Sponsored Links

Starlink and Tenda MW12

griff6784

Casual Member
Hey everyone, Starlink is my ISP in the Peak District and I love it. The only problem I have, is getting that internet around the home. Said home consists of a workshop (large building at the bottom of the pic), next is a 1 up 1 down annex with kitchen upstairs (where the router is situated). That is in the lower part of the main house (the long roof running vertically in the picture). The main house consists of three upstairs bedrooms, downstairs utility room, office type spare room, bathroom, kitchen and living room (the kitchen directly above the conservatory on the picture and the living room being at the furthest point of the image on the right).

Prior to purchasing a Tenda MW12 Mesh kit, I had an eth adapter on the router, feeding into a 8 way TP Link switch (TP-Link TL-SG1008D). This switch connected a PC, Smart TV, Firestick and a Netgear Extender (EX6100) (on a 30m cat6 cable) acting as an access point in the workshop. One more 30m cat6 cable goes down through the house to the other kitchen with another 5 way TP Link Switch (TP-Link TL-SG1005D) which connects to another PC and Netgear Extender (EX6100) as access point which in turn provides Wi-Fi to the kitchen, adjacent living room (with another Smart TV). Finally I had one wireless extender upstairs in the main house.

This all worked...OK except in the workshop Wi-Fi kept dropping out and it wasn't always reliable in the other kitchen either. Cue a comment on the FB Starlink page and some chap convinced me to buy a Tenda MW12 kit (well he said MX12 but I could only get W).

So, I bought it and it's been patchy at best. Tried it as separate SSID and bypassing the Starlink router (no internet as a result). Turned off bypass and just ran it as a separate SSID and I kept getting the message "failed to connected to Nova". It did work OK but speeds in the other kitchen and living room were not good and nodes kept dropping in and out. I kept the switch arrangement, plugging my primary node into the 7 way switch via eth and then from that primary node I had the two eths formerly on Netgear Extenders connect to two secondary nodes in the workshop and other kitchen.

I reset everything (I've got 6 nodes in total as he sold me 3 of the cheap having upgraded to MX12) and reconnected everything in Bridge Mode. That worked OK but again speeds were not good enough. It hasn't got the grunt to efficiently get internet to that other kitchen and living room.

I reset everything again and put into DHCP mode. Same SSID as the router. Meanwhile switch and extender serve the other kitchen and living room. The mesh in DHCP works better than Bridge Mode but still, I get it dropping in and out on the app with "failed to connect" error messages. The WiFi never goes down but that shouldn't be happening surely? The chap who sold me the extra nodes said I should be able to control the network via a desktop portal but I can't seem to find the link for that or to get anything to work when it input ISP into the browser, so I'm restricted to the app.

Broad questions: what am I doing wrong and how can I do it better? Is TP Link Deco a better bet? What would everyone else advise to get the best out of my Starlink, another router and mesh, another mesh, or a better way of using the MW12s?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the waffle, I hope you can fathom it.
 

Attachments

  • Farm.webp
    Farm.webp
    27.4 KB · Views: 90
Seems to work well so long as the app is open. Also, IP on the Cmd, Starlink app and Tenda are different. They are 192.168.1.109(Preferred), 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.5.1 respectively. Is this right? Primary DNS on Tenda meanwhile is 192.168.1.1.
 
Devolo powerline adapters (other brands are available but this is the only brand I've tested) could be better than a WiFi mesh network for large properties (due to the issue of long-distance WiFi backhauls).

Given the cost of the Starlink service, I personally would not put up with such flakey behaviour from the ancillary network hardware as described here.
 
Sponsored Links
No offence. But get something better than Tenda. It’s rubbish basically.

Secondly, as you’ve already got cabling in play - cable the access points directly back to a PoE switch, and place in the APs in the actual rooms that will be using them. If you’ve a large spread apart house a mesh system will be hopeless as they need decent wireless connectivity to get the back haul channels working optimally. Get rid.

A series of local ‘leaf’ switches with PoE ports to power the local access points - and cable between the switches back to a ‘core’ switch - which could also be the point at which you connect your Starlink hub.

Starter for ten anyway….
 
No offence. But get something better than Tenda. It’s rubbish basically.

Secondly, as you’ve already got cabling in play - cable the access points directly back to a PoE switch, and place in the APs in the actual rooms that will be using them. If you’ve a large spread apart house a mesh system will be hopeless as they need decent wireless connectivity to get the back haul channels working optimally. Get rid.

A series of local ‘leaf’ switches with PoE ports to power the local access points - and cable between the switches back to a ‘core’ switch - which could also be the point at which you connect your Starlink hub.

Starter for ten anyway….
No offence taken at all. I went for it off the cuff because someone recommended it in the Starlink FB group, when I described the issues I was having with Netgear Extenders as APs. I find their (Netgear) login system, reset system etc infuriating, even worse than Tenda. One of my wired extenders acting as an AP just wasn't playing ball. As it stands the mesh node as AP or wired node to primary, is working better in the room where that extender was. Incidentally Tenda got in touch after a query and said get rid of the MW12s and buy MX12s ha.

What APs would you recommend?

Thanks!
 
What APs would you recommend?
Personally I dislike mesh type AP setups - but it works out fine for some folks. But in my view it's a bit of a rubbish cheat approach as most people don't have the facility to properly cable directly to each AP out lets face it just cant be bothered to.

There is no doubt this is the ultimate "proper" way of going about it, and if you have a large, spread apart house or thick, impenetrable stone or brick walls etc., by far the best course of action.

There's many brands of APs (and networking gear) - it depends on what you're familiar with and your budget ultimately.

I quite like Ubiquiti APs - even though they sometime have firmware quirks - but on the whole exceptionally reliable and decent performance. They don't look horrible either.
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6027)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2440)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules