AEB (A1301, 3rd gen) as WiFi extender/bridge for TC (A1409, 4th gen)

Question

Greetings!I&#x27;ve been wrestling with profound network difficulties at my new (possibly as a result: temporary) domicile.  I am, unfortunately, the pig in the middle: my ISP provider (Time Warner Cable) insists that 5Mbps down and 5Mbps up is adequate service for the 30Mbps/5Mbps I&#x27;m paying for.  Also, if this is a problem, it&#x27;s not their fault.  Gotta love the double whammy of denial ... not a problem but if it is a problem it&#x27;s not my fault.I&#x27;m operating on the assumption that there is a problem.Unfortunately, there are so many possible issues that I&#x27;m at a loss.(1)  I noticed that something was amiss when I couldn&#x27;t stream Netflix (to a 720 Apple TV) ... constant buffering.  This never happened with my 15/3Mbps service at my old place.  A speed test revealed that I was getting between 5 and 15 down, not steady but bursts and then nothing (apparently in rapid succession).(2)  After many calls over several days, TWC sent out a technician who got pretty much the same (using his modem, then mine, wired and wireless out of both a TC and an AEB).(3)  Over the course of a few days, they worked on the pole and elsewhere beyond the boundaries of my place.  Could not exceed 15.(4)  Eventually figured out that TWC had provisioned my Surfboard 6120 as a docsis2 instead of docsis3.  They then "pushed some updates" to it ... literally for over an hour.  It came up once (at 20-ish Mbps), then went into a boot-loop, where it remains, though TWC insists--insists!--that I am actually getting 30+.  They had to send out another tech to verify that I&#x27;m actually getting nothing.  Unfortunately, that tech showed up with no modem and no computer.  So I dashed to the nearest store, purchased another surfboard, and speeds are occasionally 30-ish, but usually 20-ish or awful ... not much else.(5)  So after TWC bricked my modem, causing me to replace it, speeds coming into the house are steady, but poor.  In the meantime, I placed a warranty call for the TC--which is itself a recent warranty replacement (read: refurb)--since I was getting booming speeds with the AEB and not the TC.  The next day the AEB was as slow.(6)  The replacement TC arrived.  I couldn&#x27;t set it up.  Currently, both the AEB and the original TC are performing the same (about 20 down).  But the new TC seems not to work at all.  It lets me sign on, but then boots me off within a minute or two.  No matter what device I use.  Then it just says that it can&#x27;t be joined.  I did a hard reset, but nothing changed.So after all of this--and you&#x27;ve gotten the reader&#x27;s digest version--I decided that I&#x27;d have to live with 20.  That seems to be what TWC does is sell more than they actually can provide, at least if the chatter on the net is to be believed.  The next problem is range.  In my old place, my phone would hop on wifi when I was within two or three houses of my building.  Now, it/they struggle to reach the couch, 15-20 feet away.  So, my newest project is to try to use the TC as my router and use the AEB as a WAP or extender.  What I can&#x27;t figure out is how to make the channels non-overlapping.  I know how to change the channels, but once I put the AEB into extender mode, I no longer have access to the channels.  They seem to stick if I change them before, while the AEB is sill in "Create a wireless network" mode.  When I set the 2.4 on the AEB to channel 1 and the TC to channel 6, they stay.  But no matter what I set the 5gHz channels to, they are always on the same one (according to the wifi analyzer on my phone and the OS X wireless utility diagnostic scan).I provide the above (deep) background, because I&#x27;m not confident that the problem is solved.  Was it the work they did on the pole?  The doc3-3 provisioning snafu?  A failing/bricked modem?  A faulty router ...?  Is any of this the root cause of my signal strength issues?  Standing 3&#x27; from either the AEB or the TC I can barely hit -40db.Thanks for any tips or suggestions ...

LaPastenague · Answer

A lot of stuff in there. One thing I missed.. you ran out and got a new modem which is?? The model of the TC and AEBS are ones I use regularly.. so their little foibles are well known.. I strongly recommend you take their firmware back to 7.6.1 as the extend wireless on 7.6.4 is really dodgy. But I have another test for you to do first. Plug a computer directly into the cable modem.. Power cycle the modem (as you always need to do when you change first client) and see what kind of speed you get. Speeds via the TC are not as reliable as speed directly on the modem. Downgrade firmware. Hold the option key whilst you click the version number.. a list of possible firmware will appear .. pick 7.6.12. Redo the setup of the TC.. use all short names, no spaces pure alphanumeric. eg from my screenshot.. TCgen4 is good name. For wireless name each band.. TC24ghz and TC5ghz.. this also makes extend wireless easier. Use WPA2 personal security with 8-20 character password.. pure alphanumeric. 3. Then measure your wireless. Some building.. usually solid walls or lots of metal will give very poor wireless .. they are kind of wifi black holes. Any installer can tell you what works in one building won&#x27;t necessarily work in another. Set channels to manual and pick 11, 6, 1 and see which is the best.. usually 11 or if you have loads of wireless around you .. 8 or 9 will work. That is for 2.4ghz.. for 5ghz use 36, 40 or 44. I am not sure what you will have available in the US but one of those should work. 4. You seem to not understand extend wireless. Extend wireless must use the same channel as the main router it is extending. You do not set anything on the extend wireless unit.. it simply is set to extend. BUT as the above details show you can choose to extend either 2.4ghz or 5ghz since you have identified the bands differently. Use the wireless diagnostics in your laptop to see what is happening .. do a wireless survey around the house. 5. If it is at all possible ... ie you have a computer running something other than Mavericks.. load in the 5.6 utility.. this offers much more info for extend wireless. See how mine looks. This allows you to see the link speed between the two routers.. if the link speed is low then the overall wireless speed will be lower. Much much lower actually.. half of the link. That might give you a start at least.. post as go along if you hit other issues.

elenchus · Answer

LaPastenague--thanks!I&#x27;ll try to address things in order.  The new modem is also a Motorola Surfboard (SB6141 this time, instead of the 6120 that died); all that the retailer carries is surfboards.  I&#x27;m open to returning it if a different modem would be better for my setup/situation.I downgraded to 7.6.1 on both devices, though the TC reported an error; it seems fine.  Should I factory reset and downgrade again?  If I do, can I import these settings to the freshly reset TC or would that just reintroduce the hiccup?Re: speed.  Weirdly, when I&#x27;m on the 5gHz--2010 MBA--I pull the full 30.  When I&#x27;m on the 2.4, I only get 15, 20 at most.  Just speed tested both bands, so I won&#x27;t bother with the wired test; if I can get 30 off of the 5gHz, then clearly 30 is coming into the house, and I&#x27;m pretty sure I&#x27;d get that wired.  By the way, same differences between the bands when tested from another mac (2011 MBP).  [For a while I worried that I hosed something on my MBA, because it spewed DNS errors during all of this (looking over console) and the MBP did not.]  Is this sort of speed difference between the 2.4 and the 5 common at these relatively low speeds?  Is it due to noise in the lower band?I&#x27;ll rename the AEB and the TC to spaces-free names--right now, there is a space between the device name and the "5," e.g., "TimeCapsule 5GHz," which the unit defaults to when I select the 5gHz option.  And while reviewing your advice to change everything to unbroken alpha-numeric strings, may I ask why the password should have no symbols, like underscores, ampersands, or brackets?  My password manager judges those to be more secure, and the TC/AEB accepts these robust strings as passwords.  What sort of difficulty might this cause?  Should I change this?  I&#x27;ve no dog in the fight, just curious.I&#x27;m sure that you are right about different building materials interfering with signal strength and hearability (more or less, depending on the material).  But standing in front of the TC, with direct line of sight to the unit and a distance of say 5&#x27; ... I get between -60 and -50.  I would expect that distance to be off the chart, certainly -40 or better.  Maybe my expectations are simply unreasonable?I apparently don&#x27;t understand the full intent and capabilities of the bridge mode.  I now suspect that I&#x27;ve confused wireless extension and roaming.  When I select "Extend a wireless network," I receive a message that says, "You&#x27;ve chosen to extend TC. Would you like to extend TC 5GHz?"  If I choose to extend the 5gHz, then the invitation is to extend the 2.4.  I&#x27;ve taken this to be a BOTH option, but what you say now makes me think it is an EITHER/OR.  It seems weird that I&#x27;d be prompted to select something without being warned that they are mutually exclusive options.  And I still don&#x27;t understand how the two being on the same channel doesn&#x27;t constitute interference.  It can&#x27;t be that the traffic on the two devices is identical (a mirror), since some of the devices in the house hop on the AEB and other devices are on the TC.  Not arguing the point, just noting my lack of comprehension.  I did not find any discussion of exactly this combination of devices, but I did encounter a number of other combinations, and what they seemed to share was the warning that one must set the various devices to different channels to ensure effective coverage.  I&#x27;m sure that I&#x27;m missing something here.  Now, (full disclosure) I initially started to setup the devices as a "roaming network," by making the AEB a wired client of the TC.  But they seemed not to work in concert when one was wired, yet immediately synced when both were wireless.  And since the only CAT I had that would reach is 5, I wasn&#x27;t confident that it would be worth it to wrestle with the wired permutation.  I will happily buy a 30&#x27; CAT6 if that will improve matters.  (Can I run wired clients from the AEB when it is wirelessly extending the 5gHz of the TC?)  You&#x27;ve prompted me to do some more reading, and it now seems to me that a roaming network (as opposed to wireless extender) is best for my needs.Perhaps it would be better to state what I was assuming in my initial post.  I want wifi coverage such that I could traipse around the house, say, with an iPad, and the iPad will hop on the best signal (at that moment, at that place).  So, at the back of the house, it would be the AEB; at the front of the house, it would be the TC.  And, I&#x27;d like this to happen seamlessly, without user involvement.  As it is, it seems a bit cumbersome to leave it to the user to choose between "TC" and "TC5GHz" ... what does the average user know about the differences?  If my niece visits and I give her the password to my wifi, I&#x27;m confident that she will immediately ask what everyone else would ask: which one should I sign on to?  "The one with the best signal" is a non-answer for the user, who tends not to run a signal strength analysis before signing on.  If TC2.4 is always going to be the weak sister (because only one band could be extended, and I picked the 5gHz when setting up the extender), then it seems a waste to have the 2.4 there at all.  I can run the 2.4 without the 5 but not the reverse, yeah?  If there is this capability, I&#x27;ve not encountered it.  And if the AEB (when operating alone) can send/receive on both the 2.4 and the 5, then why can&#x27;t it extend both?  Is one band reserved for communication with the TC?  And why do the various set-up instructions for a roaming network (when the WAP is wired to the router) insist that one ensure each WAP is using unique, non-overlapping channels?  I gather that the wifi capabilities of the two devices are employed differently when they are connected via ethernet instead of wirelessly?  Since the 5gHz band seems to be less congested in this area, I should elect to extend that band (and pass on the invitation to extend the 2.4, since there can be only one)?  Then I set all client devices to prefer the 5gHz, and they will roam between the 5gHz band of whichever device&#x27;s signal is stronger at that moment?  The goal is to have uninterrupted connectivity moving from one end of the house to the other, which means moving from one WAP to another.Do you have any thoughts on using the AEB as a wired client of the TC versus the AEB being a wireless extender?  I&#x27;ve read a few article that now suggest to me that using a wired extender would reduce the overhead considerably.Side note.  I just went to toggle the "Create network" to "Extend network" and--with the 7.6.1 firmware you recommended I install--I&#x27;m no longer prompted to extend the other band.  Curious.Anyway.  Thanks much for your patience and helpful reply.  I look forward to any other guidance you might provide.

LaPastenague · Answer

The new modem is also a Motorola Surfboard (SB6141 this time, instead of the 6120 that died); all that the retailer carries is surfboards.  I&#x27;m open to returning it if a different modem would be better for my setup/situation.They are more problematic.. more so with later hardware. But it is another good reason to downgrade as later firmware also not so great. I downgraded to 7.6.1 on both devices, though the TC reported an error; it seems fine.Is it actually downgraded?? I would factory reset for sure.. and not use old saved settings.. but that is me.. if you are trying to clear out issues.. don&#x27;t introduce any. Is this sort of speed difference between the 2.4 and the 5 common at these relatively low speeds?  Is it due to noise in the lower band?Yes.. 2.4ghz is overused. The neighbours all use it.. your cordless phone, av sender, baby monitor, front door intercom, and a dozen other items in the house can all be using 2.4ghz. All add up to more and more noise so lower and lower SNR. Also it is simply that apple restrict speed on 2.4ghz. Here is my diag scans from my TC. On 2.4ghz. On 5ghz.Big spike is where I changed it over. Signal is poorer but speed is much better. My password manager judges those to be more secure, and the TC/AEB accepts these robust strings as passwords.  What sort of difficulty might this cause?  Should I change this?  I&#x27;ve no dog in the fight, just curious.Not all clients handle non alphanumeric characters the same. Apple stuff and rest of the world stuff.. ie windows SMB networking can give issues. I agree with more characters security is better.. but WPA2 is basically unbreakable at this point.. If the quantum computer is introduced soon we may need WPA3.. until then cracking your passwords won&#x27;t happen as long as you have a reasonable passphrase.. with mix of upper and lower case and numbers. I see plenty of posts in here where this advice has fixed problems.. so for now I stick to it. If you want to add non-alphanumeric that is fine.. but do it after everything is working. I did not find any discussion of exactly this combination of devices, but I did encounter a number of other combinations, and what they seemed to share was the warning that one must set the various devices to different channels to ensure effective coverage.Extend wireless and roaming are totally different. And their requirements are opposites. So Extend wireless is repeater.. How repeater works. Computer -- packet to AP1--AP1 Rx packet in full--AP1 Tx packet to AP2---AP2 Rx packet in full--routes to internet. Packet return from internet--AP2 Tx packet in full -- AP1 Rx packet in full--AP1 Tx packet to Computer. For computer to AP1 and AP1 to AP2 to work.. AP2 must listen on the same channel as AP1 is TX on.. and it cannot change channel on the fly.. so it Tx also on the same channel. AP1 and AP2 take it in turns to Tx and Rx.. (by nature they cannot Tx and Rx at the same time). If AP2 was on channel 6 and AP1 was on channel 1, then AP1 and AP2 have no communication between them. So in order to wireless repeat.. you must halve the speed of the network so each takes it in turn. Both cannot Tx or Rx at the same time. Hence this is a lousy way to run wireless networks. Here is how Roaming works. AP1----ethernet----- AP2---- Internet.  |                             |Wireless          Wireless AP1 does not reach AP2 by wireless.. it uses an ethernet as a sort of backbone. AP1 and AP2 can tx and rx at the same time but should do so on different channels. Otherwise they will interfere with each other. This is full speed wireless. The ethernet leg can be considered instantaneous cf wireless. Ethernet is multiple channel and Tx and Rx at the same time. Hope that makes it make sense. Roaming.. Different channels. Repeating.. same channel. I will do more in another post.

LaPastenague · Answer

As it is, it seems a bit cumbersome to leave it to the user to choose between "TC" and "TC5GHz" ... what does the average user know about the differences?There is no need to name the bands differently.. All unit can use a single simple name.. TCwifi It does make it a bit harder when you extend wireless to get it working as you have no control. If you use roaming there is no need at all. I think you are over complicating it. And it is my fault.. I told you too much. A user can have the wireless name TCwifi and the password.. and that is it. The goal is to have uninterrupted connectivity moving from one end of the house to the other, which means moving from one WAP to another.I think I over complicated it. Use one simple wireless name.. not two.. That name can be whatever you like.. wifi, AEwifi, TCwifi, Fredswireless. Anything. And whatever method you use the clients should be able to connect.. how well they roam is another question.. ipad and iphone do not roam well.. so it will all work as long as you don&#x27;t move around.. that is Apple&#x27;s fault.. they have yet to remove the voodoo.. all wireless has voodoo.. some of it is impossible to avoid.