Alert WiFi LAN & WAN Channel Collision!!

[CaptainGizmo]

Captain.....Sorry to dig up an old thread, I am scraping some of these to see if I can fix an issue I am having. I am getting intermittent drops in my pepwave WiFi in the coach, and had the external WiFi pulling in solid signals. Since turning off the outside sources, it seems to be more stable (more time needed). My thought though is that in auto mode, the device should be selecting channels to allow WiFi in and out if that is a "feature" of the device. Are you saying regardless of channel, there is a collision of in and out on the WiFi on matching bands?? Is your experience that this is still an issue, or do you think future firmware will "restore" the ability to use external WiFi sources. TIA for taking the time to pick your brain a little.

This is a hard subject to articulate via a forum reply. In a nutshell, though, the way PepWave handle channel management, wifi radios, and actual board design is inferior to Cradlepoint's 1700, which uses 3 independent radios.

PepWave doesn't handle broadcasting an AP on both 2.4 and 5 simultaneously gracefully. I didn't run intensive tests to fully proof out bands, channels, etc. I did, however, find that you're asking for trouble if you do this practice; something I felt is a real shortcoming.

Rather than continue the battle, we switched to the CP IBR1700 which handles our development, configurations, and testings with ease.

Hope that helps.

 

[Scotttkd2]

 

[Neal]

Captain.....Sorry to dig up an old thread, I am scraping some of these to see if I can fix an issue I am having. I am getting intermittent drops in my pepwave WiFi in the coach, and had the external WiFi pulling in solid signals. Since turning off the outside sources, it seems to be more stable (more time needed). My thought though is that in auto mode, the device should be selecting channels to allow WiFi in and out if that is a "feature" of the device. Are you saying regardless of channel, there is a collision of in and out on the WiFi on matching bands?? Is your experience that this is still an issue, or do you think future firmware will "restore" the ability to use external WiFi sources. TIA for taking the time to pick your brain a little.

I suggest posting a screenshot of your AP Settings page in the Pepwave config.

 

[Scotttkd2]

Hi Neal, basically I was dealing with two issues, what Captain mentioned in post 10 was giving me repeating connect/disconnect of the clients in the event log. That stopped when I brought WiFi in on one band (2.4) and out on the other (5). The other problem was the wan port on my max transit duo is not capable of negotiating speed with Starlink adapter. It is a known issue with pepwave and involves a very old driver/firmware being used in the production of the unit. There is no fix except to put a switch inline from the Starlink to the pepwave. The symptom that pointed to this issues was a 50+ percent packet drop occurring on the wan. Things appear to be stable now.

 

[Neal]

Sounds good. I just wanted to make sure you weren't doing hourly channel updates like the attachment in post 10 which I don't feel is a good idea as those updates can be disruptive.

I am using a managed (fanless) switch in my setup to bring in Pepwave 2 to Pepwave 1 after some troubleshooting with Peplink on my ethernet situation. It didn't make a difference but I'm glad the switch is there when I bring Starlink into play. Wasn't aware of the issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K4DS5KU/?tag=rvf01-20

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

Hi Neal, basically I was dealing with two issues, what Captain mentioned in post 10 was giving me repeating connect/disconnect of the clients in the event log. That stopped when I brought WiFi in on one band (2.4) and out on the other (5). The other problem was the wan port on my max transit duo is not capable of negotiating speed with Starlink adapter. It is a known issue with pepwave and involves a very old driver/firmware being used in the production of the unit. There is no fix except to put a switch inline from the Starlink to the pepwave. The symptom that pointed to this issues was a 50+ percent packet drop occurring on the wan. Things appear to be stable now.

Thank you for sharing about the WAN and Starlink issue. I have been trying to figure out why Starlink was getting so slow when going through the WAN connection on our Pepwave.

Will get a switch to try adding that as an intermediary.

Do you know if instead of negotiating the speed with “Auto”, if a fixed speed was selected does that resolve it?

 

[Scotttkd2]

On your pepwave go into your system and tools and ping a site from the wan.....if your model is subject to this issue you will see a huge amount of packet loss. The only workaround pepwave is offering is get yourself a cheap switch to put in line. It comes down to a really old chipset and software they used for the device that cant negotiate the speeds that starlink (and I assume any other device running at 1gps). To answer your question, some have said that selecting 100mbps helps, but others are saying no difference still loss of packets and the devices fight over setting the best speed for the connection Auto will definitely cause you to have issues.

 

[Neal]

I wonder if this is the same issue I experienced with my ethernet case going from PC to Pep1 (main) which is ethernet connected to Pep2 and I was getting packet loss and network instability with Verizon on Pep2. If I use Wi-Fi to connect PC to Pep1 the problem goes away. Are you connecting to your pepwave via Wi-Fi or ethernet? Also have you tried connecting to Starlink via Wi-Fi instead of ethernet and noted any difference in the situation?

Edit: The inline switch did NOT solve my issue

 

[Scotttkd2]

Hi Neal, I connect to pepwave both ways, WiFi and direct. Both ways produced the internet drops due to the pepwave using the wan connection as primary (fastest) so anything connected downstream was seeing the packet losses, and then the connecting/reconnecting of the individual devices(the WiFi collision issue). I did connect to the Starlink 5G WiFi and broadcast on the 2.4 pepwave and so far the WiFi log is clean as a whistle. Before I was getting several dozen connect/reconnect incidents per hour. Unfortunately (as usual) I seem to be troubleshooting two issues at once, so which fix did the most benefit is hard to determine. My switch showed up today, and will be installed tonight. I will report back if that fixes the packet loss issue with Starlink.

 

[Scotttkd2]

Sorry Neal, just re-read your post and no, I am. Not getting any packet loss connected to the lan port via hardwire, no packet loss on WiFi either. It would make sense though that they used the same hardware/driver/software combo in production for both ports, so it would be a logical assumption that it could be an issue in the right (or wrong) circumstances

 

[Scotttkd2]

Neal, question.....can you ping test the wan and lan connections from your respective pepwave tools menu and see any packet loss??

 

[Neal]

I'll be back in the coach starting Friday for several months including setting up Starlink. I will let you know what I see when I am settled in after a few days.

 

[Scotttkd2]

Cool, have a safe trip! Look forward to hearing how you get on with the Starlink! Ours has been very solid, but have not moved to a new location yet. Aug 1st for that.

 

[Scotttkd2]

Hi Neal, I connect to pepwave both ways, WiFi and direct. Both ways produced the internet drops due to the pepwave using the wan connection as primary (fastest) so anything connected downstream was seeing the packet losses, and then the connecting/reconnecting of the individual devices(the WiFi collision issue). I did connect to the Starlink 5G WiFi and broadcast on the 2.4 pepwave and so far the WiFi log is clean as a whistle. Before I was getting several dozen connect/reconnect incidents per hour. Unfortunately (as usual) I seem to be troubleshooting two issues at once, so which fix did the most benefit is hard to determine. My switch showed up today, and will be installed tonight. I will report back if that fixes the packet loss issue with Starlink.

By way of update, I did finally get the switch inline from my starlink to the pepwave wan port, and then pinged from the wan port, zero packet loss. Switch appears to be handling the speed negotiations properly. Between that and the WiFi solution from Captain, I am running solely on the pepwave transit duo wired and WiFi (no additional AP) with no issues for the first time in almost a year.

 

[Neal]

@Scotttkd2 I'm using an ethernet connected Starlink to Pepwave 2 which feeds into Pepwave 1. There is no switch betwee SL and Pepwave 2. There is a switch between Pepwave 2 and Pepwave 1. No packet loss noted and no issues to date (one week of use so far). I did buy a cheap switch in case I needed to put it between SL and Pepwave 2 but it seems like it won't be needed.

I can't remember where (or if you can) check port speeds in the Pepwave to see what link speed the SL to Pepwave 2 is showing. If you know that please let me know and I'll check it.

I realize too that the BR1 Pro 5G is using a better GigE network system vs. older models and maybe that's helping.

All in all I'm seeing an ideal setup with no issues thankfully.