TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point Review

TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point 

Reviews for the the TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point can be found by the plenty on Amazon and they are for the most part good. In fact out of 3000 or more reviews the WA801ND gets 4.5 out of 5. 

It is not hard to see why. It is from a good manufacturer and it very cheap, for what it does. It can be used as a access point, or a repeater, or as a client, enabling a wired network device to connect to a wireless network. So its pretty handy.

There are few things that people buying this on Amazon bring up as bad things about this TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point, and I will go over some of these here.

Quoting 300 Mbps WiFi but only 100 Mbps Ethernet Port

Hmmm. Yes the ethernet point is not gigabit. So this is a bit cheeky. But unless you are doing real heavy lifting with this access point you will not notice. 

We can stream 2 HD TVs through this whilst surfing web, and listening to music on phones. So it is quite a powerful bit of kit.

As an access point the throughout would be capped at 100MPs, but as repeater it should handle 300MBPs. Although factoring two way traffic does this reduce to 150MBs effectively.  

Difficult to Set up and Slow

No. Not my finding. The interface can be a little laggy, but you get that on a lot of networking equipment. 

Some say that when they change the SIDD or login details they loose the connection. This happens on nearly all networking gear with these features. 

Signal Strength 

Not amazing, although 2 or 3 can be used to get wi-fi over large area. We have one that "shoots" wifi to a netgear repeater which then take wifi in to house. 

Reliability 

Occasional stuff breaks. I have had lots of networking gear of the years of all types and makes. Most has broken over time. Whether this is burnt out internals, or misdiagnosed problems passed down from other pieces of hardware (such as DHCP fault on router) who knows. Based on amazon reviews these have a 0.5% failure rate. And if you look at all the other wireless access point available, they all have failure issues too!

Conclusions 

This is a very cost effective piece of kit. It has a few problems, but most of these are found in all access points. 

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TP Link CPE210 vs TL-WA801ND

TP Link CPE210  vs TL-WA801ND Access Point 

As with many folk in the UK we live in a oldish house with walls made of 3 meter thick depleted uranium, and getting a wireless signal around the house is a bit tricky.  

I have been using a TP Link TL-WA801ND Access Point for around a year with mixed results. I have a small wooden hut in the garden that I house various centralised network bits in such as file stores and the TL-WA801ND. It give a weak signal in the house.

I wanted to improve on this and so found the TP Link CPE210 on amazon for £46 ($90). I think I have misunderstood what CPE210 is for, so I will share thoughts in below.

I should point out that the CPE210 is designed to do 4 or 5 different jobs. Such as bridging two wire networks over a long distance, or beaming a signal for use at a specific point (office at end of garden for example. 

This page would also be relevant for comparisons between TL-WA901ND, and CPE510 / CPE710.

"Beam" Width

Whilst the TL-WA801ND splashed wi-fi goodness in all directions, the CPE210 delivers it output in a very focussed beam. 

The CPE210 Instruction Manual Shows Typical Usages. 

So my expectation that it would do the same job as the TL-WA801ND was incorrect. In use as an access point you will find that this narrow beam provides excellent signal strength along the beam path, but it fades rapidly from one direction when sidestepping. 

Simplified Coverage PAtterns

When used as an access point therefore, the CPE210 is best used for long reach small area applications. It would be ideal for beaming wi-fi to an office at the end of the garden. But do not expect wifi coverage for the whole garden. 

Further web snafflings show above diagram. Available from here. So it may be the case that you could mount this access point too close to where the signal is required and that might cause problems. 

Setup

If you have set up a router or access point before then you will be able to configure the CPE210, much the same as the TL-WA801ND. 

The CPE210 has a few more options. 

The Setup Interface for the CPE210 is Relatively Simple although is has lots of options. 

Using TL-WA801ND and CPE210 Together

The TL-WA801ND and CPE210 could be used very nicely together.  The CPE210 could be used as an access point to beam, wi-fi to the end of a garden or to far corner of industrial site, with TL-WA801ND used as a client to pick up signal, or as a repeater to "spread" the signal around in that area. 

Conclusions 

CPE2010 - Good for far reach narrow beam applications.

TL-WA801ND - Good for wider area coverage. 

I found that whilst the CPE210 delivered excellent coverage in one spot, it did not cover house and office as expected. This was due to my misunderstanding of the products function, rather then a fault with the equipment. 

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RUTX09 Industrial Router - Review, Install and General Guide

This a post detailing my install and opinion of the RUTX09 router from Teltonika. I am using this at home, I run a business from home, and we have 3 kids home schooling during lock down.

A few weeks ago we started having problems with our MR6400 router, it the TP Link router was freezing and locking up.

We were using the router very heavily at the time, so when searching for a new router I included the phrase "industrial" hoping for some heavy duty offerings. This a 3G 4G router for mobile broadband.

Firstly if you would like to watch a video instead, please do:

When searching I was met with a mixture of offering from Cisco (around £1000) and a new company Teltonika, which I hadn't heard of. These range in price from £150 to £350, and the hardware specifications were good, and that couple with ability to use open source linux software on them made the decision.

I got mine from NetXL, the delivery was very good, next day, even when ordering in afternoon. I had previously bought a ponty XPOL antenna from them so was sure it would be sent quickly.

The RUTX09 router is well built, with an all alloy construction. It runs on an ARM processor (which is the same they use in iphone).

It is fairly self explanatory putting it together. I was little surprised that there was no wifi, but that's my fault for not checking. Easy to set up using old router.

The inclusion of a GPS antenna, leads me to think perhaps this router is vehicular applications (?) not sure.

The router includes a small tool to remove SIM tray and install, which is neat.

In any case I was soon logged in to the configuration interface which, first lands on a 4 stage setup. I had the router connected wired to my main PC, and I noticed the speed was very good, the internet felt more snappy straight away. Download speeds increased from 30MB/s to around 40MB/s.

HOWEVER, none of the wireless access points seamed to have internet access, and network connectivity (when looking at client list) was patchy and sporadic.

Note: My home network consists of:

• Router RUTX09
• Netgear Switch (5 Port) to
• 100M ethernet cable to 
• Netgear Switch 20 Port to 
• Power Line Adaptor (Netgear)
• To Access Point
• Additional Access point (also via additional Powerline adaptor)

I tried in vein for around 7 hours to get the network operational, I switch everything on and off again (the whole system), checked all IPs, MACs and DHCP settings. I reluctantly upgraded firm wear, which went OK!

Then I found a little setting on Network > LAN > Edit LAN > Relay Configuration

Whether it was luck, or this was the correct setting for wireless access points I do not know. After enabling I noticed the firewall rules had automatically changed. So perhaps it is a pre-set for firewall configuration.

Any how, now the RUTX09 router is up and running is it an absolute sledge hammer. It can run 2 HD TVs, 3 Video Conference Laptops, and my main PC. It is rock solid.

With the same antenna, and same reception our old TP link router could not handle web use and TV watching at the same time, and could not handle 2 x HD TVs at once. The failing must have been on the TP Link Router's behalf, as the down load speeds were alway 30MB/s plus, so should be enough for 2 TVs and a few laptops.

So all in all it works very well, and I would suggest give this or another Teltonika Router a whirl. Since setting it up, everything has been working A-OK, with no crashes or evene delays.

They seam extremely well made . . .  they just need a few setup presets for dumb asses like me!

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Mix and Match Netgear Powerline Adaptors

A few notes on mixing and matching different models of netgear power line adaptors. These tests were run on a PC with a cable connect direct to the router.

Screen shots were pulled from netgear Genie.

Original Setup

From left to right media store, router (gateway) and house. Total distance about 100m. Rouiter is in shed at bottom of garden. and house access point (connected to XAV2001 by cable) is furthest point.

Test Set Up

Removal of XAV5201 and test of speeds between two XAV2001.

Newer Adaptor at Router End of Line

So by putting the XAV5201 does this make thing better. I should point out that the XAV5201 is a newer model than the XAV2001, and has higher bandwidth. 

Older Adaptor at Router End of Line

There has been an improvement! What does this mean, does the newer power line gear receive signal better than the older stuff? I am not sure, if that were the case then wouldn't we see better TX results by swapping the other way around.

AV500. . .AV 200

Does matching power networking standards help things, both below are AV500 compliant . .  no it doesn't.

Conclusions

I haven't a clue! How about you? Please leave a comment.

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