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How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

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Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#241

Post by ausjke »

jtl999 wrote: post #173
benjaminl wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had good experience with MikroTik products. The are at a similar price point, but with a less refined interface but a lot more flexibility.

Mikrotik suffer from a gross amount of "Not invented here" reinventing existing open source protocols such as OpenVPN, a custom sshd and web server, and it shows with their amount of issues (how many years has it taken to add UDP to their OpenVPN server?). In some ways I think their no better then UBNT in some ways. Tell you what. I used to have a Mikrotik CRS125 switch in my home office, and by default if you have a…

Many of Mikrotik can be loaded with debian or openwrt, its hardware is solid

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#242

Post by jtl999 »

ausjke wrote: post #241
jtl999 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mikrotik suffer from a gross amount of "Not invented here" reinventing existing open source protocols such as OpenVPN, a custom sshd and web server, and it shows with their amount of issues (how many years has it taken to add UDP to their OpenVPN server?). In some ways I think their no better then UBNT in some ways. Tell you what. I used to have a Mikrotik CRS125 switch in my home office, and by default if you have a…

Many of Mikrotik can be loaded with debian or openwrt, its hardware is solid

My CRS issue suggests otherwise (could just be CRS), but ignoring OpenVPN I haven't had many issues with RouterOS. It's good to have the option though.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#243

Post by mmt »

m_eiman wrote: post #237
kraftman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the opposite I guess. I'm AMAZED at the number of people that bother hardwiring everything they can for no reason when they have no interference issues. Why go to all the effort of hardwiring every laptop at every desk? If someone's using a laptop and moving around the office, why cable every desk when you can have gigabit wifi wherever you are?

Wired: PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.737 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.636 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.701 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.633 ms ... --- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics --- 8 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.516/0.644/0.737/0.…

Although I'm skeptical (though see below), as the sibling comment is, that this small an increase in best case latency would make a difference in a typical office environment, I'm curious if it was (as close to) apples-to-apples as possible. That is, was it comparing 802.11ac to gigabit ethernet (or 54/108 Mb/s Wifi to 100Mb ethernet), and were the interfaces connected the same way (e.g. both via USB or both via PCIe/Thunderbolt)?

Despite my skepticism, I've seen that, in the typical office setting, wireless latencies can vary much higher. It stands to reason that, no matter how well-engineered, it's still a shared medium, which means that congestion or interference caused by a neighbor can ruin someone's VoiP call during the time it's happening.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#244

Post by garaetjjte »

lmz wrote: post #152
ISO-morphism wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not GP, but what drove me towards MT and away from Ubnt was Ubiquiti's history of violating the GPL [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9331512

Is the Mikrotik any better in this regard? Has anyone taken them up on the offer of a GPL source code CD?

It seems they comply https://github.com/robimarko/routeros-GPL

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#245

Post by fifnir »

petecooper wrote: post #198
shrikant wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anecdata" is usually online shorthand these days for saying, "I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but fwiw here's my experience."

^ This is what I meant by it. Not corroborated by any scientific study, just a field report.

> Not corroborated by any scientific study, just a field report.

But that's exactly what "anecdote" means already, why change it?

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#246

Post by mig39 »

slantyyz wrote: post #66

While it doesn't really matter whether you use EIA-586-B or EIA-586-A so long as you're consistent, I've been told that EIA-586-A is the standard in Canada. addendum: Re crimping RJ45 - the better way to do terminations is to use the EZ-RJ45 pass-through plugs like the ones made by Platinum Tools. You need a special crimper, but it's night and day easier. If you're using AWG23 Cat 6, you also need to make sure your p…

Isn't it 568? The OCD in me went off seeing the post refer to 586, and then 586-B as the standard. Both wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIA/EIA-568

"ANSI/TIA-568 recommends the T568A pinout for horizontal cables... The standard also allows the T568B pinout, as an alternative, "if necessary to accommodate certain 8-pin cabling systems"... Many organizations still use T568B out of inertia."

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#247

Post by jamescampbell »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #103
basch wrote: post #6

>Assign static IPs for infrastructure like access points. This makes them easy to reach when reconfiguration is needed Am I missing something, or did they buy consumer routers to use as access points? Triplebyte, I can save you a ton of management, troubleshooting, and learning time: switch to Ubiquiti Unifi or an equivelant now, youll have one pane of glass to reconfigure every device. The devices will talk to each…

Fine, I'll say it: Ubiquiti is not suitable for a business environment. They don't have a good track record of pushing out security fixes. They've blatantly violated the GPL (and introduced security vulns in the process). Their "enterprise" features don't work well (e.g. hardware acceleration, WPA+Radius). Depending on what you buy the PoE may be non-standard passive or it may not. Unfortunately because they're prima…

Sources for all of these claims? I have and recommend their products wholeheartedly. This isnt something that is opinionated. Their pro products are amazing. Maybe you are referencing outdated or consumer level product offerings? Giving you benefit of the doubt and just going to say, right and roll my eyes.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#248

Post by m_eiman »

kraftman wrote: post #238
m_eiman wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wired: PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.737 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.636 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.701 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.633 ms ... --- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics --- 8 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.516/0.644/0.737/0.…

I'm interested in what situations 3ms difference (16ms max) makes a difference in an average office environment?

It makes a huge difference when copying lots of files over SMB, for example.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#249

Post by m_eiman »

mmt wrote: post #243
m_eiman wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wired: PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.737 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.636 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.701 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.633 ms ... --- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics --- 8 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.516/0.644/0.737/0.…

Although I'm skeptical (though see below), as the sibling comment is, that this small an increase in best case latency would make a difference in a typical office environment, I'm curious if it was (as close to) apples-to-apples as possible. That is, was it comparing 802.11ac to gigabit ethernet (or 54/108 Mb/s Wifi to 100Mb ethernet), and were the interfaces connected the same way (e.g. both via USB or both via PCIe…

Both computers are connected the same Unifi network. One was a Macbook Pro using the builtin wireless (ac; listed as 144 Mbps in the Unifi controller iirc) and the other a Mac Mini connected via cable (1Gbps). They both pinged the router, so all traffic was local. There are no other wifi networks nearby (single family house area, 50+ meters between houses), and basically no other traffic on the network.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#250

Post by mmt »

m_eiman wrote: post #248
kraftman wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in what situations 3ms difference (16ms max) makes a difference in an average office environment?

It makes a huge difference when copying lots of files over SMB, for example.

I've never heard that, but I also don't use SMB heavily (especially over Wifi) to begin with.

Is there a site you can point to that details the protocol's latency-sensitivity?

If something like bulk file transfer is at issue, a ping test with sizes closer to the MTU (e.g. 1480 bytes) would be a closer simulation of those latencies.

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