I recently bought a MAX Transit with a single Cat 18 modem in it to serve as the main internal WiFi router, as well as the main link to the outside world, for my RV. I’m in the process of setting it up, while I’m at home, where I have a 1Gb/s fiber connection. Right now, I have the MAX Transit connected via an ethernet cable to one of my Orbi satellites. I’m working on my laptop, which is 6 feet (I’m maintaining social distancing so I don’t give my new MAX Transit computer COVID). from both the MAX Transit and the Orbi satellite.
I’m still working on the very basic configuration – clearly the MAX Transit has a lot of configuration possibilities, but right now I’m just doing simple stuff. If I connect my computer to the MAX Transit via WiFi, I get varying speeds (per speedtest) of anywhere from 50 Mb/s up/down to 250 Mb/s up / 90 Mb/s down. Those would be great speeds if I were in my RV (well, the 250 is great, but the others are decent to pretty good). But they seem poor when you consider that if I connect to the Orbi satellite right next to it I will consistently get 500-600+ Mb/s up and down.
My conclusion is that obviously I’ve not optimally configured the MAX Transit. But that’s where all the configuration possibilities bites me – I’m not really sure where to start to diagnose/improve the throughput when going through the MAX transit.
My next step will be to disconnect the cable to the Orbi and use the WiFi as WAN capabilities to simulate being in the RV, where often the connection will be through one of our phones or a hotspot (we have AT&T, Visible, and Sprint options, and will use the one that performs the best in any given location). Any advice on configuring that would be helpful, too. For example:
- If possible, should I pick only 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz for the WiFi as WAN connection, then use the other frequency for the connection between the actual devices and the MAX Transit? My thinking there is that it would eliminate interference from the various devices stepping over the re-transmission when going out to the WAN.
- Any other basic configuration tips & tricks for max performance would be helpful. I used to be a network admin – but that was literally 3 decades ago (I actually used to add network taps with physical taps into the coax cable). I’m sure that, once I get started, I’ll be able to get this very capable hardware running well, but I’m very out of touch, so I’m not really sure where even to start.
My end state is actually fairly modest – if I could consistently get 10 - 20 Mb/s (assuming the cell connection supplies that) each way, I’d be happy. But more is always better.
Thanks in advance for any help and/or pointers you can give me.