Time for a new router?

[Nicklebon]

Geez, that was the ONE LINE that IBM/Lenovo had to make to compete with the other crappy 'home' computers out there. I wouldn't judge the book by that paper cover.

I have one Lenovo that was on 24x7 as a server at a hotel for 10 years and that has now seen another 10 years of duty after being rotting in a utility chase for at least 5 years. And the workstation Lenovo for that hotel that was connected to that same server is also still going strong today. Lenovo's normal/business line is just as good as Dell/HPs except they were a little faster on the same specs or at least felt faster.

LOL ... Go back and read my post clarifying what was meant by the term ... PS I worked for the PC Co back then and I will never bad mouth an Aptiva they did exactly what they were supposed to do and did it well. Beyond case design the internals were virtually identical to the "business class" PCs. The primary difference was support level and shipped OS options. I bet if I looked hard I could find a Scraptiva in my collection along with the logo my friend made for them. I will also point out that I am typing this on a Lenovo Thinkstation using an OLD model M keyboard. Old loyalties die hard.

 

[Nicklebon]

It is, but not really since it's more like pfsense in that you have to mess with the OS to get it working. All the usual names like fortigate, etc 'just work'.

Hard to go wrong with a Fortigate. As you say they just work. They cover the full range from ultra low to ultra high end with integrated wireless and switch controllers across the line. You can toss in a switch and few APs and manage the lot from single interface. I've a 101F here running fiber and cable circuits with an LTE backup for giggles tossed into an "SDWAN" interface which let's one do all sorts interesting things with outbound traffic.

 

[ochadd]

It's worth considering separating routing/NAT/VPN from your WIFI. PFsense router and used Aruba IAP access points. I have dozens of Aruba APs deployed in offices and manufacturing facilities with zero fails over the last seven years. One deployment as a single AP centrally located on the bottom floor of a two story office building, probably 6000+ square feet. Wall to wall connectivity with less than perfect, yet solid, connectivity at the fringes.

My default recommendation for normal people's homes is to buy a decent middle-of-the-road WIFI router with external antennas. Centrally locate it if at all possible and try to get vertically above the equipment you want to connect. First upgrade path is better antennas on the router and end points if possible. Beyond that I'd go corporate/enterprise equipment. I have no experience with all the home style mesh network stuff. I think of all that as the messy middle. Keep it simple and then if simple won't work just do it right. More APs closer to the end users that need signal.

Can always call an electrician to have some cabling ran. Sometimes you can go straight up an outside wall of your house and punch a whole in the wall. Hide the cable behind gutters. I've run a cable through HVAC ducting to get where it needs to be and power the AP with POE.

 

[philb2]

And not everyone is a gamer.

 

[Keljian]

And not everyone is a gamer.

I’m predominantly not a gamer. Low latency is important for other things (eg telecons) but extreme low latency isn’t.

 

[Keljian]

Getting good QoS on a 1gbps router for home use is not easy, cheap, or straightforward in 2022 - there is no "standard" advice on this. Add any sort of firewall to it (eg if you've got external facing ports) and it becomes more complicated again.

And yes, you need QoS on it despite having gobs of bandwidth. Latency != Bandwidth.

 

[Nicklebon]

And yes, you need QoS on it despite having gobs of bandwidth. Latency != Bandwidth.

That is absolute killer nic type bunk. QoS only has a positive impact on an oversubscribed circuit or device. The mere fact of processing packets into queues, required for qos, will negatively impact latency ... More processing = more latency. The only way to reduce latency on a device that is not oversubbed is to reduce inspection not increase. Move your gaming consoles to a untrusted vlan and inspect nothing. Never mind that in consumer world all that QoS and any CoS bits you may have set gets tossed the second it leaves your router and onto the isp network and beyond where the vast majority of latency occurs.

 

[Keljian]

That is absolute killer nic type bunk. QoS only has a positive impact on an oversubscribed circuit or device. The mere fact of processing packets into queues, required for qos, will negatively impact latency ... More processing = more latency. The only way to reduce latency on a device that is not oversubbed is to reduce inspection not increase. Move your gaming consoles to a untrusted vlan and inspect nothing. Never mind that in consumer world all that QoS and any CoS bits you may have set gets tossed the second it leaves your router and onto the isp network and beyond where the vast majority of latency occurs.

right.. so if I'm downloading something (linux iso?) and my better half is streaming something, it's going to be oversubscribed. You're also not taking into account where I come from.

 

[Nicklebon]

You're also not taking into account where I come from.

No I'm responded to an absolute statement made by you. If you want to qualify that statement retroactively that's fine but the statement I responded to had zero qualifications. QoS/CoS is good stuff especially in conjunction with oversubbed mpls/private wan links and a carrier that supports it but it is not a miracle cure and in many, not all, cases borders on snake oil in consumer environments. In every case it requires the implementer to understand exactly wtf they are doing.

And yes, you need QoS on it despite having gobs of bandwidth.

 

[Keljian]

No I'm responded to an absolute statement made by you. If you want to qualify that statement retroactively that's fine but the statement I responded to had zero qualifications. QoS/CoS is good stuff especially in conjunction with oversubbed mpls/private wan links and a carrier that supports it but it is not a miracle cure and in many, not all, cases borders on snake oil in consumer environments. In every case it requires the implementer to understand exactly wtf they are doing.

"When someone on your network sends a large file, a lot of packets get sent all at once. The router temporarily "buffers those packets", holding them before they’re sent. Any new data packets get stuck behind the existing queue of buffered packets. They will arrive at the destination much later than if the router’s buffers hadn't been full." - https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat - the same is true for when you are downloading files. A particular circumstance I cited earlier was when streaming video (eg netflix/hulu etc etc).

You would need a substantial amount of bandwidth to overcome the effects of bufferbloat on a wan link with 1-2 streamers, vs just having SQM set up correctly to limit the effects.

 

[SamirD]

It has routerOS out of the box, and is set up and good to go from the get go. (Obviously you should change the password and harden it if deploying into production, but still) .. All mikrotik stuff these days comes with an appropriate OS on it …

Good to know.

Would have been better to know without some stupid yt dork's face in the post, though. Why is it that every one of these dweebs have to make the most retarded face?

 

[SamirD]

Is it really in this context? It's 2022, QoS isn't a new concept. Its really an old one, that marketing rolled out too early, died in the minds of consumers, and then the engineers really got to work. There is really some divergence in QoS styles between enterprise and consumer markets, the later mostly focused on gaming latency issues, the former well a mixed bag of implementations techniques. I don't know of a jack of all trades in this area myself. I know several enterprise routers very good with their implementations of QoS that if they added CAKE could capture a significant portion of the market from consumer via gamers. And I know some consumer routers pretty good with their implementations of QoS but they are limited in other areas. Basically pick what is important is all you can do as far as I know.

But that is specific for low latency in gaming when you have to have the lowest latency. If you can forgo the lowest latency their then SMB/Enterprise all the way. My neighborhoods FB is flooded with people clamoring for symetrical gigabit because they have too many users at home. Being the geek I am my wife asked me why I'm not in those conversations (aside from its FB, of course). I told her because we have an enterprise router and I know how to manage our 400/20 line which is even more than we need for 4 users always on streaming TVs, plex, VOIP etc. We could go down in bandwidth and be fine. They are complaining because they have crap routers, or more probably crap wifi APs/combo router (because honestly who besides the geeks runs standalone APs for wifi, can a I get an AMEN!) or can't use what they have correctly. Honestly as expensive as the CableCo who has a monopoly makes it right now, if my neighbors wouldn't think I was nuts, I'd offer to extend my lan to both sides of my house and split the bill three ways. That would be 10 users, 7 IPTVS, various cameras, laptops etc and would be easy on 400/20 line with my router.

I dunno honestly. I use enterprise gear and don't have any latency issues with my wife's voip and video calls while I'm using multiple RDP sessions--and this is just with a normal cable connection that is pretty much like yours--600/20.

I think the reason qos still even exists is for environments where there is truly insufficient bandwidth. But otherwise, most modern (and even not so modern) enterprise routers have done the trick for years now.

As far as lower latency--that's just a concept, gaming or not (gaming is nothing special, just needs low latency). And there are ways to keep latency consistent or as low as possible, but if the issue is in the router, you typically just change that or if the bandwidth is too low, just up it and be done. Hence why the neighbors are clamoring because their 'Best Buy specials' are probably not providing what they promised on the marketing and flashy boxes. Too bad they could have bought what you are running and be happy, but that would require knowing something about networking and taking the time to make that happen--not something the instant gratification crowd wants to even think of moreless do.

 

[SamirD]

Your needs are not the needs of everyone. No router magic is gonna make multiple gigabyte uploads any faster on a 400mb down / 20mb up system. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

For massive upload scenarios, only bandwidth will do, that's for sure. It's why I had 3x cable modems back in the day to get 2Mb+ upload speeds (768k x3).

 

[Keljian]

Good to know.

Would have been better to know without some stupid yt dork's face in the post, though. Why is it that every one of these dweebs have to make the most retarded face?

Hehe agreed. For those playing at home, I noticed teams works without stutter on my 100/20 connection with cake enabled while another household member is streaming, but without it enabled that is not the case.

 

[Keljian]

Hehe agreed. For those playing at home, I noticed teams works without stutter on my 100/20 connection with cake enabled while another household member is streaming, but without it enabled that is not the case.

Final notes - per here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13766601

1. Home router (the one connected first to the ISP) should do SQM..
2. SQM queues should limit traffic to < max bandwidth to ensure queuing is actually done by the home router
3. A good queueing algorithm is required
4. Enough memory / CPU is required to ensure queuing can be done efficiently

 

[dpoverlord]

I've always wanted to put a commercial setup in at my parents place in the country.

They have a 1 gigabit fiber line, but their equipment struggles to putnout 500 /50.

Any good reading / guides you could give to teach myself on what to buy to put a commercial setup with extenders over a 5,000 sq ft farm?

Wlild be epic to do that in the next month!

 

[kydsid]

I've always wanted to put a commercial setup in at my parents place in the country.

They have a 1 gigabit fiber line, but their equipment struggles to putnout 500 /50.

Any good reading / guides you could give to teach myself on what to buy to put a commercial setup with extenders over a 5,000 sq ft farm?

Wlild be epic to do that in the next month!

There are many options in this space. Would need a price range to give best recco, and experience elsewhere or if willing to learn. Plus are you going to have to manage remote?

If the later is true, I'd recommend TPLink Omada. I've set up two nets for friends in rural areas , including using long distance bridges. Both use the Omada VPN router but that's just eas of use for management. The second setup in WV, I didn't even do the install, just gave what to buy, they had it installed and I logged in and took over.

 

[dpoverlord]

There are many options in this space. Would need a price range to give best recco, and experience elsewhere or if willing to learn. Plus are you going to have to manage remote?

If the later is true, I'd recommend TPLink Omada. I've set up two nets for friends in rural areas , including using long distance bridges. Both use the Omada VPN router but that's just eas of use for management. The second setup in WV, I didn't even do the install, just gave what to buy, they had it installed and I logged in and took over.

Thanks for the fast reply! I was thinking under $1k Ideally under $500. I would have to manage remote but ideally I would want it simple enough I could tell them to restart it if that's what needed to be done.

Let me do a search for WV both these sound great.

 

[kydsid]

Thanks for the fast reply! I was thinking under $1k Ideally under $500. I would have to manage remote but ideally I would want it simple enough I could tell them to restart it if that's what needed to be done.

Let me do a search for WV both these sound great.

Second setup was in West Virgina, WV. Sorry for confusion.

Budget is good. So just router or Access Points also? How many? How many extenders? Need switches too?

And are you sure you need extenders. 5000 square feet is not a lot to cover with commercial APs. Did you mean square meters

Omada 605 router, 2x EAP660HD, plus omada hardware controller of you can't run it in software for easy management, under $500, might cover 5000sq ft depending on placement and environment. Add another 660 if needed.

 

[Keljian]

Your biggest challenge as far as I'm concerned is the router - getting a 1gbps SQM router is not easy for that price point. is it 1gbps symmetrical?

 

[kydsid]

Your biggest challenge as far as I'm concerned is the router - getting a 1gbps SQM router is not easy for that price point. is it 1gbps symmetrical?

Omada has QOS via the controller software/hardware. It's not as expensive of a list of options, but price point , right. If you want more gotta spend.

Moving up certainly easy here too. Anything in this space will have multiple.vpn, including ipsec, facilitating management. The omada router isn't needed to manage remotely