Linksys Goes Back To The Future For New AC1900 Router

[Shikami]

This is a really good move!! They want to seed the SDK's and are releasing their own OpenWRT! VERY-VERY impressive! Should have done a better color scheme, blackish/grayish I think would have been better, but I do understand what they are doing with the color scheme (my only complaint looking at it). I wonder what processor they are using, it doesn't seem to be using the new Qualcomm Internet processor?: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7526/...internet-processor-lineup-ipq8064-and-ipq8062

Anyways, I am surprised that not a single person has mentioned the awesome and finally eSATA support on a SOHO router! I am curious if also their OpenWRT firmware will support all the "accelerated" features of the router as would their stock?

 

[jalyst]

The specs are what they are. Maybe next version gets more memory, but not this one.

Maybe, maybe not, specs can & sometimes do change, not likely this late in the game though.

Hmm, the Asus RT-AC87U based on Quantenna looks like it could give the AC1900 a run for it's money:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7688/...c-chipset-asus-gets-first-dibs-in-the-rtac87u
Are there F/OSS sw stacks that support Quantenna chipsets (similar to Broadcom) or is the sw completely closed/proprietary?

 

[RTN]

Marvell http://wikidevi.com/wiki/Linksys_WRT1900AC

 

[connorm]

i think this linksys router looks amazing. currently i am using a dock with esata, usb and a WD black drive. currently using usb 2.0 on my rt-ac66u and cant pass 12 or 13 MB. im exited to the performance benefits this router will give to wifi (it seems like its the home user version of the $1200-1300 aironet 3700) i believe they are using the marvell avastar 88w8864 chip in both models. http://www.marvell.com/wireless/avastar/88W8864/index.jsp

and i am very exited for the nas performance gains aswell

the one thing im curious is if this or the new asus router will offer 160MHz channel compatibility when phase 2 of AC is officially rolled out. i would figure if they could already do it they would? but i think cisco is claiming there current aironet 3700 will support the 160MHz bands in the future, and its using the exact same antenna scheme and probably the same wifi chips as i stated earlier

+ the linksys router looks beautiful. the price is the only thing hard to get over. but its probably worth it.

 

[thiggins]

the one thing im curious is if this or the new asus router will offer 160MHz channel compatibility when phase 2 of AC is officially rolled out. i would figure if they could already do it they would? but i think cisco is claiming there current aironet 3700 will support the 160MHz bands in the future, and its using the exact same antenna scheme and probably the same wifi chips as i stated earlier

The Marvell 4x4 chipset supports three stream, 80 MHz bandwidth only. So the WRT1900AC won't support 160 MHz bandwidth.

The Quantenna chipset used in the ASUS is four-stream, but also 80 MHz bandwidth.

160 MHz bandwidth would eat up all eight 5 GHz channels commonly supported in consumer routers. I haven't seen a consumer router yet that supports the other channels, because they require DFS to be implemented.

I am not aware of any AC chipset that supports 160 MHz bandwidth at this point. I'm not saying they don't exist. I just haven't heard of any from my device maker sources.

 

[connorm]

The Marvell 4x4 chipset supports three stream, 80 MHz bandwidth only. So the WRT1900AC won't support 160 MHz bandwidth.

The Quantenna chipset used in the ASUS is four-stream, but also 80 MHz bandwidth.

160 MHz bandwidth would eat up all eight 5 GHz channels commonly supported in consumer routers. I haven't seen a consumer router yet that supports the other channels, because they require DFS to be implemented.

I am not aware of any AC chipset that supports 160 MHz bandwidth at this point. I'm not saying they don't exist. I just haven't heard of any from my device maker sources.

im actually expecting the marvel chipset to to better then the 4 stream quantenna chipset for 1 reason. my d link dir 655 was the best 2.4 router i personally ever used. far superior to the performance of my rt-ac66u but in its defense its n66u brother probably has much better 2.4 performance. the reason why i have been told and think the d link was so good. it was one of the only routers to use 1 antenna just for receive. it was a 300N router with 3 antennas. i think the cisco aironet 3700 and linksys wrt1900ac are using the same idea. 3 antennas for send. 1 for receive? or would i be completely wrong

also thanks for clarifying the chipsets will only support 80MHz and not 160MHz. personally im expecting the WRT1900AC to outdo the asus AC87U

but if the asus isnt wallmountable like the 68, i wont even consider it. untill i seen the WRT1900AC i was wanting to get a nighthawk r7000, but u can scrap that idea now ima wait for this bad boy forsure.

my last question will the WRT1900AC support MU-MIMO? and will MU-MIMO require client support?

 

[jalyst]

Def. shaping-up as a very interesting review period on SNB in the next few months, I can wait to see the WRT1900AC compared to the RT-AC87U & other top-end routers.

 

[thiggins]

Connorm: Yes, there have been 2x3 N routers, although none specifically come to mind right now. That was before I had the current test method, so I don't have detailed performance information.

The Linksys will not support MU-MIMO. That will come with full 4x4 routers like the RT-AC87U. Yes, clients need to support MU-MIMO.

 

[connorm]

when you said no 2X3 router come to mind. you mean exluding the DIR-655 right ?

ps rev b1 was the good one. rev a sucked.

or would i be incorrect assuming the dir 655 was 2X3 even tho it had 3 antennas?

also thanks for the answer about MU-MIMO. it is unfortunate the new linksys will not support it but atleast if it requires clients to support it aswell i probably will get like 0 benefit out of the asus 87 vs the wrt1900, untill i actually get MU-MIMO or 3 stream clients. will probably be years lol. i only have 1 3 stream N client right now its a macbook pro using a BCM 4331. so it will probably be a while before im using 4X4 or MU-MIMO + i found out the 87 isnt really wall mountable because of port placement so the WRT1900AC is my new first choice. only thing i would take instead of it would be an aironet 3700 or a aruba ap-225 (those aruba ap's probably have the best throughput out of ANY ac device. to bad there like $1200 like the aironet 3700.

 

[Razor512]

Couldn't they use all of the available 5GHz channels, and not enable the DFS? The other FCC rules nerfed wifi to a point where it would be largely impossible for any radar system to detect a wifi network at any useful distance where it would not simply be better to use visuals instead of radar. I can understand DFS if they allow a more reasonable transmit power such as 50-100 watts, 1 watt, then asking for DFS is just insane.

the range of the wifi is so limited that it will not really impact the radar devices and other stuff that DFS was designed for. All they need to do is release the device, then release a new firmware after it hits the market which due to a "bug" that is too complicated for the developers to fix, will not enable DFS, and those channels cannot be disabled from user access in future updates because it is far too complicated, and far too much work to realistically expect the developers to remove user access to those channels.

this will then become a win-win for the router company, and the users as we will all enjoy full use of all wifi channels, and the router companies will be finally able to go with wider channels.

PS Does anyone have the FCCID on that router? I would love to see the internal photos. (that router weighs more than a high end videocard that pulls over 200 watts)

 

[connorm]

yes but its not a good comparison because GPU's all have fans and dont have to worry about RF interference. i believe this thing is gonna use something like a dual core 1.2 if im correct? cooling something like that without a fan aint easy lol these routers r starting to outdo the performance of some pc's 10 years ago. and there running small firmware instead of a full OS.

 

[Razor512]

Yay, it seems the various SOC's that may be possible for that router, all seem to have native support for SATA. This means that we may have similar or better storage performance than the awesome netgear WNDR4700.

 

[sfx2000]

I still think this is going to be an interesting box - might be awesome, might not be, but a clear tribute as an open/hackable box that the WRT56G was, at least with the first 4 versions...

@ Tim - not to create any additional work - but it would be interesting to see a "comparison" between the 54G and the 1900AC - just to show how far things have come along in the past few years.

 

[thiggins]

@ Tim - not to create any additional work - but it would be interesting to see a "comparison" between the 54G and the 1900AC - just to show how far things have come along in the past few years.

What do you want to see compared?
This plot from How Well Do AC Routers Handle Mixed Networks?
tells the story for comparing A/G, N and AC throughput.

 

[sfx2000]

What do you want to see compared?
This plot from How Well Do AC Routers Handle Mixed Networks?
tells the story for comparing A/G, N and AC throughput.

Treat the old-school as a new product introduction perhaps... WAN to LAN, WLAN performance, the gamut on the current testbed, circuit board pron, chipsets, etc... could be an awesome 4/1 release

Might be a kick to many that have been hanging on to the older Linksys device...

It's really a bit of a celebration of how far WiFi has progressed - keep in mind that many of us have been with SNB since your early experiments and documentation with the Linksys NSLU-2 and WRT54G.

http://www.timhiggins.com/nas/nas-howto/24302-howtonslu2hackpt1

And perhaps, how far this site has grown since those days...

sfx

 

[jalyst]

It's really a bit of a celebration of how far WiFi has progressed - keep in mind that many of us have been with SNB since your early experiments and documentation with the Linksys NSLU-2 and WRT54G.
http://www.timhiggins.com/nas/nas-howto/24302-howtonslu2hackpt1

I remember those times, even got me a NSLU2 in all the excitement, alas, I never got round to using the bloody thing! "face-palm"
I stumbled across it the other day when doing a spring clean, I'll sell it for next-to-nothing soon, as it's brand new & never used.

 

[sfx2000]

Looking back at history - iFixit just published a modern teardown of a classic/original Mac 128K for the Mac 30 year...

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Macintosh+128K+Teardown/21422

Since SNB is focused on SoHo wireless - a WRT54G walk-through would be fun when looking at current...

 

[jalyst]

Yes indeed, if/when this is reviewed, it'd be great if it could be compared alongside the WRT54G/GS...

 

[truerock]

This is the router I want

Ironically, I happened to set up an old Linksys WRT54g v5.0 router with DD-WRT-micro a few weeks ago. It reminded me how much I liked WRT - the best router software I have ever used (I still have nightmares about the first Cisco PIX box I had to configure for a Citrix network).

I just finished configuring port-forwarding on an AT&T home-gateway this weekend to support some Cisco-Linksys ip cameras. I kept thinking how much nicer it would have been to be working with WRT.

Obviously the main thing that will hold me back is that none of our devices (3 Windows PCs, 4 Windows notebooks, 3 iPads and 6 iPhones, 2 Blu-ray players, a Wii, ip Cameras, etc., etc.) support 802.11ac. I suppose I will wait until something is upgraded that uses it.

When Dell Latitude notebook computers and HP Pavilion notebook computers start shipping with 802.11ac as a standard configuration then I will upgrade my routers to Linksys WRT 1900AC.

The first thing I will get with my WRT router is guest accounts that don't require a password or any guest acknowledgement.

Also... I think I'll turn off the 802.11A,B,G,N radios and dedicate the router to only 802.11AC clients.

 

[L&LD]

Looking forward to the performance/throughput tests.

Is this firmware version 0.1?