Is a single gigabit uplink sufficient for AC 1750/1900 access point?

[rajl]

Hello all,

I am looking at installing a few WiFi access points in my house. I’ve been looking some AC1750/1900 class ones. Most offer just a single gigabit uplink, but one or two offer dual gigabit ports that can be aggregated together for extra backhaul bandwidth. My question is “is it worth it?”

I know that real world throughput for wireless is well below the theoretical maximum, but:

(1) How close to 1,300 Mb/s could a single triple antenna client achieve when connecting to the WAP?
(2) Could a wireless N client connecting on the 2.4 band and a AC client (dual or triple antenna) simultaneously connecting on the 5Ghz band exceed 1 gigabit?

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

If you have a 3x3 AC client very close to the router, it's possible to get close to saturating a gigabit port (~ 940 Mbps for TCP/IP).

In practice, however, most devices are 1x1 or 2x2 and operate at a distance from the AP. So the single gigabit port is generally not a limitation.

 

[sfx2000]

If you have a 3x3 AC client very close to the router, it's possible to get close to saturating a gigabit port

For a single client for testing - even a 3*3 AC client won't saturate a GigE ethernet port - WiFi is half-duplex, most GigE is full duplex...

 

[thiggins]

For a single client for testing - even a 3*3 AC client won't saturate a GigE ethernet port - WiFi is half-duplex, most GigE is full duplex...

But each direction is still ~940 Mbps with TCP/IP overhead. Check the 5 GHz peak charts. Can definitely do it with 4x4 and some 3x3.

 

[sfx2000]

But each direction is still ~940 Mbps with TCP/IP overhead. Check the 5 GHz peak charts. Can definitely do it with 4x4 and some 3x3.

General traffic patterns as compared to benchmarks... and most clients are 1*1 or 2*2...

Gigabit in the home environment for most cases is more than enough to the AP from a router or modem...

 

[rajl]

I have a desktop in my home environment with a 3x3 card, so it sounds like that could potentially saturate gigabit. I am guessing it’s much more likely if a client on the 2.4 band were simultaneously connecting.

What about the situation where a 2x2 client on the 5Ghz band and a 2x2 client in the 2.4 GHz band simultaneously connect (resulting in 2 clients connecting at the same time).

 

[sfx2000]

I have a desktop in my home environment with a 3x3 card, so it sounds like that could potentially saturate gigabit. I am guessing it’s much more likely if a client on the 2.4 band were simultaneously connecting.

What about the situation where a 2x2 client on the 5Ghz band and a 2x2 client in the 2.4 GHz band simultaneously connect (resulting in 2 clients connecting at the same time).

MacBook Pro - 3*3 11ac - no worries... again - traffic patterns.

 

[MichaelCG]

It only really matters if your budget doesn't care. If you want to fully future proof and go dual-gig up-link...have at it. What is the likely hood you will be pegging out a single 1G up-link at home? Can it happen? Possibly...will it happen today? Unlikely. Only you can determine if the cost overhead is worth mitigating that risk. I know for sure in my house, I do not own enough high bandwidth clients "today" that could possibly saturate a 1Gbps uplink on my APs.

In another year or two..yeah...maybe. I remember when G came out and thought it was enough...then said the same thing about N...bandwidth requirements will continue to go up....but your budget is what will determine how future proof your deployments will be.

As already stated...check traffic patterns. I have 1Gbps Internet. Do I need it? Is it pegged out on a regular basis? What do you want to bet I could run 100Mbps Internet uplink and probably never notice unless I was really looking. The amount of times my home connection even comes close to going over 100Mbps is so rare it begs the question of why do I even pay for 1Gbps.....

 

[thiggins]

I have a desktop in my home environment with a 3x3 card, so it sounds like that could potentially saturate gigabit. I am guessing it’s much more likely if a client on the 2.4 band were simultaneously connecting.

What about the situation where a 2x2 client on the 5Ghz band and a 2x2 client in the 2.4 GHz band simultaneously connect (resulting in 2 clients connecting at the same time).

2x2 clients, even on both bands are not going to saturate the link.

Again, you would need to be right next to the router and running a steady traffic stream with no bandwidth throttling. As SFX points out, that is highly unlikely because most traffic doesn't require it. Even 4K streams are 20 Mbps typical, maybo 40 Mbps peak. You would need a steady local file transfer between devices capable of supporting full gigabit throughput.

So theoretically it's possible, but practically you don't have anything to worry about.

 

[thiggins]

As already stated...check traffic patterns. I have 1Gbps Internet. Do I need it? Is it pegged out on a regular basis? What do you want to bet I could run 100Mbps Internet uplink and probably never notice unless I was really looking. The amount of times my home connection even comes close to going over 100Mbps is so rare it begs the question of why do I even pay for 1Gbps.....

Indeed. A friend recently asked me whether he should pay his ISP a few thousand $ to run a fiber line so he could get gigabit service. I told him no. Gigabit service is useful if you need capacity; it won't make browsing or even downloading that much faster.

Even then, the average home doesn't need that much capacity. A frat house/dorm, maybe. A four person household, no.

 

[rajl]

Indeed. A friend recently asked me whether he should pay his ISP a few thousand $ to run a fiber line so he could get gigabit service. I told him no. Gigabit service is useful if you need capacity; it won't make browsing or even downloading that much faster.

Even then, the average home doesn't need that much capacity. A frat house/dorm, maybe. A four person household, no.

Yeah, the only reason we paid for gigabit is the upload speeds. My wife and I work from home and we regularly backup from our NAS to offsite. Going from 10Mbps to 1000Mbps made a world of difference. The increased download speed is not really noticeable.

Thanks for the feedback about my question. It sounds like I will do just fine with the normal single gigabit uplink. I am a firm believer in do it right and do it once, so I wanted to ask before I did anything.