Understanding Mesh Networking (feat. MikroTik Audience) 

Yes! Please make a video! Never heard of 802.11 R, K, etc.

Watched Gary's Wifi extender video first and then this video and it made my choosing a Wifi extender vs Wifi Mesh network much easier i.e. The Mesh network is the clear choice. A very well put together video presented in a clear way that everyone can understand the different concepts. Thank you for taking the time.

Reinventing the wheel...worse. Over 20 years ago (and before IP) we had ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). It could do "hops" several orders of magnitude faster than IP. The carriers used it to configure the backbone. It was a layer 2 protocol where IP is a layer 3 protocol. To do voice (i.e. VoIP), IP has to do 20 hops or less to reach a destination in less than 1/8th second. This required a "backbone"...and that kept the carriers in business. The carriers used PVC (Permanent Virtual Circuits)...all manually engineered and provisioned. But the protocol had the exact feature we needed for mesh networks...that being SVC (Switched Virtual Circuits). It could dynamically set up multiple connections between nodes. And "connections" is the key issue. It didn't broadcast packets...it delivered in order on a dedicated "virtual" connection. Broadcast was an unnecessary option. And the so-called "backhaul" (i.e. control channel...now improperly used by Twitter) could be set up as just a slower speed, higher QoS (Quality of Service) connection if needed. Back then I observed that IP used six different protocols (e.g MPLS, IPSec, DiffSrv, IntSrv, ...etc.) to do what ATM did natively. Follow the money: Cisco and Intel squashed ATM. Further, there was UWB (Ultra Wide Band) at layer 1. It got squashed too. If we just rediscovered these two technologies, we could have every device (e.g. phone, computer, car, building...) be a node. UWB could communicate between the nodes using DSSS (Discrete Sequence Spread Spectrum...at 1 terabit speeds) faster and more robustly than WiFi does now. And we wouldn't need a backbone. And better yet, as density goes up, bandwidth goes up and power needed goes down. What's not to love about ATM/UWB? We don't need to re-invent. We need to re-discover.

Great video! Explained a complicated topic in an accessible way.

Thank you! Really appreciate you making this understandable!

Thanks. A very clear video. You highlight many aspects that I found difficult to understand previously. The only point I have is on whether the obvious technical advantages of a mesh system outweighs the much less cost of adopting a router plus range extenders. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Good video! Thank you Gary!

Great presentation! I would love to see another video about the R and K standards.

3 very good and informative videos on WiFi network topologies and interworkings. I would be most "pleased" if you would continue this series to "explain" the other topics you have mentioned. Great reference vids that I have saved for when CRS rears its ugly head, again.

Very clear explanation! Thanks!

Extremely helpful

Answered many questions. Thank you

I want to see the wifi 6e version of this setup in a couple of years, with 6ghz band!

Wow I’m early . Awesome video as always!,!,!!!!!

How did I miss this, great video

I'm having so many problems in deciding how to wire my house internet, mostly I can't understand how the seamless switch works... For now my only solution is two access point with the same ssid and password... So please I need the seamless switch video in my life.

Great video!

Fantastic stuff!

FINALLY an explanation!!!

So awesome thank you

It was interesting to compare it to an access point connected to LAN.

This overview of the mesh network looks like a network extender. How does the mesh network function so that it can avoid interfering with itself? You have multiple radios on the same frequency band in the same space. The nodes would have to overlap. My setup is using two wired nodes at opposite ends of the house and it is very stable. I was watching this video to see how a mesh network could work in an environment where an extender would cut bandwidth.

Great video. Thank you.

My big question is: could it be the backhaul is actually using directional antennas ?

How did you like the Mikrotik interface.I tried installing Cap AC but could never get the 5 GHz to work.

Can you unboxing and review the MikroTik Audience

*GARY!!!* *Good morning Professor!* *Good morning fellow classmates!* Stay Safe Out There Everyone!*

is it possible to increase bandwidth, also what affordable open source mesh routers are there as i bought an asus mesh but now tp link has deals so it would be better to use open mesh and be able to mix and match hardware as each still uses open wrt. O and what about redundant gateway, duel modems to duel 1st nodes for redundancy. On typical home meshes there is only one modem and the first or master node which share the internet across the mesh. Any way to add redundancy?

Interesting and generally informative. But something does not make sense here. If the cell phone on 5GHz at the corner of the house only gets 10%, how does adding a mesh in the same room gives you 60%? The mesh unit connects on a 5GHz, so it should also be at 10%. So, the cell phone connected to the 2nd mesh unit cannot exceed the 10%. Can you explain that?

Let me see if I understand this. I live in a fairly large two-story house. Right now, my Asus RT-AC86U router is serving up the wi-fi signal to the entire house. Of course, the problem is range and walls. The router is located in my small office in the downstairs corner of the house. The signal arrives to the living room (two walls away) quite weak but somewhat usable to stream Netflix or whatever to our TV. The signal is even weaker arriving upstairs to my kids rooms, where they often have trouble with connection speeds due to signal degradation. So how would I do this? I have to buy at least two of these units, one of which is parked in my office and the other upstairs somewhere? Or would I have to buy three units, one as the base unit in my office, one for the living room, and one upstairs? Would I connect via an ethernet cable from my Asus router to the unit in my office? Just trying to get a handle on this.

I can see that a third unit would be a good thing. Now not knowing the price, I'm guessing that could be a factor... :-) Great video and Thanks Gary! LLAP

What if you always going to use ethernet backhaul and don't care about configuring each node individually, but greadly need seamless roaming. Should I still go fo mesh or multiple APs? One of the nodes need to be weatherproof since its going in my grarden.

Good explanation.. But I wonder how price & performance of mesh devices compare against so called 5G 'HomePlugs' which use existing electrical wiring in the house..

Please put audiance in the middle of the passage and test speed and strength in cornor room. This scenario you didn't try in 1st video as well.

I really like the idea of mesh. The tough part is snaking the ethernet cables throughout the house without doing too much sheetrock work.

The phone that would get 10% of the 5ghz signal would have switched over to the 2.4ghz and getting the 60% aswell. Increasing the signal to 60% with the extra mesh point looks weird in the explanation. The 2 mesh points would communicate with 2.4 and not 5ghz and thus dropping potentially the wifi speeds.

Hey Gary, how do I wirelessly mesh my 4 audiences with my home router?

11:35 nice...

Thanks for your hard work i like your videos a lot. Can u talk about PON network ?

Hi Gary, please do an ethical hacking video.

👍👍

good video, but why you are still using wifi5 in 2021 with so many wifi6 devices out there?

Hi

Garry, this video takes me all the way back to my first 300 baud connection to the nascent internet. Everybody's night time prayer back then was for a world without mountains of rj45 spaghetti. Then the Blessed J.K.Rowling invented WiFi and it all got so much better. And now you're actually suggesting we start laying coax and building lovely 19" steel racking and cupboards for the switches, modems and UPS. ...........Are you out of your f*@king mind? Moving on, I like your channel because you mostly know something of which you speak. So may I ask quite humbly that you not ask how to go back to the 1970's, the days when if it didn't arrive in 6 pantecnicons (look it up !) it wasnt a proper computer. What I want to know is not how we fix a local net system that is looking kinda creaky. My question is not even what do we want tomorrow's connectivity systems to do nor how fast do we want them to do it My question is how many tiny weany 7th dimensional, fully integrated bioWhoosits are presently in labs around the world that in the coming year will make wifi look just so remarkably quaint?

The explanation is a bit misleading. What the manufactures mean by MESH, is the ability to dynamically switch to the stronger connection. So if you have a router in the 1st floor and a repeater in the 2nd floor, your mobile phone will be be connected to the MESH-device on the floor you are (with the currently better signal). The MESH devices are making this decision. It only works between MESH-devices from the same manufacturer. In a non MESH setup, the mobile phone will stay connected with it's wifi, until the signal quality gets really bad and the phone is looking for a better wifi.

I would strongly advise against buying mikrotic hardware. It's not that good in the first place, and software is for professional use only, average joe will get crushed by it

@1:17 please don't use this animation.