Wireless routers

[Geri O'Neil]

Re: Wireless routers

Subtopic: How reliable have you found the iPad control software?

Even in non-congested wireless environments I experience drops with Midas, Soundcraft, Yamaha, and Behringer control apps. I'd blame it on the router, but Lake Control for my PC works flawlessly under the same circumstances. Might it be an issue with the iPad's wireless card being weaker?

For this reason, I usually use control apps to set up the system before shows or for tweaking during, not for cues.

My iPad (3rd version) holds a good connection for most everything I use it for (Stagemix, Remote Desktop for StudioManager and the Protea and Pilot software (via Parallels and a remote app for the iPad).

But I gotta say, the Soundcraft app (ViSi, I think?) in near worthless AND the hardest to keep connected. I've had a run for a couple of weeks with ours and while I HAVE to use it (setting monitors from the FOH desk is about all it's good for), it's a teethgrinding affair to do so.

Geri O

 

[Chris Johnson]

Re: Wireless routers

It is worth saying that the internal wifi cards in all tablet products are not the greatest.

They all have tiny, position compromised antennae and some may be economising on TX power to save battery.

For serious use, you need a high power AP with a suitable antenna and a tablet with an external high power wifi unit with suitable antenna.

 

[Chad Young]

Re: Wireless routers

Just so you all know where I am coming from on all this - I work by day as a network admin for a medium-sized ISP where I handle everything from wireless to internet peering. My job is to move large amounts of data from point A to point B 24x7x365 over a variety of media.

In my professional opinion, relying on 802.11 wireless communications in either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands for any mission-critical application is unwise. Other point-to-point non-802.11 devices exist that can provide more secure and reliable service for mission critical applications.

Reasons:
- Very crowded spectrum in 2.4GHz bands; 5GHz is getting more crowded by the minute
- I do not need to 'hack' your wireless to make it not work. If I can just drown out your signal, I win. Three thousand punters with smart phones all searching and trying to connect to the nearest WAP will turn any 802.11 spectrum to mush.
- No, hiding your SSID and MAC-address lock down do not affect the previous item.

Alternatives:
- Alternate point to point wireless solutions in other bands (microwave, Wi-Max, FSO, etc.)
- Ethernet (copper or fiber) connections

The advice given above to use the 5GHz spectrum for now is pretty good advice, but you will typically get a little less range.

 

[Ron Kimball]

Re: Wireless routers

Some things yous guys missed - this mentions the DL1608 but applies to all iDevice apps :
FAQ: Wireless Connection Optimization

Also another more general FAQ that mentions another issue yous guys didn't bring up:
FAQ: Routers and Wireless Operation

 

[Rob Spence]

Just so you all know where I am coming from on all this - I work by day as a network admin for a medium-sized ISP where I handle everything from wireless to internet peering. My job is to move large amounts of data from point A to point B 24x7x365 over a variety of media.

In my professional opinion, relying on 802.11 wireless communications in either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands for any mission-critical application is unwise. Other point-to-point non-802.11 devices exist that can provide more secure and reliable service for mission critical applications.

Reasons:
- Very crowded spectrum in 2.4GHz bands; 5GHz is getting more crowded by the minute
- I do not need to 'hack' your wireless to make it not work. If I can just drown out your signal, I win. Three thousand punters with smart phones all searching and trying to connect to the nearest WAP will turn any 802.11 spectrum to mush.
- No, hiding your SSID and MAC-address lock down do not affect the previous item.

Alternatives:
- Alternate point to point wireless solutions in other bands (microwave, Wi-Max, FSO, etc.)
- Ethernet (copper or fiber) connections

The advice given above to use the 5GHz spectrum for now is pretty good advice, but you will typically get a little less range.

Sounds good. How do I use it with my iPad while walking around?
Unless I don't get the OPs request, I don't think we are looking for point to point stationary links.


Sent from my iPad HD

 

[Ron Kimball]

Re: Wireless routers

I have been using Netgear WNDR3700 for a couple of years. Excellent performance. The newer WNDR4500 has improved performance. Netgear WNDR4500 Wi-Fi Router Review | Maximum PC
The 3700 accepts DD-WRT firmware if required.

Actually it is my understanding that it already has a custom version of DD-WRT on it that NetGear commissioned. I'm running the factory firmware on mine (a V1 bought as a refurb for $55) and it's been 100% reliable.

 

[Chad Young]

Re: Wireless routers

Sounds good. How do I use it with my iPad while walking around?
Unless I don't get the OPs request, I don't think we are looking for point to point stationary links.


Sent from my iPad HD

An excellent question.

A quality router operating in the 5GHz spectrum gives your best option for iPad (or other wireless device) control if you are using 802.11a/b/g/n wireless. Use WPA2 and a secure PSK. Do not bother hiding the SSID or lock down by MAC address. Where possible, you want to be very close to the wireless access point (WAP). If I were mixing FOH, I would have a WAP at FOH and on a WAP stage connected via Cat5 copper so I had a decent chance of functioning wirelessly at each end. However, I would not put myself in a situation where the 802.11a/b/g/n HAD to work in order for the show to go off. It's just too darn easy for consumer devices and a few clever RF generators to saturate the spectrum used by that form of wireless and render it useless.

That's my $0.02 as a sound guy and a internet engineer. YMMV.

 

[Milt Hathaway]

Re: Wireless routers

Use WPA2 and a secure PSK. Do not bother hiding the SSID or lock down by MAC address.

Question: Doesn't that involve quite a bit more processing overhead in the WAP? Doesn't hiding the SSID at least keep every single person's phone from trying to connect? I know any script kiddie can see hidden SSIDs and sniff out and mimic MAC addresses, but I don't see those nearly as big a threat as the multitude of 2.4 and 5GHz xmitters that everyone in the audience is carrying, all trying to find a mate during the show.

 

[Ron Kimball]

Re: Wireless routers

My understanding is that part of the SSID broadcast is the encryption type. If a potential client "sees" an SSID that is encrypted and doesn't have a stored encryption key for it, the client won't attempt to connect (AKA transmit) unless you ask it to and first supply a key.

 

[Chad Young]

Re: Wireless routers

Question: Doesn't that involve quite a bit more processing overhead in the WAP?

Cheap WAPs may lose some throughput with the processing overhead of the tighter encryption, but any decent unit should be able to handle this easily. I would characterize this concern as 'not a factor.'

Doesn't hiding the SSID at least keep every single person's phone from trying to connect?

An astute observation and essentially correct. The down side is that if you need to connect a new device to your wireless network and happen to have forgotten your SSID or key, or the iPad that got swiped from the van is the only device you configured to connect, you get to do some gymnastics to get connected to your WAP. IMnHO, not worth the headache, but hiding the SSID will help stave off casual attempts at connecting to your network.

I know any script kiddie can see hidden SSIDs and sniff out and mimic MAC addresses, but I don't see those nearly as big a threat as the multitude of 2.4 and 5GHz xmitters that everyone in the audience is carrying, all trying to find a mate during the show.

I agree completely. Also, don't discount the fact that anyone with rudimentary electronics knowledge can knock together a device that can make any devices in these spectra quite useless quite easily. I can neither confirm nor deny that the guts from an old microwave can be easily reconfigured to make every wi-fi device for a few hundred yards useless, at least in the 2.4GHz spectrum.

 

[Chad Young]

Re: Wireless routers

My understanding is that part of the SSID broadcast is the encryption type. If a potential client "sees" an SSID that is encrypted and doesn't have a stored encryption key for it, the client won't attempt to connect (AKA transmit) unless you ask it to and first supply a key.

Partially right. Slight vernacular fix: connect <> transmit in this context - 802.11 devices are radios after all and can be made to transmit without connecting. Many deliberate attacks use this very fact (sending a flood of deauth frames to a WAP, for instance, as a DOS attack). *Most* devices will not try to connect to a secured network that they do not have a key for. However, if I try to connect and punch in a 'guess' for the key, I am tying up some resources on the WAP. Get 3k punters trying to connect on a lark, and your router is too busy saying 'no thanks' to the punters to service the real users.

This is, of course, a valid argument for not broadcasting your SSID. If you choose to hide your SSID (i.e., not broadcast), just make sure you have the SSID and PSK somewhere handy just in case!

 

[Ron Kimball]

Re: Wireless routers

Actually, if you hide your SSID and those punters have stored connect info for a hidden SSID net their devices will all try to connect to your net automatically as that's the only way they have of finding out if your net's hidden SSID is one they know. You will probably end up with MORE unwanted traffic if you hide your SSID than if you don't.

 

[Tim Weaver]

Re: Wireless routers

So I have a box-stock, off the wal mart shelf Linksys/cisco router that I use for mixing. It lives on top of the LS9 in monitor land. All I did was turn off ssid. It is otherwise a completely open network. This has been fantastically stable and this weekend I mixed two outdoor festivals and was a couple hundred feet from the router at times and had zero dropouts.

I don't even have fancy antennae for this thing. It just works. And I have the network name written on a piece of gaff right across the top of the unit. So far, nobody has tried to hack my LS9 and put a picture of a skull-and-crossbones on the screen. Boy that would suck.....

 

[Caleb Dueck]

Re: Wireless routers

Subtopic: How reliable have you found the iPad control software?

Even in non-congested wireless environments I experience drops with Midas, Soundcraft, Yamaha, and Behringer control apps. I'd blame it on the router, but Lake Control for my PC works flawlessly under the same circumstances. Might it be an issue with the iPad's wireless card being weaker?

For this reason, I usually use control apps to set up the system before shows or for tweaking during, not for cues.

How Apples manages WiFi is poor compared to how Windows manages the WiFi connection. it's something that bit us on a few early installs, we try to use a Win tablet instead of an iPad if it's the primary point of control for our installed systems now. Was talking to a client with a day job managing IT networks, and he said it's a common weakness as well. I'm not an IT person, so don't know the ins and outs of how/why.

 

[Brian jojade]

Re: Wireless routers

How Apples manages WiFi is poor compared to how Windows manages the WiFi connection. it's something that bit us on a few early installs, we try to use a Win tablet instead of an iPad if it's the primary point of control for our installed systems now. Was talking to a client with a day job managing IT networks, and he said it's a common weakness as well. I'm not an IT person, so don't know the ins and outs of how/why.

The iPad tends to freak out if it's connected to WIFI, but doesn't have an internet connection. Under normal situations, this would be ok, but Apple's idiot proofing design didn't take into account situations where you would NOT have an internet connection and still want to connect to another device. The problem is, the iPad figures you will have internet, and will try to do internet activities, such as checking for updates. When it sends those requests and waits for a response, it can cause lag in other apps. I haven't found a way to completely disable network activity on all but the apps I want. Sometimes, simply connecting the router to a live internet connection has solved problems for me.

 

[Ron Kimball]

Re: Wireless routers

The iPad tends to freak out if it's connected to WIFI, but doesn't have an internet connection. Under normal situations, this would be ok, but Apple's idiot proofing design didn't take into account situations where you would NOT have an internet connection and still want to connect to another device. The problem is, the iPad figures you will have internet, and will try to do internet activities, such as checking for updates. When it sends those requests and waits for a response, it can cause lag in other apps. I haven't found a way to completely disable network activity on all but the apps I want. Sometimes, simply connecting the router to a live internet connection has solved problems for me.

Force closing all apps before starting up the control app seems to take care of those problems for me. I also have all notifications switched off.

 

[Geri O'Neil]

Re: Wireless routers

The iPad tends to freak out if it's connected to WIFI, but doesn't have an internet connection. Under normal situations, this would be ok, but Apple's idiot proofing design didn't take into account situations where you would NOT have an internet connection and still want to connect to another device. The problem is, the iPad figures you will have internet, and will try to do internet activities, such as checking for updates. When it sends those requests and waits for a response, it can cause lag in other apps. I haven't found a way to completely disable network activity on all but the apps I want. Sometimes, simply connecting the router to a live internet connection has solved problems for me.

I haven't noticed any lag when using an iPad for remote duties (especially since I stopped doing VNC and Studio Manager and CL Editor). Not saying that lag isn't there, but it's not been a factor with what I'm doing. I didn't think about closing apps before I start a remote session. Gonna do that the next opportunity I have. I've disabled nearly ALL notifications from the word go, mostly because it seems they serve no purpose but piss me off.

Geri O

 

[Brad Harris]

Converted to the apple airport expresses (current and last generation) last fall.

I use iPads, and having the airplay is really freakin handy in arenas and large convention centers for walking around checking all of the zones. Just have your playlist running before using the control/vnc/rdp/... apps, slide it up and over to the quick access controls to advance, play/pause. You don't loose the connection.

Same thing when running smaart, you can switch back from tunes to pink to ......

I use the older gen expresses for bridging wireless racks (gtr world for ex) without having to run cables.

BRad

 

[Ade stuart]

Re: Wireless routers

I would put money on later generation ipad wireless performance being weaker than earlier generation stuff. May be that's why you can't get WiFi tools for ipads anymore.

 

[Chris Johnson]

Re: Wireless routers

I have to say, I have grown tired of my iPad in a professional environment. I find it to be very average for a number of reasons:

- The iPad has a great touchscreen, but its not particularly accurate as it is purely capacitative. Nothing beats a screen with a proper digitizer and a stylus for accuracy
- The wifi performance is very average. Small antennae are probably to blame, but once you get to larger (Arena+) venues, maintaining a solid connection becomes difficult.
- As good as the app store is, nothing beats being able to run your apps natively

Its for this reason that I'm in the process of buying a windows tablet for all my work tablet needs. I'll be fitting it out with a high powered dual band wifi card.

For those in the know. What's your take on the Ubiquiti equipment? I've found them to be excellent, but from an IT engineer's perspective, how do they stack up against the big boys of wifi gear? (cisco, etc...)