Easy to Set up, High End Router to be Deployed 5000 miles away

[Zarathustra[H]]

Hey all,

Back in 2011 in a thread that has seemingly been lost to history, after I was complaining about my highly congested neoighborhood and how bad the wifi performance was on both my included Verizon router and the - at the time - high end Netgear WNDR3700, someone recommended I give a Unifi AP a try. When I did, my jaw dropped. It cut through the congested 2.4Ghz band like the competing signals weren't even there. I have been using Unifi access points ever since, with 3x AP AC-LR units in my current house.

Fast forward to 2020. My mother-in-law to be lives in Sao Paulo Brazil, in a highly congested area in an apartment building with thick cement walls right down town. She is having what I presume are similar issues as I was having back in 2011. Last time my fiance visited she replaced the router thinking it was just old and dying, but the signal is still not magnificent.

My fiance is about to travel there for a visit, so, my first thought was, I'll send her a Unifi AP unit. I can set it up here, and just have her plug it in down there. The units usually hold their SSID's and passwords even without the Unifi software running. Hvaing thought more about it, I don't like this idea. What if something needs to be configured and changed and I am 5000 miles away?

So, I have been trying to think of alternatives that might improve her situation.

I came across the Unifi Dream Machine which essentially appears to be the Unifi version of an all in one consumer router/switch/access point. Two concerns with it though.
1.) At $299 it is a little bit more money than I was planning on spending.
2.) I have no idea if the "cutting through the interference" performance in it is as good as their standalone AP's.


Does anyone have any experience with this unit?

Are there other alternatives I should be considering that check these boxes of Unifi level of penetration and coverage, combined with all-in-one ease of setup?

Appreciate any recommendations.

 

[SamirD]

If that AP you're deploying can call back home to you for configuration, you're still okay. If not, what I would suggest is researching a way to run a vpn tunnel between your site and theirs, so you essentially are one big happy wan. I do this for my other sites (2x of them residences), so when the wife calls about wireless or any issues I can just rdp into a local machine and diagnose it like I was sitting right there.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

If that AP you're deploying can call back home to you for configuration, you're still okay. If not, what I would suggest is researching a way to run a vpn tunnel between your site and theirs, so you essentially are one big happy wan. I do this for my other sites (2x of them residences), so when the wife calls about wireless or any issues I can just rdp into a local machine and diagnose it like I was sitting right there.

I have actually thought of doing this. Of course, if the network is down, I won't be able to fix anything remotely, but other than that, it might be helpful.

A little tricky to set it up from 5000 miles away. Should have thought of it last time I was there.

 

[cyclone3d]

You may also want to think about getting some wifi extenders... even better would be ones that extend the range over the power lines instead of just wifi. Thick cement / rebar enforced walls are not nice to wifi signals.

Sending unit plugs into the router and the outlet. Receiving unit(s) plug into another outlet and get the signal from the outlet.

Best would be to run some ethernet cable and have an AP or two in addition to the router.

 

[SamirD]

I have actually thought of doing this. Of course, if the network is down, I won't be able to fix anything remotely, but other than that, it might be helpful.

A little tricky to set it up from 5000 miles away. Should have thought of it last time I was there.

Yep, and if the isp is down, nothing you can do even if you were on site either.

What I've done in the past is to set it up locally and test it all out. Then you can just send the remote piece on its way with some basic instructions like 'plug it in the wall and ethernet to the router', and then confirm the connection once it powers up.

 

[SamirD]

You may also want to think about getting some wifi extenders... even better would be ones that extend the range over the power lines instead of just wifi. Thick cement / rebar enforced walls are not nice to wifi signals.

Sending unit plugs into the router and the outlet. Receiving unit(s) plug into another outlet and get the signal from the outlet.

Best would be to run some ethernet cable and have an AP or two in addition to the router.

This is also really important as those concrete buildings are no joke. They use the same thing in India and a single wall can stop almost any wifi dead in its tracks. A local powerline setup as a wired backhaul would be important too.

 

[Nicklebon]

I have a similar situation with my in laws in Europe but I went with remote FortiAPs that mange from here since I already have a Fortinet ecosystem here at home. I even setup one SSID that tunnels all traffic back here so traffic on it appears to orginate here in the US. The inlaws did not have to contend with a lot other wifi traffic so I can't comment on that area.

 

[daveeversden]

Although expensive, you may wish to consider Cisco Meraki equipment. If you get lucky, you may be able to get some (non-stolen) units on eBay on the cheap. We wouldn't recommend that for business use but perfectly viable for MIL. There are still ongoing license fees to consider however.

The logic here is that the APs themselves are inherently cloud-managed so they'd simply need a DHCP lease from a wired connection and then you can do the rest.

To be honest, what may be a better plan for MIL is to go for a low-cost home mesh WiFi system such as a 3-pack of those Tenda units (for example). They are very cheap, and much simpler to coordinate a deployment with your fiancee. They're designed for self home deployment - nothing like Cisco or Ubiquiti.

I think you may be considering a sledgehammer to squash a fly at present.

 

[scrappymouse]

what about configuring you're unifi controller on AWS? configuring it in house, get it to talk to the AWS controller software and than ship it, in theory once it's connected at your in-laws house it should phone home to your AWS controller, and you'll be able to manage it remotely, as long as your in-laws internet is up. This is what I plan on doing, and what I know crosstalksolutions(on youtube) does for his remote clients.