Topology for a better home networking and wifi roaming

RouterOS General
1

Hi Guys,

I’m new to Mikrotik, but been reading a bit here and there. I want to update my home network. I can just pass one UTP cable per wall tube, since it’s an old building and rented.

Here’s the topology I came up with:
Screenshot 2023-12-06 124147.png
The apartment has a catv and a phone distribution system. Currently the ISP comes via the phone path, that also interconnects with one room and the catv interconnects with others.
I have an L shaped with tick brick walls, and wanted to avoid wireless backhaul. I don’t need hyper speeds via wifi, so I imagined the hAP ax lite would be a good choice, setting up one on each place and roaming through the apartment.

The L009 would be the central router and connected via 2.5G with one of the rooms that is my office.

Is that a viable solution?

2

The main problem with using a hAP ax Lite for WiFi roaming is that it’s 2.4 GHz only, meaning you have only 3 “real” channels to play with, and here you’ve got 3 APs configured, with who knows how many around the apartment in radio range to fight with. For a smallish 2-bedroom apartment as diagrammed, I’d prefer to take the same money and buy a hAP ax³ and rely on its big ears to drill the signal through the walls. Between the extra channels and the 5 GHz band, you may get better overall performance than having a separate AP per room.

Another thing that concerns me is mixing SwOS and RouterOS. I would rather put in two L009s than mix the L009 and the CSS610, if only for consistency in configuration. If you were counting on the SFP+ ports, there are products like the CRS310-8G+2S+IN, which would make a fine core switch for a home office.

The final thing that concerns me is the apparent use of WiFi in “Room 2”. Were you seriously considering running video over 2.4 GHz WiFi? I would much rather run a single long cable back to the switch in the home office or the router in the living room to get some dedicated wired bandwidth than do anything like that. Even if you were using the hAP as more of a 4-port switch in this instance, the prior point about multiple APs in a small apartment stands.

3

I suggest a proper router, the L1009 wont even handle a full 1gig fiber network, aka no future growth.
Please confirm you can run cat6 or fiber between all rooms?
Not sure what you meant by one UTP cable…

Also if there is coax between all rooms you can get 2.5gib through them with adapters…
https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=moca+adapters&i=electronics&crid=12FCUEHCBN3XJ&sprefix=moca+adapters%2Celectronics%2C89&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

If you want the best roaming that Mikrotik can provide then you have to go AX3…

4

I didn’t say it explicitly, but I was hinting that the ax³ goes in the living room in place of the L009. That gets you a 2.5G port, should you ever be up in that territory.

(Here in the land of fixed data caps regardless of speed, faster Internet bandwidth just lets you hit the cap faster.)


Not sure what you meant by one UTP cable…

Unshielded Twisted Pair. It can mean everything from barely-DSL-capable telephone line to Cat-6, and may in certain circumstances include Cat-7 and Cat-8, though those are more often shielded.

5

Thanks for the reply,

I currently have some old coax in the tubes, but I plan to change to cat6. The solution is a bit weird, but mostly because the old tube have about 10mm free, barely passing one cat6. I plan to use the 2.5G between the Office and Living using Cat6. It’s about 20mts of cable, so I don’t think it will impact.

The idea of the hAP ax was to not only have wifi in the room and the living, but also a local “switch”. This way, the 2.4Ghz was mainly to be used by mobile, printer, etc. The TVs will be wired.

Anyway, will check what you said about mixing ROS and WOS and using ax3.

6

Made some changes… perhaps it’s more ideal, although a bit mroe expensive.
Screenshot 2023-12-06 194012.png

7

the old tube have about 10mm free, barely passing one cat6.

If you learn to make your own cables, you can get 6-8 unterminated lines through in the same space.


I plan to use the 2.5G between the Office and Living using Cat6.

Sensible; it gives you space for two dedicated 1G links between the two rooms with bandwidth to spare. For instance, a 1G streaming box gets a dedicated link back to the home NAS/Plex/iTunes/whatever server without impacting the server’s link out to the Internet.


The idea of the hAP ax was to not only have wifi in the room and the living, but also a local “switch”. This way, the 2.4Ghz was mainly to be used by mobile, printer, etc. The TVs will be wired.

If you want a local switch, put in a local switch. I suggest something like a hEX to keep the RouterOS theme going.

I think you’ll find that the single hAP ax³ covers the whole apartment at least as well as your original all-2.4 GHz plan. Mixing 802.11ac and 802.11ax as in your second plan may give a measurable improvement at the edges, but for your stated use cases of mobile browsing and printing, will it materially matter?

You speak of the expense of this second plan, but I think we’ve come to a net-nothing in material cost terms. Your initial plan was to put in:


  • 3× hAP ax Lite: $59 = $177 MSRP
  • CSS610: $119
  • L009: $119

Total: $415 MSRP.

My plan is:


  • hAP ax³ as living room router/switch/central WiFI at $139 MSRP
  • hEX as smart VLAN-capable switch in the TV room: $59
  • CRS310 core switch in the office: $219

Total? Two bucks more than your initial plan, but a lot more capable. You lose dedicated WiFi in each room, but “apartment building” plus “taking over three local channels” equals “low performance” to me, even if you add the 5 GHz band and go all-ax. If you were in a freestanding house with a fair bit of room around you, fine, but as-specified…?

But hey, I’m no WiFi expert. Others may override my opinion.

8

I would buy a cheap managed switch from TPLINK for the TV, the CSS610 10gig switch for the office .
For Wifi if the AX3 is not adequate then get a couple of Capaxs
1xAX3
2xCapax ( if needed )
xcheapswitch tplink for tv room and
1 css610 for office

9

Alternate plan on the hEX: a hAP ax lite with the radios turned off. Same cost and gives you the option of playing with multiple WiFi radios in a small apartment surrounded by a whole bunch of other radios so that you can see if I’m right.

Bonus aside from fun science experiment at zero net cost: the hAP will run containers, ZeroTier, and other ARM-only features while the outdated hEX will not. As far as I can tell from the switch chip feature tables, it’s about a wash.

So yeah, skip the hEX. A hAP ax lite with its radio turned off beats it handily.

10

idk why mk took this rote, but all ax devices have no support for vlans,
by OP name I will guess is from South America there we use bricks for the wall including the internal ones, so Wi-Fi cover can be an issue also in a small apartment.

11

You’re thinking of the ax² and ax³, with their IPQ-PPE switch chips. The ax lite has a relative of the one in the hEX line, the MT7531, which according to the docs, “…are capable of using bridge VLAN filtering and hardware offloading at the same time…”


idk why mk took this rote

At a guess it’s because on router-class devices used as intended, everything is going to end up on the CPU anyway, so what use is bridge VLAN filtering in hardware? Here I’m using the ax lite as a switch, though, so the ability to get VLAN filtering on it is helpful.

This plays into the OP’s living room situation, where the proposed ax³ doesn’t need hardware VLAN filtering to be useful.


we use bricks for the wall including the internal ones, so Wi-Fi cover can be an issue also in a small apartment.

I don’t understand what one thing has to do with the other. Height above the power point? RF interference from the brick itself?

hAP ax lite vs. Hex (750gr3)
12

You’re thinking of the ax² and ax³, with their IPQ-PPE switch chips. The ax lite has a relative of the one in the hEX line, the MT7531, which according to the docs, “…are capable of using bridge VLAN filtering and hardware offloading at the same time…”

yeah, you are right, the lite one has a different chip.


At a guess it’s because on router-class devices used as intended, everything is going to end up on the CPU anyway, so what use is bridge VLAN filtering in hardware? Here I’m using the ax lite as a switch, though, so the ability to get VLAN filtering on it is helpful.

if you are doing intervlan then yes, but if sometimes you want to user the build in sw chip to do simple vlan without passing to cpu, like all hap ac2 and 3 also the CAP AC have this capability,
also, I’m not talking bridge vlan filtering im talking using the swich menu vlan.


I don’t understand what one thing has to do with the other. Height above the power point? RF interference from the brick itself?

WIFI RF don’t cross well brick walls, just saying that maybe single Wi-Fi router won’t cover with good Wi-Fi signal all place in the apartment.
and because bricks he has limite option where to place Wi-Fi, device, unless he wants to open the wall and put news pipes,
i know you mention ax lite but that only have 2.4 radio,

13

Oh, I see. I thought you were referring to the router/switch’s power brick, not the house’s wall bricks. Further confusing matters is the colloquial term “wall wart” sometimes used here for these ugly power bricks.

14

Hey,

Thanks for all the input so far. The apartment walls are brick and mortar, about 12cm thick. Thanks to my robot we can have a few measurements.
Suite = Room 2
Escritorio = Room 1
Sala = Living Room

The TVs and the Work Desk are exactly were the wall boxes are. So, using just one ax3 in the living room, might be a problem. In a straight line, Room 2 is around 7 meters and 2 walls away. Room 1 is about 8 meters and 3 walls away. For 5Ghz it’s not very good.

The possible scenario I see, is this:
Living room: 1x ax3
Room 1: 1x CRS310 and 1x ac2
Room 2: 1x ac2
Screenshot 2023-12-07 100139.png

15

Why do you keep talking ac2… either roaming is a requirement or its not??

16

Hi Anac,

Yes, it’s a requirement and sorry for the cut&paste typo. I mean hAP ax2. Please correct me if i’m understanding it wrong.