Mikrotik and coaxial output

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hi.
Is there any chance to replace my Huawei router with coaxial output for TV with MK hAP ax2?
Thanks a lot for your help in this matter.

2

No.

3

And place MK after Huawei is not a point… as all its performance will be shredded by poor Huawei hardware… isn’t it?

4

Often ISP-provided devices don’t lack performance (because if they did, every customer would complain and ISP couldn’t argue), they lack flexibility. Quite often they can be configured in “bridge” mode, meaning that they work as media converter … in this case they don’t slow down traffic and one can use any generic router (e.g. s Mikrotik) to do whatever is needed. The only drawback of such setup (apart from being ugly :wink:) is that there’s another device consuming power.

5

Not the only. Sometimes, they are quite unstable and have software and/or hardware bugs. So it’s almost always better to use media converter than a router (if possible, of course).
But for topicstarter it’s the only way, to config bridge mode, you are right.

6

Well, that’s possible with all software driven hardware (including Mikrotik’s devices), se we can’t really hold this against ISP’s gadgets. Or can we? :wink:

7

Yes, we can. As a former system administrator of multi-service ISP, and as just an IT professional with a broad experience with small businesses in some other countries, what can I say:

  • MikroTik is an enterprise-grade hardware and software, ISP routers are not. ISP routers are SOHO at best. In many cases it much worser, some noname China models.
  • One example. What is D-Link DIR-320, was a good device? With OpenWRT/… — yes. With stock firmware—everybody knows. Its PSU, good or not? Highly depends on power network in homes, where 180-280 V is what they have and won’t fix it.
  • Home awful stability and quality TP-Link for business installs — good or not? I won’t tell you which ISP do this right now, and in which country, but it is true.
  • ISP sells/rent cheap devices, because minimising price for their customers. They don’t think about quality: it simply should be comparable to others, not “good” or “bad”. Around “OK” so reboot will help anyway.
  • Probably you sue by your own country/ISP? I don’t know, I share my partially-worldwide experience.
8

This seems to depend on particular ISPs, their business plan and overall market state. In our country ISPs still compete on service level basis (e.g. offered throughput) so they have to use gadgets capable of delivering what’s promissed. Next, in my country ISPs own CPEs and they have to maintain them. So they will try to mininize expenses, both CAPEX (purchasing those CPEs) and OPEX (visiting customer premises for replacing broken devices) … I’ve no idea where’s the minimum, but obviously those CPEs should not be failing too often. And if CPEs don’t offer too many features, their software is less prone to bugs (or so I assume).

And after all, ISPs can decide to use Mikrotik gear as their CPEs :wink: