Is the AR750 still viable

[David Lindsay]

I hope all are well.

I keep promising to build a new network using the AR750 using SECN 6 software

A few questions:

1. Is this combination of modem and software still a good choice.
2. I am still not sure how to configure the two frequencies, both as a mesh network; or only one
3. Some of the latest commercial designs use a device/ mains powerline to join the master to the main modem router, rather than Ethernet. Is this viable
   

Thanks

[T Gillett]

Hi David

Some comments in line below.

GLi-net have at least two versions of the AR750 available, including one with external antennas on the 2.4GHz radios.

The device have a 2T2R MIMO setup for the 2.4GHz radio and a simple 1T1R setup for the 5GHz radio.

Note that the antennas are limited to a few dB of gain (either external or internal) so you can't expect to get long range performance unless you have good clear line of sight between devices.

So it is a fairly basic WiFi router.

It does support both USB and SD Cards for additional devices and extended flash memory, which is useful if you want to share files e.g. for a digital library.

Regards

Terry

On Mon, 25 May 2020, 03:26 David Lindsay, <davidfra...@gmail.com> wrote:

I hope all are well.

I keep promising to build a new network using the AR750 using SECN 6 software

A few questions:

1. Is this combination of modem and software still a good choice.

The answer is, of course, "it depends".

You need to consider what you want to achieve with your network.

I assume that you want/need to use wireless mesh networking to connect multiple nodes in your network. If this not the case then you probably don't need to use SECN / mesh firmware, and you could usefully use the original firmware which is also OpenWrt based and highly capable.

Do you have any need for the telephony function in SECN?

Because the device has two separate radios (2.4 and 5 GHz) you have the opportunity to run the Mesh and AP functions separately which gives a worthwhile performance improvement over sharing a single radio for these functions.

.

1. .
2. I am still not sure how to configure the two frequencies, both as a mesh network; or only one

For the AR750 radio setup probably the most obvious configuration is to run the Mesh on 5GHz and the AP on 2.4GHz. 

This will give your wifi client devices good access via a local 2x2 MIMO Access Point while using the simple 5GHz radio for mesh connection.

Keep in mind that network performance in this arrangementwill be critically dependent on the performance of the 5GHz links, so you need to be careful to make sure there is good 'visibility' between the nodes and the Master node, especially given that the 5GHz antennas are 2dB  internal.

1. Some of the latest commercial designs use a device/ mains powerline to join the master to the main modem router, rather than Ethernet. Is this viable
   

Connecting the Master node to the upstream network (e.g. modem-router) via Ethernet is the simplest and most highly performant arrangement.

Using other devices in between is only useful if you can't physically run the Ethernet cable.

In this case you can of course consider placing a mesh node alongside the modem-router and using the mesh to provide the connectivity.

Thanks

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[David Lindsay]

Thanks for your comprehensive reply.