I have Opticomm in my apartment and I’m thinking of getting a mesh router system to get better signal in some rooms.
Is it possible to continue using my existing main router (TP-link Archer C20) that’s connected to the Opticomm box, and then connect this router to the mesh routers?
My apartment has 3 lan ports in the wall of 3 seperate rooms that connect to the main router. I’m thinking if I can just have mesh systems in these rooms and continue using my existing router with the Opticomm box?
Thanks for the reply!
I only thought of doing this because in my very brief research of affordable mesh routers, most only had up to 2 Ethernet ports so I wouldn’t be able to use as the main router from Opticomm box and then plug into the Ethernet wall plugs which go to the rest of the house.
Maybe this defeats the purpose of having a mesh router system but I have some equipment which only uses lan cables such as my pc
You can use your old router as a wired network switch (Layer 2). To do this, you will need to disable its wifi radio, disable DHCP and assign it its own IP address. Then connect your old router via Ethernet to your new mesh router.
This basically just adds extra Ethernet ports to your basic mesh router.
Thank you!
Sorry, assuming the mesh router would connect to the Opticomm box and then an Ethernet cable from the mesh router to the tp-link router that then connects to the wall lan ports?
@SP1CE: Yes your mesh router should have at least 2 Ethernet ports. One for WAN and one for LAN.
WAN port is for your Opticomm box.
Also note that the TP Link router you got only has 100mbps ports. You can get Gigabit lan switches for pretty cheap (no more than $22)
TP-Link LiteWave 8-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch, Plastic Case, 0/100/1000Mbps, Networking Switch, Auto-Negotiation, RJ45 port, plug and play (LS1008G) https://amzn.asia/d/6tDbVPz
If you want to continue using your TP-Link router, just buy a TP_Link Wifi booster or two and set them up with the phone appp.
Not quite as good as a full mesh setup but will do the job for the most part providing you don't put the booster in a silly spot like behind a couch.
Yes I have scene people do that its a long story.
Yes you can.
I am on Opticomm Telstra connected to Smart modem 3 in bridge mode > connected to 3 x Tenda Nova Mesh MW6.
100Mbps speed test around my house on wifi
ps. I can remove the smart modem 3 and connect directly to Tenda Nova but I choose not to
3 seperate rooms
apartment
how large is this ? I only got one WAX206 AP in my house covering the whole area, WLAN speeds ~900 Mbps on 5 GHz AX and it is more than enough for my 250/25 NBN.
Opticomm
are you on a 1 Gbps plan ? if so you might need a more planned WiFI setup.
Just on this actually, that model of TP-link router doesn't actually do Gigabit speeds from what I remember. So you might need to buy a new router anyway.
Try using it with a cable connected directly from the Opticomm box and see what speeds you get on a speedtest.
You can but you wouldnt actually want to: that TP-link Archer C20 does not need to be in your network at all and can be completely replaced by a mesh router system.
Mesh routers typically come as a pack of 1-3, and in some cases one of them is the "main" router while the other two are satellite units. E. G the Google Nest WiFi is configured like that. And in such a case the main unit needs to be the one that's directly connected to your Opticomm box.
Some mesh routers have no such distinction and all of the units in the pack are fully featured routers.