Recommendations on some networks changes

Installing and Using OpenWrt
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I life in a small building completely owned by family and divided in 4 stories and 3 houses. It is pretty old so installing cables is a PITA and I need to do some renovations that made me remove some of the ethernet cables and replace them with fiber. Current status is:

ISP ONT/Router combo - it is in the 2nd floor, it connects to:

  • 3rd and 1st floor with one ethernet cable for each (these are going to be replaced with fiber in the near future).
  • Onti ONT-S508CL-8S switch that connects to:
    • a 2xSFP+/4x2.5GbE unmanaged switch on my wife’s workspace
    • a 2xSFP+/4x2.5GbE unmanaged switch on my workspace
    • a 2xSFP+/4x2.5GbE unmanaged switch on the living room
    • a TrueNAS server that also runs Home Assistant
    • A Unifi AC AP strategically placed to provide service to almost all the building almost decently.

Main concern is try to improve the wifi, currently coverage is OK but speed is so-so in many areas. Also I’m considering maybe using VLANs for IoT stuff, but if I recall correctly Matter hates that and I’m trying to use Matter as much as possible as we have quite different ecosystems here (some people using Android, some Apple, some Home Assistant).

  • How well do OpenWRT Wifi devices work when configured to do a mesh (I think 802.11r is what I need).
  • Can I mix different devices to work in this mesh vs commercial mesh that are normally limited to using only devices of the same model?
  • As 95% of IoT devices are Wifi, if I end doing a VLAN for IoT, is it going to be a problem if some APs are wired to an unmanaged switch?
  • I have a 1Gbps WAN. I was thinking in replacing the ISP router with a OpenWRT router that had at least 1x2.5GbE port for WAN and other for LAN, for future proofing and to be part of the wifi mesh. Is this a good idea? I know ISP routers have a lot of hardware offloading so even a OpenWRT device that looks “beefier” in the paper to someone that doesn’t know about routing performance can be weaker really.
  • If I don’t change the router/while I don’t change the router, shall I move DHCP and as many other stuff I can from the ISP router to the ONTi switch?
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What’s the Wi-Fi performance we’re talking about? Are you complaining about not reaching 200MBit Wi-Fi speed, or would that be in the target ballpark after upgrading? Since you claim to “need” to replace wires with fiber, I’m honestly not sure.

The general suggestion would be using “lots of” access points with low tx power settings. Using low tx power is the one significant hint for your clients to roam to a different access point, everything else comes second.

My suggestion would be small channel widths. I personally always use 40MHz, which should be good for 350MBit within 5 meters in direct sight. Here again comes my question about your target. If you aim for GBit Wi-Fi speed, that’s obviously way off target. But for me, 350MBit Wi-Fi speed in the building is plenty because my ISP uplink is only 250MBit. Using small channel widths helps with using non-overlapping channels, what is what you want to not compromise one access point’s performance by another. Of course you can use 80MHz or even 160MHz wide channels, depending on your neighborhood, keeping the overlap to a minimum will become more difficult.

When you’re already in the process of renovation, I’d avoid 802.11r mesh at all costs but go all the way wired. Especially the idea of using “lots of” access points with non-overlapping client channels suggests not using Wi-Fi mesh at all. Use wires, always.

You don’t need similar access points, not at all. But I tend to do “generational switches”, and there’s pretty much a single poster boy device which ticks all my personal boxes at every given time, which usually results in me buying a couple of them at the same time. Not strictly necessary, but just how it goes when hunting for new stuff. I don’t upgrade the living room today but the AP for the pool next year. My current “cheap and easy” AP to go would be a Cudy WR3000 (E and S are pretty much the same, H has a 2.5GBit port for a couple of bucks more; stay clear from the non-letter one; hunt for Amazon deals). It goes for 40€ here in Germany, so no need to only upgrade a single room today and save up money for the next room.

Using a non-vlan switch can cause problems when transporting tagged packages. But I never encountered any. Just give it a try. Worst case scenario is you’re going to buy some other switches.

Well. You won’t be able to run OpenWRT on your ISPs router. I wouldn’t care so much about future proofing because who knows what’s the new shiny device class will be when the time comes to increase uplink bandwidth. That’s a general thing for tech stuff, don’t buy hardware now for what you hope will be in five years from now. But once you go the OpenWRT route with your APs, I’m pretty you will be pretty annoyed for your ISP router to not run OpenWRT as well. Especially the vlan thing, OpenWRT can do so much more than any ISP router I know.

So go for an OpenWRT primary router if it’s in the budget, but not for future proofing.

2.5GBit uplink isn’t that uncommon for higher priced OpenWRT devices. Not all of them will actually do 2.5GHz, but most of them, I guess.

That one I don’t understand. The switch doesn’t do DHCP, DNS or routing, it’s just a switch.

3

I didn’t explain myself correctly: this need is not technical related, but a “constructive” need: tubes here are too thin to put electrical wire + ethernet isolated cable most of the times, so I did some tricks like routing cables through the window shutter boxes (don’t know if that is the name? It is something that is not very common outside of Spain of Portugal for what I know); but know I need to replace all the windows on the house and these cables must go. So using fiber on the tubes seemed the best idea as it is way thinner. It was a PITA to install the connectors without a fiber splicing machine, but it is working.

Being able to see a Twitch stream/Youtube video without buffering and with good quality video. Not that much bandwidth needed, is more about coverage, stability and trying to have no areas without proper service.

I prefer to install more devices with less bandwith and tx power too, I think it is cleaner. 350Mbit should be more than enough.

I’m using wired. I thought 802.11r was for client roaming and not about the APs backend?

It would be the same for me, mostly. I was asking this to consider if I should buy a router with or without WiFi.

Well reasoned.

It actually does, at least with default firmware. Pretty complete managed switch. I will move it to OpenWRT in the future too, but I want to buy a spare first.

Thanks for yor answer! It is really what I needed.

4

Well, I got my letters wrong. Of course 802.11r is for roaming, you’re right. Sesame Street Mumford would say: R is for roaming :).

But since you bundled 802.11r and “mesh” in a question, I was thinking about 802.11s, which is a completely different thing.

But still: No, you technically don’t need 802.11r for roaming. There are a couple of tweaks you can add to make your clients switch from one AP while you’re on the phone pretty much unnoticeable, where 802.11r (fast transition) is the first to consider, but all of that comes second. When you start with using the same SSID, the same encryption scheme, the same password but different Wi-Fi channels, that’s the first step and enough for video consumption. Enabling the 802.11r checkbox and you’re golden.

The single most important factor really is using multiple access points and turning the signal strength down so that it’s absolutely clear to your clients which AP is the one they should pick at any given location.

And avoid 2.4GHz if possible. Turn it down until it’s only used by the IoT devices that don’t support 5GHz. Make it as uncomfortable as possible for your 5GHz devices to hook on to the 2.4GHz band, so to speak.

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