So, I think a major difference is you guys are living on the East Coast - the homes out there are generally OLD, and they were built way different.

Sometimes.  My old house was built in the 1920s, with plaster and wire lath walls.  I got wifi coverage by putting the access point in the basement, so the signal could shoot through the wooden floors instead of the faraday cage created by the wire lath in the walls.  My current house was built in 1991, all modern construction with sheetrock on wood studs, 16 on center, etc. etc. etc.   It's far easier to work in.  But I also have a very shallow attic with trusses everywhere, that make the attic unusable for storage and really horrifying to run wiring in.

What bugs me is that in 1991 every house was being wired for cable television.  Mine wasn't.  I could have used those drops to pull Ethernet.  It took a few years to phase out all of the tacked-on phone and cable wiring and replace it with in-wall wiring and jacks.

Did I mention how fascinated I am with the MediaTek MT7621A chip?  That's what powers the Mikrotik arriving today, but when I learned how many different routers are powered by this chip, it kind of made me realize that there aren't actually a lot of different routers.  They're all made from hardware from just a few SoC vendors.  I should have known better, as this is already clear to us in the data center business, most vendors use the same merchant silicon.

I love how bitter and disillusioned your user base is, Ig. They're the most nihilistic community I've ever found in 35 years of telecommunications. It may be the first time I've ever felt truly at home. 

Fri Jan 08 2021 06:41:13 EST from nonservator

The only wireless device I trust is an old school infrared remote. Everything else is a ridiculous inefficient joke.

Bitter and disillusioned, yes. Nihilistic, thankfully no - that's like suicide, it means your enemies win. And spite is as good a reason as any to keep living.

Getting new equipment is a mixed thing. You're excited and once you get it all up and running, it is always a great feeling if it delivers what you were hoping...


Doing the transition is always something that I dread, though - and if things go south, it can be a total nightmare.

Hey, i'm not bitter and disillusioned..  No, wait, ya, i am. 

:)

Sat Jan 09 2021 00:11:59 EST from ParanoidDelusions

I love how bitter and disillusioned your user base is, Ig. They're the most nihilistic community I've ever found in 35 years of telecommunications. It may be the first time I've ever felt truly at home. 

 

Seconded that Mikrotik make some nice little boxes. I inherited this one from a friend who used it for years to his complete satisfaction:

https://mikrotik.com/product/RB750GL

though I'm sure it's long been superseded. This is a guy who hung on to his DSL connection for years after he got cable so he could run torrents on one without slowing down the other. He was pissed when they found an excuse to un-grandfather him.

did you keep the oem software? 

Sat Jan 09 2021 11:45:37 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

I was actually thinking about that as I went through the first couple of rooms today. It's a very bad time to be a non-sheep but I hate that it's the only thing we're talking about everywhere.

So let's talk about my Mikrotik router some more!

It arrived yesterday, and I have put it in line with my old router, with the Mikrotik on the upstream side closest to the Internet and the old verizon router behind it. Later tonight I will gradually move all of my stuff out from behind the old router and directly onto the new one.

Even with both routers in line, I'm getting 871/863 Mbps on speedtest, and that's from the same machine running my servers, so I'm very happy so far.

Im sure there is some joke about not being able to read this, but i'm tired and tomorow is Monday :( 

You will have to give us a report after it cooks for a bit.

Sun Jan 10 2021 14:22:15 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

I did keep the OEM software. I've hear that OpenWRT can be installed on it, but I haven't been able to confirm that the OpenWRT build preserves this model's on-chip ethernet switching. Mikrotik's routerOS seems fine enough for my needs and it's already working.

Just a few minutes ago I took the old router out of the path. Everything seems fine so far. If you are reading this then it's probably working.

Yeah, it's fine.  It's fantastic, actually.  I'm getting pretty damn close to wire speed on my "gigabit" (which is what Verizon calls 940/880) Internet connection.  Enterprise-grade software, nearly everything on a single SoC, 3 watts power consumption, what more could you want for $59 USD?  Nice small box, mounted neatly on my network wall, cable connections face down and the LEDs face forward into the room.  I love it.

Ill have to keep this in mind if i need another box. If i toast my current router, i'm still leaning towards a opnsence vm on a dedicated network card. But 60 bucks isn't bad to just toss it in the closet and not care anymore.  

Mon Jan 11 2021 23:38:52 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

Yeah, it's fine.  It's fantastic, actually.  I'm getting pretty damn close to wire speed on my "gigabit" (which is what Verizon calls 940/880) Internet connection.  Enterprise-grade software, nearly everything on a single SoC, 3 watts power consumption, what more could you want for $59 USD?  Nice small box, mounted neatly on my network wall, cable connections face down and the LEDs face forward into the room.  I love it.

https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/news/tim-berners-lee-wants-to-turn-the-internet-on-its-head-and-decentralize-it-once-more-353998.html?fbclid=IwAR02P6ewMZ7Cw8hUGf9fvPeS-NzTRk89TUesyj3r8g2FISf8Ye74xLgBQjo

Have you guys heard anything about this? 

Another source on it: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/technology/tim-berners-lee-privacy-internet.html

Fri Jan 15 2021 15:04:07 EST from ParanoidDelusions

 

Solid looks to me like the end of anonymity for anyone engaging, and the ability of others to pull your plug at any time.

I heard something about this last year, I am not sure anything will become of his efforts.  People don't care, people don't want to give up their facebook.

Elaborate. How does having your own wallet and deciding who to let plug into it, on a one time basis, erode your anonymity - as compared to now... where Facebook and Twitter and Google have it all stored on their servers and have cookies tracking you where ever you go? 

What are your privacy concerns about this idea? I haven't thought that deeply about it yet. Just a general, "sounds good... imma ask the guys who really care about this stuff what they think..." 

Fri Jan 15 2021 15:49:44 EST from nonservator

Solid looks to me like the end of anonymity for anyone engaging, and the ability of others to pull your plug at any time.

I did think this. It is a different time and he already let the Genie out of the bottle. I'm not sure if he can get lightning to strike twice. 

Fri Jan 15 2021 15:51:55 EST from zooer

I heard something about this last year, I am not sure anything will become of his efforts.  People don't care, people don't want to give up their facebook.