802.11ac Wireless - Worth the expense ?
One the newest standards in Wireless is the 802.11ac standard. The successor to 802.11n it promises to bring speeds up to 2.6Gbps over the 5Ghz WiFi bands.
So sounds great - 2.6Gbps over wireless. And every wireless vendor on the planet has 802.11ac offerings.
You'll notice a range of available models with AC in the name along with a number from 600 to 3200. That number represents the published total Mbps rating across all bands. Prices can range from around $90 for an AC1200 all the way up to $250 or more for an AC3200 model.
What differentiates the models is the number of concurrent streams it can support to a single end-point. So for example an AC1200 model supports a 2 antenna access point (AP) and a dual antenna endpoint at 80Mhz wide channel up to 867Mbps at 5Ghz.
An AC3200 device supports 2 antenna AP and dual antenna endpoints with a 160Mhz wide channel so 1.3Gbps at 5Ghz + another 1.3Gbps using the new 60Ghz bands - also called Triband.
The AC3200 models have so many antenna (2 for each band - 2.4, 5 & 60Ghz) that they look like spiders - typically like 6.
So all this sounds promising - but should you go there..?
My first exposure to 802.11ac was well over a year ago. A close friend had recently purchased a 2013 Mac Book Air (MBA) which had 802.11ac as well as new AirPort Extreme Wifi router.
After some fiddling we got 802.11ac working correctly. But one thing became apparent very quickly - the range was horrible. If you were in "line of sight" to the AirPort and within 20 - 30 feet then yes you could see 1Gbps connectivity.
But place anything in the way - and both the stability and the performance dropped like a rock. Even to the point where the NIC was hanging trying to keep a connection.
This is due to 802.11ac exclusively using the 5Ghz bands and a little physics.
I still use an older Cisco / Linksys E4200 router (Circa 2011) that supports 2.4 and 5Ghz bands running dd-wrt open source software. The e4200 only supports 802.11n but I have found it to be very effective. But only at 2.4. In fact I've turned off the 5Ghz capability on the e4200.
The challenge I've had over the years and in multiple houses is that the 5Ghz bands are not very effective when it has to pass through multiple walls. 5Ghz radio waves tends to bounce instead of penetrate building materials - and so the range for the average home is really poor.
My friend experienced the same with his AirPort. His previous generation AirPort ran at 2.4 and he had placed it in a closet on the ground floor of his home near the kitchen. He could close the door and still have good quality signal.
But with the new AirPort as soon as he closed the door to the closet the signal quality fell off so much that tests using OOkla's speedtest.net to his provider showed that his overall throughput was better at 802.11n @ 2.4 versus 802.11ac @ 5Ghz.
This has nothing to do with the manufacturer of the router - most use the same chipsets from folks like Broadcom or Realtek. It is just the behavior of 5Ghz radio waves.
With a good quality 2 x 2 MIMO wireless card and router at 2.4Ghz - you should be able to easily see 300Mbps. Sure it's not 2.6Gbps - but for me 300Mbps is 3 times the speed of my internet connection of 100Mbps and more than capable of streaming HD video.
My router supports at least a dozen devices including iPads, AppleTVs, Windows Phones, XBox and even a Wireless Bridge at 2.4 and no one complains about issues with streaming.
My best recommendation for a good overall wireless experience is to...
A) Buy a 2 x 2 MIMO wireless card or dongle for your device. I use the Intel 7260 Mini PCIe in my laptop. Dual antenna models are the ones that give you 300Mbps over 2.4.
B) Use a tool like inSSIDer from MetaGeek to tune which wireless channels your router is using as well as to help you determine the best location for signal strength. There are 11 40Mhz wide channels in the 2.4 Ghz Band. Most routers default to channel 6. When you are in condensed areas with a lot of routers around you are constantly fighting for bandwidth the the other routers. So using inSSIDer you can determine which provides you the best score for your signal. The higher the score the better. Then go into your router settings and change it. A little trial and error goes a long way.
C) Unless your in a small apartment with practically line of sight to your router stay in the 2.4Ghz bands. You'll have the best combination of range and performance. Even if you can use 5Ghz - use inSSIDer to tune your channels.
D) Stay away from range extenders. I've had several Linksys R1000 range extenders and basically they don't work very well. If you really need to expand the range of your wireless coverage. Buy a second router that supports dd-wrt and use the Client Bridge configuration. It allows the second router to act as both an wired and wireless access point AND a Wireless Bridge back to your primary router. I use this method and it works great.
E) If you have an older router and want to insure its overall stability and performance - seriously consider replacing the factory OS with dd-wrt. It takes a little doing but is well worth the effort.
Bottom line - for my use case - I have not found any 802.11 standard that uses 5Ghz bands to provide any additional performance or stability over the 2.4Ghz bands I use today. I'm not sold that additional channel widths and antenna will dramatically change that situation - so I'm staying away for now.
So sounds great - 2.6Gbps over wireless. And every wireless vendor on the planet has 802.11ac offerings.
You'll notice a range of available models with AC in the name along with a number from 600 to 3200. That number represents the published total Mbps rating across all bands. Prices can range from around $90 for an AC1200 all the way up to $250 or more for an AC3200 model.
What differentiates the models is the number of concurrent streams it can support to a single end-point. So for example an AC1200 model supports a 2 antenna access point (AP) and a dual antenna endpoint at 80Mhz wide channel up to 867Mbps at 5Ghz.
An AC3200 device supports 2 antenna AP and dual antenna endpoints with a 160Mhz wide channel so 1.3Gbps at 5Ghz + another 1.3Gbps using the new 60Ghz bands - also called Triband.
The AC3200 models have so many antenna (2 for each band - 2.4, 5 & 60Ghz) that they look like spiders - typically like 6.
So all this sounds promising - but should you go there..?
My first exposure to 802.11ac was well over a year ago. A close friend had recently purchased a 2013 Mac Book Air (MBA) which had 802.11ac as well as new AirPort Extreme Wifi router.
After some fiddling we got 802.11ac working correctly. But one thing became apparent very quickly - the range was horrible. If you were in "line of sight" to the AirPort and within 20 - 30 feet then yes you could see 1Gbps connectivity.
But place anything in the way - and both the stability and the performance dropped like a rock. Even to the point where the NIC was hanging trying to keep a connection.
This is due to 802.11ac exclusively using the 5Ghz bands and a little physics.
I still use an older Cisco / Linksys E4200 router (Circa 2011) that supports 2.4 and 5Ghz bands running dd-wrt open source software. The e4200 only supports 802.11n but I have found it to be very effective. But only at 2.4. In fact I've turned off the 5Ghz capability on the e4200.
The challenge I've had over the years and in multiple houses is that the 5Ghz bands are not very effective when it has to pass through multiple walls. 5Ghz radio waves tends to bounce instead of penetrate building materials - and so the range for the average home is really poor.
My friend experienced the same with his AirPort. His previous generation AirPort ran at 2.4 and he had placed it in a closet on the ground floor of his home near the kitchen. He could close the door and still have good quality signal.
But with the new AirPort as soon as he closed the door to the closet the signal quality fell off so much that tests using OOkla's speedtest.net to his provider showed that his overall throughput was better at 802.11n @ 2.4 versus 802.11ac @ 5Ghz.
This has nothing to do with the manufacturer of the router - most use the same chipsets from folks like Broadcom or Realtek. It is just the behavior of 5Ghz radio waves.
With a good quality 2 x 2 MIMO wireless card and router at 2.4Ghz - you should be able to easily see 300Mbps. Sure it's not 2.6Gbps - but for me 300Mbps is 3 times the speed of my internet connection of 100Mbps and more than capable of streaming HD video.
My router supports at least a dozen devices including iPads, AppleTVs, Windows Phones, XBox and even a Wireless Bridge at 2.4 and no one complains about issues with streaming.
My best recommendation for a good overall wireless experience is to...
A) Buy a 2 x 2 MIMO wireless card or dongle for your device. I use the Intel 7260 Mini PCIe in my laptop. Dual antenna models are the ones that give you 300Mbps over 2.4.
B) Use a tool like inSSIDer from MetaGeek to tune which wireless channels your router is using as well as to help you determine the best location for signal strength. There are 11 40Mhz wide channels in the 2.4 Ghz Band. Most routers default to channel 6. When you are in condensed areas with a lot of routers around you are constantly fighting for bandwidth the the other routers. So using inSSIDer you can determine which provides you the best score for your signal. The higher the score the better. Then go into your router settings and change it. A little trial and error goes a long way.
C) Unless your in a small apartment with practically line of sight to your router stay in the 2.4Ghz bands. You'll have the best combination of range and performance. Even if you can use 5Ghz - use inSSIDer to tune your channels.
D) Stay away from range extenders. I've had several Linksys R1000 range extenders and basically they don't work very well. If you really need to expand the range of your wireless coverage. Buy a second router that supports dd-wrt and use the Client Bridge configuration. It allows the second router to act as both an wired and wireless access point AND a Wireless Bridge back to your primary router. I use this method and it works great.
E) If you have an older router and want to insure its overall stability and performance - seriously consider replacing the factory OS with dd-wrt. It takes a little doing but is well worth the effort.
Bottom line - for my use case - I have not found any 802.11 standard that uses 5Ghz bands to provide any additional performance or stability over the 2.4Ghz bands I use today. I'm not sold that additional channel widths and antenna will dramatically change that situation - so I'm staying away for now.
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