Repeaters add latency and I can't imagine any network engineer would ever recommend one.
You probably suspect correctly. Not having additional cabling is a pretty big selling point of wireless technology.
And if you rent rather than own, you likely can’t add cabling at all under the terms of your lease.
A POTS phonejack can use pair(s) in CAT 5 (or 5e, 6), and newish buildings often already run it to the wall jacks rather than CAT 3. Depending on access to the other end of the lines, and appetite for DIY upgrading a landlord's building, it's quite possible to temporarily swap the RJ11 hardware for some RJ45 and have a wired LAN ;)
Or better yet, buy a bunch of Ubiqity UniFi's, which were specifically made for this purpose and should provide the most seamless and efficient way to blanket your house in Wifi (provided you already have cabling to the access points). They are not cheap, but also not extremely expensive compared to a decent router either.
Warning: do not follow this advice; Ubuiqiti products are like potato chips in that you can never eat just one.
Oh I'll get the AC PRO access point, you think. Five minutes later you've set it via quick QR code scan and the UniFi app. That was painless! No wonder people recommend these things.
Oh wait I need to make some more device tweaks but UniFi won't do it.. better get the cloud key thingy that manages the device. I'll have one of those.
A couple of months go by and you discover your Google Home device or NEST doesn't work with beam steering. Wait, you can manage the advanced AC PRO settings using their own software? Fine I'll build a small PC to run that since if you're going to do it may as well see the stats all the time.
Hmm... KRACK/sploit-du-jour is out, maybe I'll just get a new Edgerouter since it's already fixed there. Oh wait, there's a fringy area in my house I'll bet another AC PRO or maybe an AirMax repeater would be just the thing.
Oh dear, I seem to be running out of ports, better go ahead and get a nice POE switch since that'll declutter things a bit. Etc.
- UniFi brand works well for setup, but the cloud controller is necessary for command/control management outside of iOS/Android app.
- EdgeRouter is not a UniFi product and does not act as a cloud controller.
- EdgeRouter X does not deliver 48V PoE; upgrade was needed to power the AC-PRO.
- EdgeRouter UI is horrid and it’s much easier to manage over SSH.
- Cloud Controller is easy to setup, but doesn’t work with all product lines.
tl;dr The hardware is really good, but software is lacking, especially because not all hardware is UniFi compatible.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM/Raspberry_P...
I use an Atom based PC stick that I had lying around to run the controller (on Windows) and it works great.
I will say that the features in the controller software rivals serious commercial offerings that I've used (Cisco, Meraki, Aerohive).
I'd say none of this matters if you just want to have a few access points around the house for a WiFi network that currently runs on a single standalone router. Nobody said configuring the UniFi's is easy or convenient, but the premise is that you only do it once, using whatever computer you have that you can install the cloud controller on. You don't absolutely need to buy anything besides the AP's, it's only for convenience if your network changes a lot.
Disclaimer: I have a unifi and edge router and it's a great combo
If you want a DHCP server in your Wi-Fi "box", you likely want it to do NAT and DNS as well, and that is a "wireless router".
Consumer grade gear is made to be easy and "just work".
I've found the most 'reliable' arrangement is to not only have the same SSID and passphrase, but to have them all on the same frequency and if you can, make them all from the same vendor.
Also, if you are going to re-purpose an old router as an access point, make sure you turn everything off on it except the access point service. It mustn't hand out IP addresses or offer any DNS resolution. You want your devices IP to be provided by the main router regardless of which AP you connect to. It sounds obvious, but this the main stumbling block people encounter when trying to do this.
Why is that?
To cross the phases, the signal has to go to the power pole where the phases originate. X10 has a repeater you can install and sometimes people just install a passive one (a capacitor if I recall.)
In a smaller house, signalling to the panel and back out to circuits on the same leg is more likely to work than crossing the phases.
A downside of powerline ethernet devices is they use your house wiring as a hub-style network. While I think some support a form of MIMO, the more devices you have the worse performance will be. The TP-Links I have sport QoS, but I've not messed with it.
Keep in mind that these TP-Links are consumer grade hardware, and that they make sense for some use cases. Not every consumer can or wants to run wire for another AP, regardless of what a network expert would say.
I use an RE450 at my dad's house (which happens to be next to mine) so when I'm there I can access the Internet. My parents don't have any computers, smartphones or tablets and don't use the Internet. The RE450 does the job -- very well I might add -- and was cheaper and easier than drilling holes in masonry to run a network wire between the houses.
The NTP and DNS requests are concerning, but they don't materially impact my bandwidth cap on the plan I'm on.
The restaurant I was 'stealing' wifi from (not to mention my landlord) probably would've had a problem with me running a hundred meters or so of ethernet cable so a $60 repeater + aluminium can parabolic dish and Bob's your uncle. Worked for around two years until the interference from my neighbors' wifi made to signal too dodgy and (I think) they got wise and changed the password.
Oh well, I'll probably have to get an ubiqity or something.
I knew I could do it the proper way, but there would have been a lot of work involved, with very little payoff.
Basically, is it a hardware or software problem?