AX WiFi Streams Question

[BarackOBatman]

My dad just ordered the netgear RAX 200 in hopes to improve our ability to stream 4K content on multiple TVs. If both my dad and I try to stream 4K video to our LG OLED TVs over wifi (while Brother or grandma are also using wifi for various entertainment), we often have slowdowns or pauses due to our network.

The new AX routers support multiple "streams" designed to improve connectivity for many devices on a network at once by allowing "separate data signals can be sent to and from your devices on different streams"

It also has dual 5GHz band which they claim "offers two separate streams of data transfers in the 5GHz band to ensure best WiFi performance for all high-bandwidth applications such as Ultra HD video streaming"

https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/RAX200.aspx

 

My questions are:

Will the multiple "streams" feature work on our 802.11 AC wifi devices such as our TVs? or will this only work on 802.11 AX devices which are basically not on the market at this time.

Will we notice a performance improvement assuming the ISP itself is not the limitation? our current router is a Linksys EA6900

[ddennis002]

9 minutes ago, BarackOBatman said:

My questions are:

Will the multiple "streams" feature work on our 802.11 AC wifi devices such as our TVs? or will this only work on 802.11 AX devices which are basically not on the market at this time.

Will we notice a performance improvement assuming the ISP itself is not the limitation? our current router is a Linksys EA6900

So when you say streams the RAX can handle 4 devices @ 2x2 simultaneously assuming that the clients supports MU-MIMO. You will get an advantage of having another completely separate 5Ghz network over the single that your current router has. So yes you will get better performance just buy having another band at least.

 

Where is your 4k content coming from?

What is your ISP transmission media?(fiber, copper; cable, dsl)

What is your advertised speed your paying for? What is your current speed tested with a hardwired connection? What is your current speed tested on a Wireless device? Test using speedtest.net test inside the same ISP network if possible. So if your have say Verizon Wireless as an ISP test to the closest Verizon Wireless speedtest server.

 

I have a Nighthawk R8000 which is a tri-band AC router flashed with dd wrt. I only have 1 hardwired device out of 12 total that connect and 2-3 4K 40-50Mbps streams though my plex server is no issue even with a router that doesn't support MIMO.  So the questions im asking is to get a better understanding of your network topology and any potential configuration issues or device hardware that could or will hold you back from getting to where you want to be. 

[mynameisjuan]

29 minutes ago, BarackOBatman said:

Will the multiple "streams" feature work on our 802.11 AC wifi devices such as our TVs? or will this only work on 802.11 AX devices which are basically not on the market at this time.

No, it will only work with Wifi 6 devices. And to put icing on the cake, it won't work unless ALL connected devices are Wifi 6 as well.

 

It's going to at least be 5-7 years before we see any impact of Wifi 6 or it's features

[BarackOBatman]

13 minutes ago, ddennis002 said:

So when you say streams the RAX can handle 4 devices @ 2x2 simultaneously assuming that the clients supports MU-MIMO. You will get an advantage of having another completely separate 5Ghz network over the single that your current router has. So yes you will get better performance just buy having another band at least.

 

Where is your 4k content coming from?

What is your ISP transmission media?(fiber, copper; cable, dsl)

What is your advertised speed your paying for? What is your current speed tested with a hardwired connection? What is your current speed tested on a Wireless device? Test using speedtest.net test inside the same ISP network if possible. So if your have say Verizon Wireless as an ISP test to the closest Verizon Wireless speedtest server.

 

I have a Nighthawk R8000 which is a tri-band AC router flashed with dd wrt. I only have 1 hardwired device out of 12 total that connect and 2-3 4K 40-50Mbps streams though my plex server is no issue even with a router that doesn't support MIMO.  So the questions im asking is to get a better understanding of your network topology and any potential configuration issues or device hardware that could or will hold you back from getting to where you want to be. 

Thanks for taking time to write your reply!

 

Regarding your comment about the 4 devices @ 2x2. If you're getting that from the capacity section of the website, i suspect there may be a typo as they advertise 12 streams, though i do not fully understand what this means. Also, around halfway down the page it says this  "X12 Wi-Fi 6 router provides eight streams of 5 GHz and four streams of 2.4 GHz connectivity"

 

Here's some more information:

Where is your 4k content coming from? Via Wifi to OLED55B8PUA. Content provided by: Vudu and Netflix mainly.

What is your ISP transmission media? Cable

What is your advertised speed your paying for? 100 mbps I think. I will check when i get home and will advise if it not 100 mbps.

What is your current speed tested with a hardwired connection? Will advise later tonight. If my memory serves, around 10-12 MB/s

What is your current speed tested on a Wireless device? Will advise later tonight. If my memory serves, around 8-9MB/s

 

[BarackOBatman]

6 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

No, it will only work with Wifi 6 devices. And to put icing on the cake, it won't work unless ALL connected devices are Wifi 6 as well.

 

It's going to at least be 5-7 years before we see any impact of Wifi 6 or it's features

Wow that part about all devices need to be wifi 6 is crazy!

The 4K blu ray player we bought a year or two ago was pretty expensive and It uses 802.11 n!

households are gonna be stuck on old wifi protocols for a long time...

[mynameisjuan]

Just now, BarackOBatman said:

Wow that part about all devices need to be wifi 6 is crazy!

The 4K blu ray player we bought a year or two ago was pretty expensive and It uses 802.11 n!

households are gonna be stuck on old wifi protocols for a long time...

Yep, which sucks. Hue lights, my Google homes, TVs... All stuff not compatible that I won't replace for a long time. People don't realize that yet and should really hold off on Wifi 6 routers until they are actually useful.

 

[BarackOBatman]

1 minute ago, mynameisjuan said:

Yep, which sucks. Hue lights, my Google homes, TVs... All stuff not compatible that I won't replace for a long time. People don't realize that yet and should really hold off on Wifi 6 routers until they are actually useful.

 

Whelp... Were getting one anyway.

 

Also, i thought Hue lights dont use WiFi? 

This quote from George Yianni, head of technology at Phillips "Even if we did support Wi-Fi, the data bandwidth needs of Hue are so low that bandwidth benefits are not relevant. Overall, Wi-Fi 6 is largely moot for Philips Hue. I'd be interested to see how having a large number of Wi-Fi IoT devices on a normal lower end router affects performance and how that compares to Wi-Fi 6 but it doesn't pertain to Hue."

https://www.cnet.com/news/when-are-wi-fi-6-smart-home-gadgets-coming-what-the-manufacturers-say-wifi/

[ddennis002]

6 minutes ago, BarackOBatman said:

Thanks for taking time to write your reply!

 

Regarding your comment about the 4 devices @ 2x2. If you're getting that from the capacity section of the website, i suspect there may be a typo as they advertise 12 streams, though i do not fully understand what this means. Also, around halfway down the page it says this  "X12 Wi-Fi 6 router provides eight streams of 5 GHz and four streams of 2.4 GHz connectivity"

 

Here's some more information:

Where is your 4k content coming from? Via Wifi to OLED55B8PUA. Content provided by: Vudu and Netflix mainly.

What is your ISP transmission media? Cable

What is your advertised speed your paying for? 100 mbps I think. I will check when i get home and will advise if it not 100 mbps.

What is your current speed tested with a hardwired connection? Will advise later tonight. If my memory serves, around 10-12 MB/s

What is your current speed tested on a Wireless device? Will advise later tonight. If my memory serves, around 8-9MB/s

 

So when Netgear refers to streams it how many concurrent connections it can make at a given time, so for this router it does 12 streams 4 per band. Most modern AC devices uses a 2x2 antenna array to achieve higher throughput so a AC 1x1 is 433Mbps Max link, 2x2 866Mhz, 3x3 1299Mbps this is rounded to 1300Mbps. So if you have 2 devices connected to each band (2.4Ghz, 5Ghz-1, 5Ghz-2) and each device has a 2x2 antenna that support MU-MIMO all 6 devices would beable to communicate to the router simultaneously without waiting.  If your devices doesn't support MIMO then your back to one device transmits or receives at a time per each band.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, BarackOBatman said:

4k content coming from?

How many 4K streams at once? Because Netflix needs 25 Mbps PER stream from what I have read. So you might be running out of bandwidth. 

[BarackOBatman]

14 hours ago, Donut417 said:

How many 4K streams at once? Because Netflix needs 25 Mbps PER stream from what I have read. So you might be running out of bandwidth. 

usually 2x 4k streams but then possibly some others in the house using some bandwidth as well for cell phones or for my brother watching a twitch stream.

[BarackOBatman]

17 hours ago, BarackOBatman said:

 

Here's some more information:

Where is your 4k content coming from? Via Wifi to OLED55B8PUA. Content provided by: Vudu and Netflix mainly.

What is your ISP transmission media? Cable

What is your advertised speed your paying for? 100 mbps I think. I will check when i get home and will advise if it not 100 mbps.

What is your current speed tested with a hardwired connection? Will advise later tonight. If my memory serves, around 10-12 MB/s

What is your current speed tested on a Wireless device? Will advise later tonight. If my memory serves, around 8-9MB/s

@ddennis002   I wound up driving into the city to see my girlfirend after work and class so i didn't end up going home yesterday. Hopefully i can provide an update today.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, BarackOBatman said:

usually 2x 4k streams but then possibly some others in the house using some bandwidth as well for cell phones or for my brother watching a twitch stream.

Sounds like your within your internet bandwidth. 

 

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

22 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

No, it will only work with Wifi 6 devices. And to put icing on the cake, it won't work unless ALL connected devices are Wifi 6 as well.

 

It's going to at least be 5-7 years before we see any impact of Wifi 6 or it's features

If the devices support AC Wave 2 MU-MIMO then they should still benefit over an AC Wave 1 AP/Router.

I do not think you are correct about needing ALL WiFi 6 devices to benefit from AX either.  You didn't with WiFi 4 or 5, the hardware is perfectly capable of switching modes for each device.

 

Yes it will be more efficient if all devices are WiFi 6 (so TDMA can function), but you'd actually need any other AP on the same channels in range to also be WiFi 6, that IS going to take years.

[mynameisjuan]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I do not think you are correct about needing ALL WiFi 6 devices to benefit from AX either.  You didn't with WiFi 4 or 5, the hardware is perfectly capable of switching modes for each device

To take advantage of OFDMA all the devices need to be wifi 6 or legacy devices will just talk over that assigned channel width. OFDMA is the only real benefit of wifi 6.

 

There's podcast on packet pushers of wireless engineers going through the standard and limitations including the above

 

 

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

15 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

To take advantage of OFDMA all the devices need to be wifi 6 or legacy devices will just talk over that assigned channel width. OFDMA is the only real benefit of wifi 6.

 

There's podcast on packet pushers of wireless engineers going through the standard and limitations including the above

 

 

 

Yes OFDMA is a HUGE benefit, but claiming its the only real benefit is disengenius.

 

You seem to be forgetting that WiFi 6 speeds up 2.4Ghz, which in my experience is actually less contended now as my neighbors have moved over to 5Ghz.  Or that many people who have WiFi 5 only have Wave 1 routers/APs, so don't have MU-MIMO support at all right now, a WiFi 6 router would allow that.

 

Or the simple fact that many WiFi 5 routers have crap CPUs that can hardly keep up, a WiFi 6 router inherently will need a beefier CPU so more likely to achieve good speeds.

 

[mynameisjuan]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Yes OFDMA is a HUGE benefit, but claiming its the only real benefit is disengenius.

No that's pretty mucbt the only reason to want 6

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

You seem to be forgetting that WiFi 6 speeds up 2.4Ghz

I couldnt care less about wireless speeds. Max throughput is a moot point of you have any bit of congestion, hence why OFDMA is the main reason people want 6.

 

People seem to think that shooting for these bigger numbers helps wireless performance. No it doesn't.

 

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Or the simple fact that many WiFi 5 routers have crap CPUs that can hardly keep up, a WiFi 6 router inherently will need a beefier CPU so more likely to achieve good speeds.

Yes, new router indeed have new CPUs. Thanks for making that clear.

[Alex Atkin UK]

As someone who occasionally copies files to/from my laptop, I have to disagree, faster = better.

 

I don't have huge contention over WiFi (except potentially with neighbors) as I hard-wire everything physically possible.

 

I realise most people aren't like me, they DO hook every device up to WiFi and OFDMA is going to be HUGE to those people, but if nobody upgrades because its not useful yet, you have a chicken and egg scenario.

 

WiFi 6 cannot work optimally until ALL networks are WiFi 6 so can cooperate with each other better than the current standards, but that isn't going to happen if you discourage people from upgrading because it hasn't happened yet.

[mynameisjuan]

7 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

WiFi 6 cannot work optimally until ALL networks are WiFi 6 so can cooperate with each other better than the current standards, but that isn't going to happen if you discourage people from upgrading because it hasn't happened yet.

It's going to be a few years before wifi 6 support even becomes a standard on new devices. No one is trashing their TV, IOT devices and hell, their microwave Alexa anytime soon.

 

I'm not discouraging it, but manufacturers are going to charge up the ass for wifi 6 routers/APs for the new year or two. People are better off to wait for prices to come down because it's not going to be a big of a performance boost as you think in the current environment

[Donut417]

Just now, mynameisjuan said:

I'm not discouraging it, but manufacturers are going to charge up the ass for wifi 6 routers/APs for the new year or two. People are better off to wait for prices to come down because it's not going to be a big of a performance boost as you think in the current environment

Not only that but it seems to me things get better with time. Bugs will be worked out and possibly improvements will be made with time. I don’t believe in buying first generation hardware. Wait for second generation devices. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Not only that but it seems to me things get better with time. Bugs will be worked out and possibly improvements will be made with time. I don’t believe in buying first generation hardware. Wait for second generation devices. 

Fair points, I've always been an early adopter with WiFi and REALLY suffered through it.  Had the first-gen 802.11b that barely worked as well as 802.11 pre-n that also barely worked.

I'm just itching to switch over but really could do with a full 2.5Gbit 4 port switch built-in.

[Donut417]

31 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Fair points, I've always been an early adopter with WiFi and REALLY suffered through it.  Had the first-gen 802.11b that barely worked as well as 802.11 pre-n that also barely worked.

I'm just itching to switch over but really could do with a full 2.5Gbit 4 port switch built-in.

I seen a 2.5Gbps usb type c adapter. So I decided to look for a switch, yeah not much out there.l at the moment and what I did see was like $500+ USD. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

55 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I seen a 2.5Gbps usb type c adapter. So I decided to look for a switch, yeah not much out there.l at the moment and what I did see was like $500+ USD. 

Realtek have a switch chip I believe (came out as the part of those USB and PCIe adapters)  but it came out after all the current WiFi 6 routers.  So were probably waiting on the first certified new models.

I should probably just wait on Ubiquiti but then I'd definitely need a new switch to go with it.

Problem is my current switch has two 10Gbit ports, but those are used for my desktop and NAS.  I need the speed for my desktop more than my laptop, so using one of them for a WiFi AP would be pointless.  Although it wouldn't be the end of the world to "only" get 1Gbit over WiFi as I can only get 400Mbit on WiFi 5 (500Mbit on my S10 for some reason).

[Donut417]

32 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Realtek have a switch chip I believe (came out as the part of those USB and PCIe adapters)  but it came out after all the current WiFi 6 routers.  So were probably waiting on the first certified new models.

I should probably just wait on Ubiquiti but then I'd definitely need a new switch to go with it.

Problem is my current switch has two 10Gbit ports, but those are used for my desktop and NAS.  I need the speed for my desktop more than my laptop, so using one of them for a WiFi AP would be pointless.  Although it wouldn't be the end of the world to "only" get 1Gbit over WiFi as I can only get 400Mbit on WiFi 5 (500Mbit on my S10 for some reason).

Yeah 2.5 and 5 Gbps will be nice upgrades for sure. Let’s just hope that when equipment really starts getting released it’s not over priced. Though even if it was a pretty penny, you don’t have to necessarily replace the cabling, so that’s a plus. 

[BarackOBatman]

On 9/18/2019 at 8:56 AM, BarackOBatman said:

@ddennis002   I wound up driving into the city to see my girlfirend after work and class so i didn't end up going home yesterday. Hopefully i can provide an update today.

@ddennis002

My PC is plugged into the router

I got 64 mbps download using cat5e

i got 52 mbps download using 802.11 AC on 5GHz band

 

When i plugged straight into the modem

I got 116.5 mbps download using cat5e

 

Is there something else going on here that is slowing down internet traffic through the router?