That’s how I read it too, @jec0047. I’m imagining one source from the IP and then a splitter with each going to separate modems and routers. Is that what you’re envisioning?
Two geographically different locations (AL and MA).
Easy to overlook that important detail.
—
JJW
The Eero Pro has separate radios for backhaul but the original and the muffin shaped ones don’t. They have a number of models with differing capabilities. Looks like the Eero 6 and the Beacon can’t do Ethernet backhaul.
On your wife’s laptop have you checked her speed before connecting to the VPN? It could be the bottleneck.
For videoconferencing you upload speed may be a limiting factor. If you both are trying to upload video at the same time it might fill the pipe. If your neighbors are also working from home that can affect your speeds also.
Another thing to try is to run the Eero speed test during the day. It’s the most accurate representation of your connection since nothing else gets in the way. You can kick it off by clicking on the Internet box on the Home Screen. On my Cox account I see higher speeds at night than in the daytime.
I have my gateway Eero connected to my modem and it connects to a 16 port switch that connects to the other Eeros as well as some other devices. Currently we have 26 devices on my network.
@glenthompson has clarified the backhaul issue; thanks.
You can connect the eeros either in star or daisy chain configuration and they will figure it out.
Mine are also in a pseudo-star configuration. I have one connected to the incoming WAN connection. That goes to a switch into which several other devices are connected. From the switch there is an Ethernet connection to a second switch, where several other devices are connected, including a second eero. From the second switch, Ethernet runs to a third eero, and another switch is also connected to that eero into which more devices connect. This somewhat odd setup is a function of retrofitting Ethernet cable into an old house.
As noted, there are two other eeros which are connected via wireless backhaul; one is an eero Pro and the other is a “muffin” eero. They were both spares from installs in other locations where only two of the three that came in the kit were needed.
I probably have 20-30 Ethernet connected devices on the network, and a similar number of WiFi devices. It all seems to be working fine.
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Thanks, @glenthompson ! Just ran a speed test prior to our work really kicking off and still getting 400+ mbps. Will check it a few times throughout the day. I think I can assume that the ethernet cable from my modem to the gateway eero is solid, right?
Unfortunately, my wife’s computer won’t allow her to get onto the internet without being logged in through her VPN. It’s pretty crazy. I read somewhere online that corporate VPNs can really mess up speeds to the device using them, which seems to be the case here. I can also run a speed test on the eero before and after she connects to the VPN to see if there’s anything with the ISP detecting the VPN and throttling out internet. What do you think?
Overall, seems like I need to be running more ethernet throughout my home. Perhaps naively, I had thought getting eeros and running a mesh network would eliminate any internet disruptions. Of course the setup is way better than our previous comcast modem/router setup.
I should also say that we plugged my wife’s laptop into the eero gateway and ran a speed test on her laptop (while connected to the VPN) and her speeds barely got above 30mbps. Again, no idea i’d the cable was any good, but I have to imagine her issue is the VPN. No idea what we could do about that.
This is fascinating @nlippman, thank you! I think my wife and I need to consider adding ethernet cables and switches to improve our home set up. And connecting our three muffins via ethernet that eventually tied back to the modem.
Running ethernet cables without opening our walls won’t be super attractive, but it could really improve our experience. Any suggestions on cables and switches?
@matthewtvincent A suggestion. You tried hooking your wife’s laptop into the Eero gateway via Ethernet and got speeds of 30 mbps. Now plug your computer into the same cable and same Eero, and see what speeds you get. If you are getting closer to the 400 mbps that Spectrum should be providing, then the issue is either your wife’s laptop or the VPN, and short of her contacting her tech support for a remedy, there may be little you can do. If your computer gets the same 30 mbps she is getting, then you have begun to narrow down the possibilities to investigate.
In terms of setting up your house with Ethernet wring, before doing so I would suggest the above testing. If the problem is with her computer specifically and everything else works fine, then you do not need the time and expense of running cabling.
I am guessing that will not be the case since your MBAir also shows slower speeds, but it is important to figure out where the speed loss is occurring before starting to wire!
Another option is to use the Eero app on your iPhone to check the placement of your Eero devices. I believe this can be done but I am uncertain as I have not actually done this myself. Often, however, mesh systems are sensitive to where the various nodes are located. This will be especially true if the construction of your house is detrimental to the radio transmissions; for example if your walls have metal mesh in them (as was often done with plaster walls), or if there is a lot of brick or stone work.
In terms of gear to use, it depends a lot on your needs and budget. If I were doing this over again (I did all this wiring back in the 90’s before WiFi really worked), I would use cat 6 cable. Plain Cat 6 can handle up to 10Gps Ethernet (provided the cable run is under 55 meters, which is is likely to be for any house I can afford!) but has the same internal structure as Cat 5 and is therefore easy to work with. There are other variants of Cat 6, as well as Cat 7 and upcoming Cat 8 that have higher speed capacities, but they are much more expensive, harder to work with, and probably unnecessary for home use. I used Cat 5E “back in the day” which is good for gigabit ethernet.
I can recommend various tools for terminating the cables, but in general I prefer the crimping tool in which the ends of the cable go all the way through the RJ45 connector and are then cut by the tool to fit. I think it makes a nicer finish and cable even though it is a bit more expensive.
In terms of switches, the sky is the limit. I have used various brands including Cisco, LinkSys (now part of Cisco), D-link, Netgear, and have not had issues with any of them for home use. Depending on your infrastructure, you might need special capabilities including a managed switch or Power over Ethernet (PoE), but since you are not trying to turn into a network geek, I would suggest simplicity over features. You will likely do fine with any gigabit ethernet switch from a reputable brand.
If I were doing this over again, or in new construction, I would absolutely do all Ethernet runs to the utility room in my basement, and install a switch there with capacity to connect to all of these cables, rather than the mess I have of multiple switches in various places, which is the result of a retrofit in an old house with very little ability to run cable easily (I have snaked many cables through walls, but one run was impossible and so I ran cable out of my attic, down the side of the house, and into the basement inside PVC conduit and then covered the whole thing when the house was re–sided).
This approach, called “home run” wiring, is in my opinion far and away the best way to do things although it does take more time and cable. With every cable coming into one location you centralize your network hardware, label everything, and no longer worry that a single disconnected cable takes our half your network by dividing in into two segments. Way easier to manage and maintain.
I would, again if I were doing this over again, probably use a Ubuity switch. I would likely just invest the money and get the 48 port switch that supports PoE, and use their WiFi 6 access points, powered via PoE so the only cable going to the access points is the ethernet cable. It would be an expensive solution.
Again, I would suggest you try to keep your own installation as simple as you can; invest in cheaper gigabit switches from any of the brands above; and above all, make sure you have clearly identified where your network problem is before you start running cable and buying gear!
In terms of running the cable itself, if you can do home runs to a network closet / utility area (ideally where your cable drop from Spectrum is located) I would favor that, but again depending on your home layout and your skillset that might be harder to do. There are many videos on YouTube that show how to snake cables through walls.
Good luck.
If you don’t have Ethernet already in your walls, or don’t/can’t run ethernet cable, it’s a pretty good alternative. It’s not too hard to do and you can usually get the adapters at BestBuy (or amazon). Good luck. We’ve been very happy with it.
How are you testing the speed on her laptop? Once she is connected to the VPN, all communications are routed through the work network. It’s possible that they have bandwidth limits on the connections so that’s where the throttling could occur.
Lots of good suggestions from the others. Running cables won’t help if the bottleneck is external. A discussion with her IT support might be in order.
It’s been a few years since I used a Cisco VPN but you had to be connected to the internet before making the Cisco connection. Unless they have the browser configured to only connect via the Cisco link she should be able to visit other sites. Might be a proxy settings issue that she may not be able to change.
Agree with @glenthompson. I use a Citrix VPN for work, and that too requires that local internet access be available before making the connection to the VPN network itself.
@glenthompson also brought up a very important point that I missed earlier, viz the upload speed. Most cable modem-based network connections are asymmetric, with a much slower upload speed than download speed. If you are doing something that is very upload dependent, such as video conferencing, then that could indeed be the place where things are going south for you.
One sidenote is that upload speed actually can significantly impact download speed regardless of whether you are actually trying to upload a significant amount of data or not, if the connection uses TCP, because the TCP protocol requires acknowledgement of received packets, which while a much lower volume than the download link, is still required for the download direction to operate. This is not an issue typically for video conferencing, however, which usually operates over UDP which does not require such acknowledgements. The usual impact of a slow upload speed is that you can see others’ video fine, but your video is choppy or indistinct to the others because your video upload speed is limited.
Again I would encourage direct connection to the cable modem first, then to an Eero connected to the cable modem, and compare those speeds, using both a VPN connection and a non-VPN connection. This will give you some data on where the slowdown is occurring. If you wish to upload the data here, I and I’m sure others would be happy to assist in next steps.
Since nobody else has addressed your wife’s VPN issue (at least what I could find), her speed is limited by that of her employer’s network, 20 Mbps apparently and that will always be the case if your home speed is greater.
Now, 20Mbps is perfectly adequate for Zoom or other calls. In fact that would easily support two simultaneous Zoom calls. Is you 400mbps bidirectional or do you have a much slower up speed as that could be your problem. Also bad connections (dropped packets) will hurt the video quality and you might have latency issues, but most assuredly speed isn’t an issue!
One thing I have not seen is to make sure your Spectrum modem is in bridge mode. This will allow the Eero unit connected to it to manage all the traffic and optimize it within your home before sending it out to the internet. If it’s not set in bridge mode it will impact your speed.
I have an eero system connected to a switch before the Ethernet cables go out to my Eeros in my house. If you were to wire your system you will need a switch. Get a gigabit switch to future proof your system.
Your wife’s vpn seems to be the limiting factor. If you can test the speed without it on.
I have four Eero 6 and a wall unit and have no speed issues. It’s a good, home system.
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Correct. Wireless backhaul uses one of the radios to communicate with the next (closest) access point. The more “hops” is has to make the slower it gets.
For reference my new Orbi uses a dddicated WiFi 6 radio to hop back to the base station leaving the remainder of the radios to push bandwidth out to the devices.
Reading some of the comments above.
I have a Comcast XB7 router and I still have its wifi network turned on still but I set up a Netgear Nighthawk mesh system which I’m testing out. The mesh helps when I’m far away from the router as far as strength goes.
The Nighthawk is attached via a Cat 5e cable.
A few questions.
a) If I’m going to keep the Nighthawk, should I turn off the XB7’s wifi? Would the two networks cause any issues?
b) What does using Cloudflare DNS get me versus Comcast’s DNS?
c) If I used Cloudflare DNS, is that put on the wifi network? If so, I would then put it on my Nighthawk network? Or does it get installed on the router?
d) If Cloudflare is on the network, does that mean I would have to put it on both my family wifi network AND the guest wifi network separately?
Thanks,
Paul
What does putting the cable provider router/modem in bridge mode do?
A long time ago to the point of not remembering, I think I used bridge mode on a completely different setup. I’m not sure it’s purpose.
Yes.
Privacy, perhaps a performance bump.
It doesn’t get “installed” anywhere, it’s just a setting in the router.
It’s the same as “turning off the XB7’s wifi.” The Comcast unit then becomes simply a modem.
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It allows the Eero router (or any router) to manage the network connection. If it’s not in bridge mode there will be conflicts and cause slowdowns.
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Takes the ISP’s router out of the equation. Most of the ISP supplied routers are garbage. I prefer to have my own modem, if possible, and my own routers.
I hate you, @glenthompson. (Just kidding!). I just went down a modem rabbit hole.
I think the big benefit of getting a 3rd party modem is to save money in the long term by getting rid of the $14/month rental fee. After doing some digging, it seems like the decent modems that are approved by Comcast are pretty expensive though. I’m trying to figure out exactly what I want/need.