I bought the LR version of Ubiquiti. I’m looking forward to trying it out . Thanks for the recommendation. Thanks to all for your help, advice and information.
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I had the same setup. The ActionTec router was total junk. i had Frontier change my connection from coax to Ethernet (as was suggested above). I use the Frontier router for just the set-top boxes (the guide requires this) but I turned off the built-in wireless and daisy-chained a Nighthawk router. Our wireless coverage is now much, MUCH better through the entire house and in the back yard by the pool. We use the standard 2.4 GHz channel for the older devices and raspberry pis, google assistants, and wireless cameras. We use one of the 5 GHz channels for the most used modern devices (desktops and laptops) and use the second 5 GHz channel for streaming and gaming. Overall we have hundreds of devices and this works out very well for us.
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thank you for that info! one of my favorite hobbies was to get linesmen a beer and listen to them talk about work. a friend of mine’s dad was Verizon for like 30 years (??) back during Bell Atlantic days. All kinds of nonsense crazy stories.
one of my favorite anecdotes was burning out the buried copper telephone wire with a high charge (car battery) and using a metal detector to sense the EMF given off to locate a buried line without waiting an extra couple weeks for the city to respond with utility mapping.
I mostly did north east. Keep in mind I was in the call center end of things so my job was when things went VERY wrong and my memory mostly collected all the outlier data sets rather than routine calls.
I even saw houses that had a NID! Crazy stuff
A former co-worker was once working with a very tired field tech late at night trying to get dialtone to work on a Tellabs 610 ONT circa 2005. After successfully provisioning the unit they told the tech they were going to perform a line test (BORSCHT), got acknowledgement then let it fly. Simultaneous with the system acknowledging the kickoff of the test the technician started screaming - they were apparently in electrical contact with the copper and got some of that ~86V ringing voltage. I gather the field tech was much more alert for the duration of the call…
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This is an excellent thread.
What are your recommendations on Cloud Key? I have an old laptop running Linux 24/7 collecting surveillance camera data so I would not need to add hardware.
The video was excellent but I question one point. The speaker seemed to think the LR unit would need the laptop (or whatever) to require a stronger transmit. I would think a reputable manufacturer, like Ubiquiti, would improve receive sensitivity to match transmit range.
I am likely to order an LR when @coloneldan receives his unit and posts a review here if he likes it.
I’m in the process of updating my entire home network this week. I’m migrating off of some Cisco Meraki hardware (my three year license expires in July). The new final solution will be Ubiquiti Unifi USG router on Frontier FIOS, three 8-port Unifi switches, 4 Unifi AC Lite APs and Motorola MOCA 2.0 for connectivity to a couple parts of the house where pulling Ethernet would be a pain (and where there just happened to be unused RG6 coax already in the walls.)
For now, I am continuing to run the Unifi Controller software as a Docker container on my Synology NAS. I’ve run it there for a couple years now with two Unifi AC Lite APs supplementing the Meraki AP, but I will eventually purchase the Cloud Key Gen 2 Pro and some cameras. The patching/update process on the docker image is not as automated as I would like and I’ve reached a point in my life/career where buying an IT solution is usually better than building it… I’ll save my “making” for other things, otherwise I would just continue to run it on my Synology.
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The UAP-AC-LR Ubiquiti Wireless router showed up today. I installed it in very little time. You need to download the management/controller software, but it is loaded with statistics and other info. It has a lot of features I’ve not availed myself of yet.
My laptop, in my study, used to get about 6Mbs down and 2.5Mbs up and now gets 12Mbs down and 9.5 Mbs up. My cellphone now gets 57+Mbs both ways using speetest.net for testing. There are other reasons the laptop is slow, like the wireless card is pretty slow, but all in all everything seems more responsive.
We left the settop box on the old Actiontec wireless, but moved the Firestick, Apple TV and all of our personal devices to the new network.
In summary, it is $100 well spent.
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Nice. Glad to hear it worked out for you.
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A powerline ethernet adapter pai would get you much more than 12mb if you wanted to try for the study laptop
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That’s good to hear it’s an improvement. Upgrading the wireless adapter for your laptop might be worthwhile if you use the network a lot. The AC LR model is capable of more (assuming the internet connection is too). This test is from a phone with AC wireless on the same model access point. YMMV based on range, things in the way, etc.
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The link above has a typo and should be speedtest.net.
My Ubiquiti Pro arrived today and download speed to my laptop has increased from 11.5Mbps to 23Mbps. Upload is the same at around 1.85.
I downloaded and installed the latest driver for my network card from Dell today. The new numbers for my laptop are 40.79 down and 43.8 up.
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Well…that’s a bit of an improvement.
40 symmetric is great. Now you can stream a show AND download a large ISO before the show is halfway done!
Does anyone know much about Puffin Browser? I think their numbers are not right. I get these
This is from the Speedtest app
Regarding speed tests in general. I’ve been researching how each of the vendors perform their tests, and most are doing math… I plan on writing up and producing a “white-paper” for my company to better educate folks about internet speeds, and the variety of speed test platforms that exist.
What I recommend, is to try several of these, repeatedly. Then you will see what I mean:
- Ookla’s famous speed test, which on their mobile app now lets you pick between multiple streams and a single stream.
http://speedtest.frontiercom/speedtest.html
- a branded Ookla one if you have FIOS
https://www.spectrum.com/internet/speedtest-only
- branded Ookla one if you have cable
- gives jitter as well, longer test than ookla
http://speedtest.googlefiber.net/
- Google’s which I cannot recommend for reliable results.
- My current favorite, actually test with doubling of sized files.
I’m reasonably pleased with that result via WiFi on a phone on a nominal 50Mb² package served by long-in-the-tooth Tellabs BPON topology.
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I don’t trust Speedof.Me for reliable results. I don’t think they have enough bandwidth to conduct tests. They seem to max out around 500Mbps these days.
It’s better than it used to be. A while back it maxed out around 100Mbps. Still though, it’s not where it needs to be to get reliable results.
I hadn’t heard of Puffin Browser until now. I looked it up and found the description on Wikipedia to be helpful in explaining what’s going on.
It appears the bandwidth results you’re getting are for the remote server (at the Puffin Browser data center) you’re connected to rather than the device the browser is running on.
Decided to put another Ubiquiti LR downstairs. They are configured in a mesh network. Now everybody is happy with their bandwidth. We retained the original Actiontec network for several things, such as my Yamaha receiver since it doesn’t need the bandwidth except when streaming music and the “guide” for the set top box. We don’t stream movies from the set top, we use Amazon Firstick or AppleTV for that. Although my TV and Blueray player are still on the old network, too. We seldom use these for any of their network services either.
The rest of the household network has been switched to utilize the new Ubiquiti routers. Even the Roomba is happier.
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