the zoom meeting afterwards. Paul offered some help as well, I believe.

Margaret had been experiencing frustration with TalkTalk (Tiscali) and as of the meeting her contract was not to her liking. This seems to be a perennial problem with broadband suppliers.

Owen had been struggling with Google’s changes to the way it enables publishing of Calendars to web pages, but thankfully this had now been resolved.

David had been caught in the gas/electricity supply problems and was now looking at Octopus as a possible supplier. He’d also been caught in the Tesco outage. Apparently that hack had cost the company £16m!! He’d also been engaged in trying to help an IT-scared person attempt to use new equipment. He also asked for advice on cataloging art material. Currently using Powerpoint, and after discussion we agreed that although a database would have been the most suitable platform, the number of records probably didn’t justify changing, or indeed using webpages – my suggestion (of course). Steve also mentioned using Imobilise as a possibility which was linked to insurance, but there might be a registration fee.

Paul quoted his TalkTalk experiences of late which meant that he would be moving to Fibre 150 for £28pm once OpenReach had installed a new socket and modem (£42). He also reported on a recent Gadget Shop programme that had reviewed Mesh systems ranging in cost from £100 to £350. The cheapest came out the best. TPLink was recommended.

Stella had been having problems with email with attachments, realising that she needed to change the message once she’d started it. Paul suggested right-clicking on the attachment to copy and paste it to a new message.

Sianed advised that booster jabs could now be sought by contacting CAVC on 02921841234.

John told us about his saga with using Trainline to book rail tickets and the scandalous £3.60 a minute phone charges he would have had to pay to get a refund on tickets. General advice from the group was to use a train-operating company rather than a ticketing company. So GWR, TfW or VirginRail are good alternatives.

Christine is trying to make their house eco-friendly had been switching things off. The surprising by-product had been that her Powernet devices seemed to work as they were supposed to. However she now felt that the problem with her and her husband playing bridge(?) in different rooms with other remote participants might be due to using the same email address. This she was going to investigate further.

Don told us that he had a TPLink system and that he was satisfied with it.He’d been trying out Alldup (advised by Jim) and had so far saved 28Gb of disk space. He was unsure of the interface and I suggested that he contact Jim offline for a chat. He also requested advice on a USB adaptor for different sized SD-cards. These would tend to be better than the micro-SD to SD-card convertors you usually get with the smaller format cards.

Jenny‘s mouse was broken! She’d had some discussions on Covid-Passports, and had been asked to give some advice to some journalists in Northern Ireland on the subject. We felt that it was up-to-them to investigate this as their local position was different to us in Wales.

All I have recorded for Ann is “booster letters” and “energy advice” – I’m afraid the “little grey cells” can’t translate that into a meaningful note!!

Jim reported that he’d learnt something about the way that Dropbox shared folders worked. The size of them was added to both the host and the users’ local storage allocation.

Steve added to the TalkTalk discussion. He was going to pay £27pm as opposed to Margaret’s £26pm. He was also looking at the possibility of getting a Chromebook as his PC was 8 years old and might be needing a rest!

I then went through the Flipboard articles I added highlighting Apple’s new machines, operating systems and the like; the controversy surrounding Facebook after the whistle-blower episode (still ongoing); and the proposal to block scam calls coming from overseas hiding behind UK mobile phone numbers.