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Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

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Re: Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

#51

Post by lorenzhs »

agurk wrote: post #30

It's interesting that the he says in the guide that it's definitely worth getting a 4x4 MIMO AP/router: > It is easy to overlook and miss, but beamforming and diversity are the key reasons why you want a 4×4 MIMO router even though most clients are still only 2×2 MIMO. The extra antennas are actually used and offer value (a stronger signal, which translate to better connect speeds for some users)! Having been a keen…

I have the EAP245, which is 3x3 and was only slightly more expensive than the EAP225 in my country. I'm pretty happy with it and it's far better than what my ISP provided. It supports beam forming, band steering, and DFS channels.

But I paid less than 90€ for it and the 4x4 routers all seem to be quite a bit more expensive. Am I really missing out on much by not going 4x4?

Re: Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

#53

Post by stefan_ »

jrockway wrote: post #7
teruakohatu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surley the FCC could just publish a data file that clients download and lookup their frequencies.

They tried the honor system, it was called DFS. According to Wikipedia: "Prior to the introduction of Wi-Fi, one of the biggest applications of 5GHz band was the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar. The decision to use 5 GHz spectrum for Wi-Fi was finalized in World Radiocommunication Conference in 2003; however, meteorological community was not involved in the process. The subsequent lax implementation and misconfigurati…

And yet here we are, lives still.. living?

The FCC needs to do this much more, radio spectrum is a massively valuable limited resource and you either demonstrate technological excellence or you get out of the way of those who can. We can't have GHz worth of spectrum untouched because people don't want to upgrade their 1960s hardware and/or technology.

Re: Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

#55

Post by [deleted] »

Dahoon wrote: post #35
milankragujevic wrote: post #28

This article is so awesome! I keep telling people who complain to me about slow WiFi speed that it is their device's fault. A lot of mid range Android phones only have 1x1 802.11ac, which is about 433 Mbps PHY at 80 MHz channel. Some more expensive Android phones and all iPhones support 2x2 MIMO which gets you up to 867 Mbps PHY at 80 MHz channel. Some phones have a buggy implementation of VHT80 client, so on 80MHz t…

I'd rather have that ASUS stupidity trophy than a backdoored router, which pretty much all of them are when from an ISP. Not many of them (none?) even care to update regularly.

[deleted]

Re: Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

#56

Post by glogla »

milankragujevic wrote: post #28

This article is so awesome! I keep telling people who complain to me about slow WiFi speed that it is their device's fault. A lot of mid range Android phones only have 1x1 802.11ac, which is about 433 Mbps PHY at 80 MHz channel. Some more expensive Android phones and all iPhones support 2x2 MIMO which gets you up to 867 Mbps PHY at 80 MHz channel. Some phones have a buggy implementation of VHT80 client, so on 80MHz t…

In my case, the ISP router (combined with cable modem) and my own router (Turris Omnia) are about as fast when they work.

But the ISP device is really unreliable - my work laptop can do 3x3 and that causes the router to lock up. It also "smartly looks for least used channel" which can't be turned off in the ui, and causes few minute long disconnects every hour or so. Oh and it overheats and restarts when you load it with a lot of packets, like with BitTorrent or video call with five people.

The router is very much worth it.

Re: Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

#57

Post by taneq »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #14

This article strongly suggests that modern hardware reviews for consumer grade routers have become mostly useless. This has a wealth of practical knowledge in it the likes of which you never see in a review of a router. So much of the modern internet for product reviews is really advertorials.

It sounds like the specs are largely useless for ranking consumer routers, but crowdsourced user reviews are still useful.

A couple of years ago I bought a Netgear D7000v2 VDSL modem/router and it was a piece of junk. It took minutes to start up after power-on, any attempt to use the USB drive sharing functionality would lock up the router requiring a power cycle, one firmware upgrade broke its ability to sync to VDSL (luckily I still had an old firmware binary handy, so I could revert it) and when I finally threw in the towel on it and switched to the $1 bundled modem that came with my new broadband service, suddenly I was synching at 25% higher speed. Never buying another Netgear product again. They used to be good, dammit.

Re: Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

#59

Post by RulerOf »

goihoiholi wrote: post #50
miek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'll find a system with automatic access point adjustment to maximize handoff quality.I think the basic best practices for overlapping wifi access points are something like this: -set each to a different channel -adjust power settings to reduce coverage overlap (some is necessary; too much is bad)

[edit: re-read your post; you're well aware what handoff is, so sorry for the overly vivid explanation] That's 'cell planning'. Roaming is different: Let's say you're moving from your bedroom to the kitchen. The bedroom AP's signal suddenly drops. Your smartphone needs to find the kitchen AP, re-connect, and re-transmit all the packets that might have been lost. Mobile networks assist the smartphone: it tells the sma…

>In theory, WiFi can do this too.

WiFi actually can't do this. It's a shame, but fully network-directed roaming is not a thing in 802.11 yet, and I don't know when it's going to bother to show up.

The major protocol extensions you can use are 802.11k, 802.11r, and 802.11v. They have a compounding increase in roaming performance in roughly that level of significance.

802.11k is a pure win. It should always be used.

802.11r is hit or miss. When it works, roaming can take under 10ms. When it doesn't, you disassociate entirely and reconnect. I have an SSID with it enabled but never use it.

802.11v is a pure win, but not very well supported.

I use Cisco hardware specifically for this feature set, but I can't really say I recommend it. I kinda hate the controller software, and it's licensed separately. Cheap hardware on eBay though.

Re: Make educated wireless router/AP upgrade decisions

#60

Post by milankragujevic »

glogla wrote: post #56
milankragujevic wrote: post #28

This article is so awesome! I keep telling people who complain to me about slow WiFi speed that it is their device's fault. A lot of mid range Android phones only have 1x1 802.11ac, which is about 433 Mbps PHY at 80 MHz channel. Some more expensive Android phones and all iPhones support 2x2 MIMO which gets you up to 867 Mbps PHY at 80 MHz channel. Some phones have a buggy implementation of VHT80 client, so on 80MHz t…

In my case, the ISP router (combined with cable modem) and my own router (Turris Omnia) are about as fast when they work. But the ISP device is really unreliable - my work laptop can do 3x3 and that causes the router to lock up. It also "smartly looks for least used channel" which can't be turned off in the ui, and causes few minute long disconnects every hour or so. Oh and it overheats and restarts when you load it…

Yes, it can be worth it, but not to people who I tell this. The fact you know how to configure the Omnia or even any custom OS-based router means this wouldn't apply to you. These are basic users who needlessly waste money on something that scammy sellers tell them will fix their WiFi, but it doesn't, because the problem is not the router but the device.

It's less a geek or teenager and more your i.e. tech-illiterate parents[1] that I tell this to.

[1] not implying all parents are tech-illiterate, it's a cliche and mean stereotype, I mean "tech illiterate person", but mention this cliche to be clearer

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