[mythtv-users] cutting the cord issues?

Jan Ceuleers jan.ceuleers at gmail.com
Sun Nov 19 11:28:44 UTC 2017


On 19/11/17 11:50, Jim Abernathy wrote:
> I just told DirecTV that I'm not paying their ridiculously high price 
> anymore and I'm busy working on alternatives for TV watching.  Obviously 
> I have Mythtv for all my OTA recording and watching live.  I also plan 
> on adding a Roku or 2 for streaming services.
> 
> All this will put a lot of network traffic on my LAN.  I upgraded my 
> Internet connection to 100Mbs, but I can only get that speed at the 
> modem with a directly connected PC. Through the router connections get 
> only about 50Mbs. So that means I need a better wireless router that 
> also handles LAN traffic well.
> 
> There are a ton of AP routers on the market at all price points with 
> similar specs. I just wondering if any of you guys have evaluated any 
> and found that they work well on a heavily used network??

Whatever you get, make sure that you can replace its firmware with
something like LEDE so that you are assured of receiving security
patches in a timely fashion, and so that you can also track the state of
the art in software.

For example, open-source platforms such as LEDE are where cutting-edge
improvements in terms of bufferbloat and wifi queueing are first
available. You will want those for good streaming and gaming performance.

My own broadband router is a self-assembled little x86 machine (an
RCC-VE from ADI Engineering) with two Compex radio modules (ath9k and
ath10k) which runs a regular distro (Debian Jessie). So whereas this is
obviously not the cheapest way to go it means that you end up with a
fully functional little server. And it has ample oomph. The fact that
it's running a regular distro gives me the fastest-possible access to
security patches. For example: my network was safe against the KRACK
vulnerability on the day of its announcement.

I also have an alternative (less positive) story. I have an Asus
RT-N66U, which is very capable and which on paper supports DD-WRT and
LEDE. But in practice its performance when running open-source firmware
is stifled by the fact that its Broadcom chipset, in respect of wifi,
uses a softmac approach which requires an opaque firmware blob from
Broadcom, and the open-source community has not yet figured out how to
use that properly. So I have to stick to the factory firmware and have
to put up with their glacial security patching pace. Meaning that I
can't risk exposing it to the open internet as my main broadband router.

HTH, Jan


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