# Wireless built in



## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

Why would Tivo include wireless when they have said it's not fast enough for MRV?


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## AdamNJ (Aug 22, 2013)

ajwees41 said:


> Why would Tivo include wireless when they have said it's not fast enough for MRV?


Because it can be used for guide updates/connecting to tivo service. Also I do believe u can use it to provide internet to start a MOCA network, and then hookup some Mini's through the coaxial.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah it can provide the internet leg of a MoCa network. So basically you have the main TiVo connected to your router via wifi and then all you Minis connected to the TiVo via MoCa and the TiVo will bridge the two connections to allow the Minis to talk to the internet. It actually makes setup quite trouble free for almost any situation.


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## Alan_r (Sep 13, 2013)

You can also use it to transfer shows between TiVos as well as stream to iOS devices.

What I dont understand though is why my 100Mb LAN works for MRV, but my 300Mb WiFi wont.
Granted, the devices only connect at 200+, but thats still faster than my wired network.
Are they concerned about WiFi's shared bandwidth being saturated by other devices?

I guess that could be a concern if a household has a few minis and they all are in use, but I think at least having an option to enable MRV over WiFi, perhaps with some sort of disclaimer about performance, would be nice.


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## socrplyr (Jul 19, 2006)

ajwees41 said:


> Why would Tivo include wireless when they have said it's not fast enough for MRV?


This made me snicker. For years now posters have been begging for built in wifi. Now, you are just feeding back the main reason why it was suspected that it wasn't put in.
I won't ever use the wifi, but for many it would work very well. To somewhat repeat what has already been said. Tivo doesn't need a big pipe to the internet. It needs big pipes to other boxes to stream to. With MoCA, you get that almost for free.


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## HazelW (Dec 6, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> Yeah it can provide the internet leg of a MoCa network. So basically you have the main TiVo connected to your router via wifi and then all you Minis connected to the TiVo via MoCa and the TiVo will bridge the two connections to allow the Minis to talk to the internet. It actually makes setup quite trouble free for almost any situation.


Can you also plug in an RG45 cable to a switch?


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## Balzer (Nov 12, 2006)

ajwees41 said:


> Why would Tivo include wireless when they have said it's not fast enough for MRV?


Ah, just remember. Just because it's not supported doesn't mean it won't work.

I stream wirelessly to and from my second Premiere, as well as using Netflix and MLB-TV, and very rarely have a problem.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

Balzer said:


> Ah, just remember. Just because it's not supported doesn't mean it won't work.
> 
> I stream wirelessly to and from my second Premiere, as well as using Netflix and MLB-TV, and very rarely have a problem.


I do as well. Just thought that the wireless built in would be overkill.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

HazelW said:


> Can you also plug in an RG45 cable to a switch?


I'm not sure if there is a way to enable all 3 simultaneously. I haven't even turned on wifi in my Roamio Pro. I do know that it can bridge Ethernet to MoCa as I'm using that now. I have my whole entertainment center plugged into a switch, which then connects to the Roamio, which then transmits over MoCa to a MoCa adapter connected to my router upstairs in my office. All of the devices in my entertainment center can talk to the internet just fine. Unless the TiVo reboots, then it kills the internet to all the other devices until it comes back up.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Does any one know for sure if the Base Roamio will bridge the built-in WiFi to it's Ethernet port? to connect an external MoCA adapter?

I was thinking of getting a base Roamio and a Mini for my mom, who has DSL and no Coax anywhere near her router, and the house is not wired for Ethernet.


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## HazelW (Dec 6, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> Yeah it can provide the internet leg of a MoCa network. So basically you have the main TiVo connected to your router via wifi and then all you Minis connected to the TiVo via MoCa and the TiVo will bridge the two connections to allow the Minis to talk to the internet. It actually makes setup quite trouble free for almost any situation.


Has anyone done this. Dan says later in the thread he has not tried it.


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

Balzer said:


> Ah, just remember. Just because it's not supported doesn't mean it won't work.
> 
> I stream wirelessly to and from my second Premiere, as well as using Netflix and MLB-TV, and very rarely have a problem.


I use the wireless on my Roamio all the time for streaming Netflix, etc, and it works with no problem, same as my Roku which is also on wireless.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm using the wireless on my Roamio BAsic right now to stream live OTA content to one of my Minis. I switched the Mini to have the OTA Roamio BAsic as a host last night. It streams live OTA TV, and recorded shows from the ROamio Basic using wireless with zero issues. 

My Roamio Basic is currently connected to one of my 5GHz APs and is showing a link rate of 300M. Unfortunately though the wireless is limited to the same speeds as the ethernet port so it maxes out around 95Mb/s. But streaming to the Mini is no issue since OTA maxes out around 19Mb/s anyway. The only time the faster speeds come into play is when transferring to/from a PC running KMTTG/TiVo Desktop.


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## danm628 (May 14, 2002)

Alan_r said:


> What I dont understand though is why my 100Mb LAN works for MRV, but my 300Mb WiFi wont.
> Granted, the devices only connect at 200+, but thats still faster than my wired network.


The quoted data rate for WiFi is the PHY (physical layer) rate. That is the rate that the data bits in a packet are modulated at when they are transmitted. That is not the actual throughput of the wireless link. The actual throughput is decreased due to overhead from MAC, preamble, ACKs, SIFS, DIFS, backoff and a few other things.

For 802.11, .11a, .11b and .11g you can assume the actual throughput is roughly half of the PHY data rate.

For 802.11n and .11ac the available throughput is closer to 80% of the PHY rate (.11ac is better but I don't know how much). A large part of the gain came from the use of aggregate packets where multiple user data packets are sent in a single transmission instead of multiple smaller transmissions.

One of the primary goals for 802.11ax is to improve the efficiency to give closer to PHY rate. That is still being defined so products are a few years away still.

WiFi is a half duplex technology. Only one device can transmit at a time and all other devices must wait. As the number of active devices in a network goes up the efficiency will go down due to increased time spent in backoffs from CSMA/CD.

WiFi is also subject to interference from other WiFi networks in the area on the same or closely adjacent channels. For devices in the 2.4 GHz band they also get interference from Bluetooth, some cordless phones and microwave ovens.

Modern Ethernet connections are full duplex (i.e. bi-directional). This means that you have 100 Mbps (or 1 Gbps) in each direction on the cable at the same time. So a 100 Mbps Ethernet connection can move more traffic than a 300 Mbps WiFi connection when dealing with bi-directional traffic.

- Dan

P.S. I worked on a few WiFi chips back in the early to mid 2000s. I did some work on 802.11n before moving to WAN systems.


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