My never-ending quest for better WiFi

Improving my home WiFi setup often feels like a never-ending story. This year, I’ve already begun quite the journey to upgrade my network.

My network’s evolution began with a GL.iNet Beryl AX and a USB 5G modem. I then added a second Beryl AX for an 802.11s mesh setup, later replacing the main Beryl AX with a GL.iNet Flint 2 and the USB modem with a Zyxel NR7302. However, this mesh configuration, running Vanilla OpenWRT, created a major challenge: there was no dedicated radio for the backhaul. Since I couldn’t run Ethernet cables throughout my entire apartment, the bandwidth had to be shared between the mesh backhaul, the client devices accessing the access points, and, of course, my neighbors’ WiFi networks. This limitation also meant I couldn’t utilize DFS channels, further restricting available bandwidth.

In an attempt to reduce this, I even tried adding a second radio using some inexpensive WiFi AX USB sticks from AliExpress. Unfortunately, this didn’t bring any improvements and in the end didn’t really work either.

After extensive research, I decided to look at more options and consider routers beyond OpenWRT, as long as they didn’t come with Chinese firmware. Key requirements for my new setup included the option to use my self-hosted DNS-over-TLS server for DNS resolution, and a robust QoS or SQM (Smart Queue Management) feature. This last point was particularly important because my network sits behind a Zyxel 5G modem, and 5G and LTE connections are often affected by bufferbloat.

My final decision came down to two main contenders: an AVM FRITZ!Box 4060 and a FRITZ!Repeater 3000 AX setup, or an ASUS ExpertWiFi EBM68 with two units. Both of these setups make use of a dedicated backhaul radio. AVM is a German company, and I could have bought their components used for around €300. The ASUS system, however, I managed to purchase for €259, with an additional €50 cashback offer from ASUS.

Asking various AI assistants for advice, they always recommended the ASUS setup, so I decided to go with their suggestion.

Yesterday, the package arrived, and I quickly replaced my GL.iNet setup with the new ASUS units. After configuring and adjusting a few settings, I’m happy to report that it’s working great so far! While the 5G bandwidth still experiences some fluctuations, the WiFi speeds in the living room, which is near the repeater unit, have greatly increased, finally consistently exceeding 100 Mbps.

The Adaptive QoS feature, with bandwidth set to 250/30 Mbps and a “Work-From-Home” preference, is also working well. While it hasn’t achieved an A+ score on the Bufferbloat test (neither did my previous setup), I’m observing a significantly smaller latency increase compared to when QoS is disabled. Crucially, I was also able to successfully configure my DNS-over-TLS server.

No software is without its quirks, though. The router includes a traffic analyzer feature that I wanted to quickly test. After turning it off, I discovered there was no button to delete the collected statistics. This required an SSH connection to the router and using the SQLite CLI to manually delete entries from a table within a specific file. Thankfully, with the help of AI assistants, I was able to locate that hard-to-find file!

After a few weeks of validating the new setup’s stability and performance, I plan to sell the Flint 2 on eBay. I prefer not to keep valuable tech, and it’s a perfectly fine device that someone else will surely find great use for.

Let’s hope this is the last post about this topic! 🤞

(Just a small update.)

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