I’m setting up my first Peplink Mesh Network, using a B One router & 4 AP One Enterprise access points. All have the latest firmware. I have created a 5Ghz Mesh ID, all APs are working, but all appear to be communicating only with the B One. The Mesh Network Graph shows a blue dot for the B One and red dots for the APs, with a dotted line from the B One to each AP. Also, the Mesh Link Information shows the signal strengths getting progressively lower as the distance to the AP increases, with the best (closest) being -57 and the worst (farthest) being -87. Also, download rates with my temporary WAN when standing near the closest AP are 105Mbps, down to 8Mbps near the farthest.
I think it works as intended.
You are setting up a mesh network in which each AP (mesh repeater) is connected to the mesh master (B One). If you increase the distance, the signal becomes weaker.
You obviously want to set up a WDS (Wireless Distribution Network) in which a repeater is connected to your B One and located close to it, and then increase the distance from this repeater to the next one. In this case, you need to connect the second repeater to the first one and so on, and not to the B One.
Thank you for your reply. I did watch the PepLink videos on the topic this morning, specifically with the intent of trying to determine if WDS, Mesh (or even both) were more suitable to my situation and they all seemed to indicate that Mesh was the new & preferred approach, incorporating the advantages of WDS as well as the newer topology benefits. Other than that, I don’t know - still searching for “best practices” info, not the basic setup info - it’s all working, it’s just not working very well.
As info, it’s a 1200 sq ft small home in a very rural area (no external interference, in other words), so maybe I’m just throwing too much hardware at it.
In my house, which is also 1200 sq ft, my router (AVM Fritz!Box) is located on the ground floor.
I also had problems with the Wi-Fi signal in the basement and on the first floor.
I had connected 3 AVM Fritz!Repeater 2400 via WLAN Mesh to the master, which only caused problems and poor reception. Sometimes 2.4 GHz worked better, sometimes 5GHz.
I have a LAN connection in a wall socket on each floor and connected the repeaters to the Fritz!Box via LAN. Then I switched to LAN Mesh as the backbone and now have Wi-Fi on every floor.
Everything has been working perfectly since then.
Therefore, my recommendation is to build a LAN Mesh, if cables are available, which will then bring Wi-Fi to every corner of the home.