How long will 802.11n be supported by router makers?

[torstein]

So to my joy Apple re-introduced the big HomePod yesterday. To my despair it now has 802.11n wireless instead of 802.11ac which the previous one had. I expected it to be 802.11ax, so I'm just baffled here. Wifi4 in a brand new product in 2023?

What will this have to say for the future of this Homepod and my network?

Will the Homepod become useless in a few years time when/if Asus and the rest stops shipping routers with N-wireless?
Will the Homepod slow down my entire network of AC and AX-devices, or is it unaffected?
Why are companies still shipping brand new products with such old tech?

 

[ColinTaylor]

I doubt router manufacturers are going to stop supporting 802.11n, at least not in the next decade or so. Heck most routers still support 802.11b!

A lot of the technology used by 802.11ac and 802.11ax builds on the foundation of 802.11n, so there's no reason not to include support for it. It's not the same as when they changed from 802.11b to 802.11g. If you really don't want 802.11n on your network you can just disable it in the options.

 

[eightiescalling]

. Wifi4 in a brand new product in 2023?

Having found out the hard way that the Ikea/Sonos Symfonisk speakers launched just a few years ago (2019/2020) don't even support WiFi 4, nothing surprises me any more...

 

[sfx2000]

To my despair it now has 802.11n wireless instead of 802.11ac which the previous one had. I expected it to be 802.11ax, so I'm just baffled here. Wifi4 in a brand new product in 2023?

This is because new HomePod is build on the S7 System-in-Packet from the Apple Watch Series 7 - which is 11n only, but at least it's dual-band...

I think they probably went with the S7 as it has Thread and BT/BLE build in, along with the U1 NFC capability...

Rumour has it that the more recent AppleWatches (from S5 onwards), it's Apple's WiFi chip, not Broadcom.

Anyways, I think 11n will be around for a very long time - it's reasonably efficient for many application, and really no impact for WiFi5 and later...

 

[jsz]

Having found out the hard way that the Ikea/Sonos Symfonisk speakers launched just a few years ago (2019/2020) don't even support WiFi 4, nothing surprises me any more...

Can you clarifiy?

FCC reports claim it supports 2.4G + 5G N "WIFI 4"

 

[eightiescalling]

Can you clarifiy?

FCC reports claim it supports 2.4G + 5G N "WIFI 4"

Mobile won't copy the link but if you check the Ikea manual (first link if you Google ikea Symfonisk wifi n) you'll see it there. (Among multiple rants on different sites!)

WiFi setup outlines an "b/g/n" network but straight after it says it must be b/g/n and to use a wired connection if the network is n only.

They may have revised in a more recent version but 2019 is pretty bad to be selling b/g only kit.

 

[jsz]

Mobile won't copy the link but if you check the Ikea manual (first link if you Google ikea Symfonisk wifi n) you'll see it there. (Among multiple rants on different sites!)

WiFi setup outlines an "b/g/n" network but straight after it says it must be b/g/n and to use a wired connection if the network is n only.

They may have revised in a more recent version but 2019 is pretty bad to be selling b/g only kit.

https://fccid.io/FHO-E1801

theres only one listing for that speaker. Youre saying it doesnt work on 5G? odd.

 

[eightiescalling]

https://fccid.io/FHO-E1801

theres only one listing for that speaker. Youre saying it doesnt work on 5G? odd.

As far as the UK offering is concerned it's 2.4 only.

 

[jsz]

Ah UK... that makes sense.. Odd that its disabled for your region.

 

[eightiescalling]

Ah UK... that makes sense.. Odd that its disabled for your region.

Dare I ask why that makes sense? We're not that far behind over here!

 

[jsz]

Dare I ask why that makes sense? We're not that far behind over here!

Different wireless certifications. I assumed you were US.. My fault lol


So it supports BGN 2.4 + 5G N, just not in the UK for some reason.

 

[torstein]

What is the reasoning behind using b/g/n in modern products, then? Is it cost savings? Is it more energy efficient than ac/ax/be? does the hardware take up less physicsl space?

what is it?

 

[thiggins]

N is used on the 2.4 GHz band for AC products. It's also cheaper to produce and has lower power consumption.

B/G are supported for backward compatibility with older devices. There has been talk of ending B support, but no manufacturer has pulled the trigger on that. AFAIK, the 802.11 standard still specs support for B.
@sfx2000 can you correct me?

 

[sfx2000]

B/G are supported for backward compatibility with older devices. There has been talk of ending B support, but no manufacturer has pulled the trigger on that. AFAIK, the 802.11 standard still specs support for B.
@sfx2000 can you correct me?

Yes - there has been a lot of effort to get default to be g/n (OFDM) and deprecate the 802.11B DSSS rates - this is beneficial to everyone in 2.4 as it frees up a significant amount of airtime, and as such, capacity. All management frames are transmitted as the lowest base rate, so killing off DSSS and being OFDM only moves the base rates from 1Mbps to 6Mbps, along with moving long preamble and 11b protections out of consideration.

I've observed that many of the newer WiFI5 capable residential gateways (carrier provided) default to g/n on 20MHz channels with WPA2 enabled as a default (no WPA/WPA2 mixed mode).

Even WiFi4 802.11n benefits from the removal of the 802.11b legacy support, and WiFi6 (11ax) and WiFi7 (11be) cannot reach the optimal performance if 11b is still around.

OpenWRT has defaulted most of their current supported HW - as of 22.03, to disable 11b as a default.

 

[Matthew Patrick]

Yes - there has been a lot of effort to get default to be g/n (OFDM) and deprecate the 802.11B DSSS rates - this is beneficial to everyone in 2.4 as it frees up a significant amount of airtime, and as such, capacity. All management frames are transmitted as the lowest base rate, so killing off DSSS and being OFDM only moves the base rates from 1Mbps to 6Mbps, along with moving long preamble and 11b protections out of consideration.

I've observed that many of the newer WiFI5 capable residential gateways (carrier provided) default to g/n on 20MHz channels with WPA2 enabled as a default (no WPA/WPA2 mixed mode).

Even WiFi4 802.11n benefits from the removal of the 802.11b legacy support, and WiFi6 (11ax) and WiFi7 (11be) cannot reach the optimal performance if 11b is still around.

OpenWRT has defaulted most of their current supported HW - as of 22.03, to disable 11b as a default.

If you disable b support on 2.4ghz (it is an option on Asus routers AFAIK) does it automatically improve performance? Even though there aren't any B clients that has ever connected? Is the difference big enough that it's worth disabling B completely instead of having it for possible old clients?

 

[Tech9]

Last time I've seen 802.11b client was about 10 years ago and it was on a 10 years old laptop already.

 

[tgl]

The impression I have is that the current sweet spot (if you don't have legacy clients to worry about) is to disable both 802.11b and 802.11g support --- at least, that's what the last couple of APs I have owned wanted to do. A quick google search failed to find much info as to why cutting off G support would move the needle noticeably, though. Anybody here know the details?

 

[sfx2000]

A quick google search failed to find much info as to why cutting off G support would move the needle noticeably, though. Anybody here know the details?

it does not hurt to keep G enabled - part of this goes to a quirk in 802.11n, where Greenfield mode (N-Only) can go into neighbor protection, where as G/N will be unaffected running in Mixed-Mode. This even applies towards other networks that overlap yours - if there is a G-client station, all BSS's around it need to either go into protection (as mention above) or mixed mode - protection adds quite a bit of latency, as the BSS needs to do RTS/CTS before any transmission from the AP or any client associated with the AP...

This is also a reason why one should dispose/upgrade any B-only gear, as this forces ERP (802.11g) protection modes, which includes long preamble and barker preambles...