[Freedombox-discuss] Some advice on moving Plinth forward?

[Sam Hartman]

>>>>> "Ian" == Ian Sullivan <sullivan at freedomboxfoundation.org> writes:


    Ian> Why not just have the freedombox as the router? If you are
    Ian> using a dreamplug, you have the capability to run it as the
    Ian> wireless access point and a second wired ethernet port to
    Ian> string additional switches or wired ports onto.

this is great if your topology supports it.
However there are a lot of people who ship  integrated router-AP things.

In a deployment similar to mine, net comes into the house on MOCA. The
dream plug doesn't have a MOCA port.  The ISP provides a device that is
an AP, switch and MOCA bridge as well as NAT.

The dream plug's AP is kind of crappy. There's no external antenna;
signal strength doesn't reach across my house. The AP doesn't support
802.11A/N. The AP provided by the ISP is much better in terms of signal
strength at least.

It is possible for a very advanced user to reconfigure the VLANs on the
device (possibly taking up two ethernet ports on the dream plug and
AP/switch) to route all traffic through the dream plug. That is not a
task the average user could accomplish with the AP configuration.

Even disabling the AP part of the ISP's AP and accepting the low-quality
wireless  offered by the dream plug  is kind of an advanced
configuration step.

You can just run both wireless devices.  My experience is that with the
dream plug in a couple of feet of the AP, signal quality on either SSID
is worse than with either alone.

So, this is non-trivial.