Just how FAST is WiFi 6?

[CPotter]

Thanks to Cisco for sponsoring this video! 

 

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[RollinLower]

wait, we're on 6 now? what happened to 2-5? 

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

wait, we're on 6 now? what happened to 2-5? 

rebrand... wifi ad was 5, ac was 4

 

like that

 

i still use the letters to this day

[SkyHound0202]

"Currently, there's only *one* device that supports WiFi 6: Samsung Galaxy S10."

 

Fast WiFi, Slow Start.

[PeterBocan]

I wonder how much it will screw up the retail routers for home use. You know, those wanky 20$ nothing boxes.

[Wh0_Am_1]

19 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

rebrand... wifi ad was 5, ac was 4

 

like that

 

i still use the letters to this day

Sorry this is incorrect, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance (the ones who comes up with these names) 5 was ac, and 4 was n, as 802.11ad never got a full roll out as it only debuted a couple of years ago, and we are already on a significantly better standard, (except for in the same room), so I imagine ad will be called something like gen 5.5 or gen 5s.

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

Sorry this is incorrect, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance (the ones who comes up with these names) 5 was ac, and 4 was n, as 802.11ad never got a full roll out as it only debuted a couple of years ago, and we are already on a significantly better standard, (except for in the same room), so I imagine ad will be called something like gen 5.5 or gen 5s.

it's getting way too confusing...

 

i'll stick with the traditional way

[Wh0_Am_1]

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

it's getting way too confusing...

 

i'll stick with the traditional way

Me too, till they stop coming up with 802.11x names for the Wi-Fi standard, then we will be all forced to switch to the new standard..... RIP the heads of every techie and customer who learned the old standard....

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

Me too, till they stop coming up with 802.11x names for the Wi-Fi standard, then we will be all forced to switch to the new standard..... RIP the heads of every techie and customer who learned the old standard....

let's hope they never will

[Wh0_Am_1]

2 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

let's hope they never will

That my friend, is some wishful thinking.

[BachChain]

Deterministic connections sounds exactly like the CSMACA that WiFi has always had

[Results45]

1 hour ago, CPotter said:

Just how FAST is WiFi 6? LINUS FAST 

Spoiler

 

.

Thanks to Cisco for sponsoring this video! 

 

Learn more:
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https://lmg.gg/8KVXV

 

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.

 

Would doing a event-scale test run of WiFi 6 at LTX 2019 with all Galaxy S10 owners be something you guys can coordinate?

[Razor512]

If LTT is able to get in contact with anyone at intel, please see if you can get a review sample of the Intel AX201 and check if it will be a non-CNVi version.

[mariushm]

I actually didn't mind the sponsorship on this video, found the ratio of useful information vs ad smell good enough to not care.

 

Only part where I went "really?" was where you said that plain 1gbps or 10gbps switches were not good enough anymore, to plug these wifi 6 access points into ... i somehow doubt it that you really need 24 port 10g fancy cisco router/switch to connect access points to.

[mynameisjuan]

I liked the video but this is not about pure throughput. 

 

Engineers behind WiFi 6....hell wireless in general dont care about throughput. Tell a wireless engineer for a stadium that the new APs have 2.5/5gig ports and can pull 800mbps...he'll laugh, say that $%#% doesnt matter and be on his way. 

 

Tell the same guy channels can be sub divided by even the frame and he'll need to change his pants. We need better efficiency more than anything. 

 

No, no you will not need 10gig switches for Wifi 6.....why is every one so hooked on "needing 10gig"

[Razor512]

28 minutes ago, mariushm said:

I actually didn't mind the sponsorship on this video, found the ratio of useful information vs ad smell good enough to not care.

 

Only part where I went "really?" was where you said that plain 1gbps or 10gbps switches were not good enough anymore, to plug these wifi 6 access points into ... i somehow doubt it that you really need 24 port 10g fancy cisco router/switch to connect access points to.

 

Since given enough streams, the 802.11ax is fast enough to reach over 1Gbps  for a single client, a faster switch is needed, especially if you have a NAS and at least want to take advantage of that speed.

 

Keep in mind that under good conditions with that device and 802.11ac on the 5GHz band and 80MHz channel width, it can hit about 500Mbps upload and download.

 

I feel a perfect balance of cost and performance would be for someone to make a switch that has multiple 2.5GbE ports along with a single 10GbE uplink, which will allow multiple APs around a home to maintain good speeds to the rest of the local devices on the network.

 

Ideally  it would also be from a company other than Cisco, or at least a product line that is not part of their Meraki line where they use their cloud reliant crippling to price gouge customers by getting them to invest in hardware, and then get stuck with a subscription that increases over time thanks to the sunk cost fallacy making it easier for people to accept a higher monthly fee than it is to ditch the hardware.

[Lurick]

32 minutes ago, mariushm said:

-snip-

He said 1Gbps switches aren't going to cut it, which, depending on client density, can definitely be true and mGig or 10Gig is needed to handle the large amount of clients per AP depending on the speed you want to offer to the clients. Low density environments definitely don't matter nearly as much where you aren't likely to have high AP load or if you do will only have high load for short periods where it won't matter much.

[Lurick]

6 minutes ago, Razor512 said:

Ideally  it would also be from a company other than Cisco, or at least a product line that is not part of their Meraki line where they use their cloud reliant crippling to price gouge customers by getting them to invest in hardware, and then get stuck with a subscription that increases over time thanks to the sunk cost fallacy making it easier for people to accept a higher monthly fee than it is to ditch the hardware.

You actually buy licenses in 1,3,5,7, or 10 year increments which is where they get you since if you buy multi-year licenses you get a discount but of course you have to take into account that, to an extent, locks you into needing to use it up if you want the full value, you can switch hardware and keep the license but if you decide not to continue after a year and bought a 3 year license you don't get your money back. I haven't seen prices on the licenses increase over the past few years either, they've been pretty stable as far as I can tell. I'm still not sold on the whole cloud licensing thing though but if people buy it then it will keep moving on.

[slagathor]

I liked the video but it lacked something- there were no credits at the end. I like seeing who wrote, edited, shot and produced the video. I can usually tell who did what, but I still like seeing it. Please fix this.

[Razor512]

From what I have seen through user complaints, they would refer to the random price hikes within the useful life of the hardware that force s you to either endure the assault on your bank account or ditch the hardware that is otherwise still good and adequate for your needs.

 

[Bouzoo]

For comparison should've done a Wi-Fi 5 test in the same spot. We don't know how big the median is. 

[Tohnz]

I think wifi6 will be great in open fields with high density (stadiums, airports), but the real problem of customer wifi is about coverage, not speed. I need at least 3 AP to cover my house (6 if counting the garden, garages, and attics) and still have some dead zones (I live in Italy and my house has some centuries of history: the walls are thick). The 6GHz band will be even worse (the higher the band, the lesser the range and wall penetration). 

I'm still using 802.11n APs (at 2.4GHz, with RADIUS auth, backbone connected, ie no range extenders) and looking for an upgrade in the near future, so I would like to see a guide to how to set up a roaming friendly multi ap coverage with the state of the art in 2019 (mesh?)

[Razor512]

The coverage issue is largely due to government regulation that ultimately makes issues worse. For example, the FCC limits WiFi radios to 1 watt, and any amount whatsoever above that will result in huge fines. Due to this, many AP makers will limit the transmit power to a good margin below the 1 watt limit.

 

While when dealing with mobile phones, it will not make sense to try and do a 10 watt AP and expect a phone to be extremely far and connect reliably since it will not be good too have a phone also do a high transmit power. Most smartphones will do much less than 100mW.

 

The thing is that since a stationary access point does not have the same power and design constraints, they can be made to use a higher transmit power, while also using components which allow for a better signal path, and better receiver sensitivity. This is why we can have a smartphone with an 80mw transmit power, actually getting better range when connected to a router such as the Netgear R7800 with a transmit power of over 900mW as compared to a router with the same gain antennas but with a 500mW transmit power.

 

Mobile devices often have a negative gain antenna since due to space constraints and form over function requirements, thus having an AP that listen better and shout louder, will mean a longer effective range.

 

If you have a router running 3rd party firmware that truly allows you to adjust the transmit power you will find that if you connect to a good AP but set the other endpoint to a transmit power of something like 20mw,it will often still connect just fine to a strong AP at the other side of a house, but at that transmit power, a smartphone may fail to connect at all.

Imagine if the FCC lifted the limits, and router makers pushed out firmware updates to increase the transmit power (sine the datasheets for the RF amplifiers used in most upper end routers can handle multiple watts). With a higher transmit power, you may find that you no longer 3 APs, you may be able to get away with just 2 while also getting rid of the dead zones, or if a home is mostly wood and a very low noise floor, you may be able to get by with just 1 strong AP.

 

It would also reduce cases of someone having multiple APs in a home each using different channels (especially with wireless mesh networks), where the user will effectively be using 60MHz worth of spectrum on the 2.4GHz band, and all non-DFS spectrum on the 5GHz band.

 

With the above in mind there are still some benefits to having multiple APs, and that is due to certain aspects of the signal where there are diminishing returns such as maintaining a high QAM rate at range, higher transmit power improves the range at which you can maintain 256QAM, but it does not scale linearly in the real world, especially in cases where the client devices are not also improving their transmit power. If you need max speed to another local device, e.g., if you run backup software on your phone (I use foldersync for android) where you will want all of your newly created user data to be copied over to your NAS, then there is a benefit to having an AP in the same room that you are charging in, as that will mean that your phone may backup at 400-500Mbps rather than 100Mbps to a distant AP.

 

Did a quick benchmark, under a 2 stream WiFi radio using 802.11ac, this is around the best you will get under ideal real world conditions  (basically 5ft and line of sight of the AP).

 

You will get fluctuations from any interference as well as if the device decides to do anything in the background, but 802.11ac can still provide good speeds.

[Granular]

So my network switch will be faster, if I put in a more powerful power supply? Makes sense.

How about a gasoline engine?

[greenhorn]

14 hours ago, Granular said:

So my network switch will be faster, if I put in a more powerful power supply? Makes sense.

How about a gasoline engine?

Increasing the transmit power is one way of getting better signal to noise ratios which might allow for faster speeds. Of course, transmit power is limited by regulations and increasing it is also bad for neighboring networks since this increases the interference they experience.

I remember hearing about a "trick" a while ago to get higher transmit powers: Apparently, devices will limit their transmit power according to your location (the country you indicate during setup). So if you happen to be in a well-shielded location (like a basement with thick concrete walls or something) where you don't have to worry about the signal being too strong outside of your property, you can set your location to Bolivia. This allegedly unlocks transmit power reserves your device might have. Do this at your own risk though, I don't recommend this and I don't take any kind of responsibility for any consequences of any kind.