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Wi-Fi is fundamentally an "only-one-thing-at-a-time-can-transmit" technology. The more "things" you have in each cell, the more competition (it's anything but "fair") there is for some "air time." Having gained control of the airwaves, signalling conditions (basically) dictate how much data can be transmitted in the time allotted - ie "speed."
Deploying multiple Wi-Fi cells means fewer "things" in each cell, thus less air time competition and better performance. Generally one also gets clients and AP's closer together which thusly improves signalling conditions which can further improve performance. It's not for nothing that on big sites we put up hundreds of AP's - not just to achieve the geographical coverage, but to reduce the air time competition.
This is irrespective of whether you have a "mesh" system of not. Where life gets "interesting" is how one achieves the "backhaul" links between all the AP's and the rest of the (wired) network. "Proper" network cables is best, HomePlugs used to almost always be next best, but now "mesh" is in the SOHO market and Tri-band and the latest Wi-Fi standards mitigate the bandwith clobbering of using Wi-Fi for backhaul and client access, it's debatable - it depends on individual use case somewhat.
If it's working well enough at availing Internet service, probably yes. There's no good reason to chuck just to replace your Wi-Fi. Most SOHO routers will let you disable their Wi-Fi quite simply (your incumbent router's Wi-Fi won't "play nice" with your shiny new mesh system unless it's been designed to do so.)
There's not absolute "right" or "wrong" way to do it:
If you have the same SSID and passphrase on all your AP's then client devices may (just "may") automatically "roam" between AP's without user intervention when they see fit. Note it is the client device that decides if/when to initiate a roaming assessment, not "the system" - some clients need it to get pretty ropey before they consider roaming. Thusly, one could be sat right next to an AP, but if your client has decided not to use it and use one further away, it could be, the service could be poorer. It's "Big Wi-Fi Myth Number 2" that clients are always "hunting for the best signal" - they do not. Some newer Wi-Fi standards incorporate a kind of "hint" mechanism whereby the (mesh) system can suggest to a client it might "be better off on a different AP" but it's still up to the client whether it want to "take the hint" and older clients are not "hint compliant."
If you make your SSID's different, clients will never roam to another AP automatically until they completely loose connection and start over as if you'd just turned them on. But you will always know which AP you are using as you have to explicitly pick it from a list every time you want to "roam." However, with some later OS's even this is getting a bit less of a hard and fast rule as OS designers are doing more "interesting" things in the Wi-Fi software.
You pays your money, you takes your choice.
Check the spec. carefully for this function: Not all AP's offer it and don't "just assume" that because an AP has an ethernet port, it can be used to service downstream devices. In much kit, the ethernet port on an AP is simply for availing cabled ethernet backhauls, not client devices. What you want may be referred to as "bridge" or "client access" mode but check carefully. |
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2-12-2019 04:32:30
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