Last question I promise: I’ve noticed in traceroute that when the first router has wifi off and is ethernet meshing with the second one, and I connect my laptop to the first router’s lan, like so:
Laptop <client over eth> router 1 <mesh over eth> router 2 <mesh over wifi> router 3 <client over eth> ISP router
There is no extra “hop” in the trace route output. I assume this is due to the layer 2 meshing, correct?
However, is this exactly comparable, in terms of performance and route selection, bandwidth, latency, and everything, in every way, to router 1 meshing over wifi directly with router 3 without going through router 2, provided 1 and 2 have the exact same wireless link quality toward 3?
For instance, let’s say router 1 has a 5GHz AC interface, and router 2 has a 2.4GHz interface. If this were a single dual-band router, LiMe would automagically select the best wireless interface to mesh with every other node on an individual basis, if I understand correctly. Does this dual-router setup perfectly replicate this behavior in your opinion, letting the C7 decide whether to use its own faster but shorter range 5GHz interface or whether to use the 2.4 interface of the 1043 just as if it were its own, without being influenced by the fact there’s a hardware-level "extra hop”? Or does it de-prioritize the 2.4 interface of the 1043 just because it’s one extra “hardware-level hop” away [please excuse the terminology]?
I’m asking this because I’m doing some hardware hacking to build what we’re calling an openNODE, essentially a TL Archer C7 and a TL 1043 ND stuck together in a single package we’re making. It’s an experiment to build a high performance dual band, triple-wifi-interface node under 150€. [I’m simultaneously testing out lime-sdk to see if we can get an open mesh A60 working, thanks to you ;]
The C7 will mesh over 5GHz [provided Gui enlightens us as to how to get this working ;] and the 1043 will mesh over 2GHz. The only wireless interface available to clients in AP mode will be the 2.4 secondary interface of the C7.
If the two act exactly as one, we’re golden. If not, I have to understand the cons in having two mesh routers instead of a single dual-band mesh router per node.