I have home network that I want to setup using mesh for both 2g and 5g wifi.
Here is diagram of situation:
The idea is to have both 2g and 5g wifi users roam from one AP to another where they have best signal. For that I tried to setup mesh.
On all hAP’s all ethernet ports are in bridge since I have PC’s that don’t have wifi. Only on hAP #3 eth1 is used for PPPoE towards ISP.
So far I’ve setup only #1 and #2 for test purpose, my question is, is this correct configuration in the end?
On both hAP’s both wlan’s and bridge are in same mesh. Do I need to create separate mesh for 5g at all?
Configs: MT5.rsc (1.53 KB) MT4.rsc (1.53 KB)
Your setup is not mesh, mesh is when APs use same radio for both offering service to clients and for backhauling (connecting towards upstream).
In your case it’s simple: configure all APs with identical wireless security profiles and same SSIDs. And configure them to simply bridge wireless with wired LAN. Let run DHCP server on single node in your LAN (that would likely be #3 as it already is single point of failure).
Beware that WiFi standard implemented by MT so far doesn’t offer any mechanism to “move” wireless client to AP with better coverage, it’s clients who decide to move. With much tinkering it is possible to slightly improve situation by using mechanisms not intended for this kind of use. But it’s not guaranteed and needed settings very much depend on particular radio situation in your installation, what works for some user might be useless for you or it might even worsen the situation.
I was wondering at the beginning could it be simpler, since I watched training that showed mesh for wireless roaming.
For clients I tested this, two AP’s same frequency, same ssid and client connects to one that has stronger signal, but I didn’t think it could be simple like that just to bridge it.
For roaming, adjacent APs don’t need to be on the same frequency. When wireless client decides to change AP, it’ll scan the band for another AP never the less. However, APs operating on same (or adjacent, but overlapping) channel will affect each other. If operating on same frequency, transmission of one device will stop all other (even those served by another AP). If operating on different but overlapping frequencies, transmission of one device will interfere with the other AP (severity of interference depends on radio attenuation between adjacent devices/APs).
So it’s better to configure APs to different non-overlapping frequencies for best performing wireless network, clients will still roam between APs if needed.
Mesh comes handy if it is not possible to connect APs to wired network.
