First draft 11ax AP To Ship In September

[thiggins]

Qualcomm and Chinese "digital solutions provider" New H3C today announced H3C's WA6628 draft 802.11ac enterprise grade access point.

The WA6628 is based on Qualcomm Technologies’ IPQ8078 802.11ax chipset, which has a 5 GHz radio that supports 8 streams @ 80 MHz bandwidth or four streams with 80+80 MHz bandwidth. The 4x4 2.4 GHz radio supports up to 40 MHz bandwidth. Maximum supported link rates are 5950 Mbps in 5 GHz and 1150 Mbps in 2.4 GHz.

Also in the IPQ8078 are a 64 bit quad core ARM Cortex A53 CPU running @ 2.2 Ghz, 5 port gigabit Ethernet switch, two 1/2.5/5/10 gigabit Ethernet ports and two USB 3.0 ports.

The announcement said the WA6628 is targeted to begin shipping to customers in September 2018. No pricing was announced. H3C is demonstrating the WA6628 at Mobile World Congress Shanghai this week. The WA6628 and another draft 11ax AP, the WA6528, earned Red Dot awards this March.

 

[iwod]

That is assuming 802.11ax pass the draft 3.0 this month.

And I wonder how will 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz in 802.11ax works? Do you have to choose which band you want to use? Or could be it switched automatically depending on load?

 

[thiggins]

No mention was made in the announcement of waiting for the 3.0 vote. Draft 11ax products are going to start shipping in the next few months, regardless of vote status.

Band selection has nothing to do with 11ax. Band selection will be handled by STAs, just as it always has been.

 

[iwod]

No mention was made in the announcement of waiting for the 3.0 vote. Draft 11ax products are going to start shipping in the next few months, regardless of vote status.

Band selection has nothing to do with 11ax. Band selection will be handled by STAs, just as it always has been.

Oh God..... I have very bad feeling about this.

 

[Internet Man]

And I wonder how will 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz in 802.11ax works? Do you have to choose which band you want to use? Or could be it switched automatically depending on load?

2.4 GHz 802.11ax will likely be limited to 20/40MHz bandwidth to be more neighbor friendly just like 802.11n while 5GHz 802.11ax can potentially double or quadruple theoretical speeds with 80MHz or 160MHz channels

 

[sfx2000]

2.4 GHz 802.11ax will likely be limited to 20/40MHz bandwidth to be more neighbor friendly just like 802.11n

And that's ok... seriously - I doubt there will be many 11ax clients running in 2.4GHz, it's largely going to be dominated by legacy stuff on 20MHz channels.

 

[RMerlin]

I have a feeling that in a generation or two, the 2.4 GHz band will disappear from routers. People with range issues will turn toward mesh solutions.

 

[thiggins]

I have a feeling that in a generation or two, the 2.4 GHz band will disappear from routers. People with range issues will turn toward mesh solutions.

Highly doubtful. Huge installed base. Remember 11a/b/g devices are still supported on today's AC routers.

 

[RMerlin]

Highly doubtful. Huge installed base. Remember 11a/b/g devices are still supported on today's AC routers.

Yes, but they are gradually disappearing. My last 2.4GHz client was removed from my Lan this spring. I haven't seen any b client for about 4-5 years now (last one I've seen was a Sony PSP). Two generations from now would bring us around 2024-2026, by which time the low rate will become silly compared to the multi gigabit rates that will be common by then. People would still be able to use previous generation routers if still have legacy clients, but i would expect new devices to be abandoning the 2.4 band, for cost saving reasons.

Sent from my P027 using Tapatalk

 

[sfx2000]

Highly doubtful. Huge installed base. Remember 11a/b/g devices are still supported on today's AC routers.

Agreed - It's the installed base, and the incredible value of the ISM band. Unlike 5GHz, the ISM band is harmonized globally for channels 1-11, and many countries support 12 and 13 (would be really nice if US could open up 12/13, but there's an issue with guard bands on a licensed spectrum holder in Ch 14 (globalstar)

Opening up 12 and 13 in the US (and many other countries) makes frequency planning and spectrum utilization more efficient... as now one can do a non-overlapping 4 channel plan, or two Wide Channels...

Even if IEEE were to do a 2.4GHz standards update to formally backport some of the 11ac features, would be a great thing for 2.4GHz...

 

[sfx2000]

I would expect new devices to be abandoning the 2.4 band, for cost saving reasons.

But there's a hidden cost of removing 2.4GHz support from the clients - and that is the cost of AP's and footprint... for example, I can cover the entirety of my 1,600 sq ft house and my 26,000 sq ft lot with 2.4GHz off two AP's with useable bandwidth...

I put 5GHz where it matters, lucky for me that my office and family room overlap nicely with 1 5GHz AP, and the living room/master bedroom also do. My AP's do support DFS, and they're pretty happy there, as 5GHz in the non-DFS is starting to pick up with our local ISP's now deploying some better CPE (which up until now typically are not doing DFS)

Agreed that nobody should be running 802.11b gear these days - not just from a performance perspective, but also a security viewpoint. I still see some 11b out there - mostly printers from the folks over at HP...

 

[Dave in NM]

8 streams.. bring it on. I think ASUS has one planned too.

 

[iwod]

No mention was made in the announcement of waiting for the 3.0 vote. Draft 11ax products are going to start shipping in the next few months, regardless of vote status.

To continue on this thread

As expected I think they forced their hands on Draft 3.0, which was passed in July with 86%+ vote.
But still has 2200+ comments.

They are now making Draft 4.0 for November.