MU-MIMO + OFDMA

[AntonK]

Hi,

I'm curious about the OFDMA/802.11ax MU-MIMO setting on the Wireless-Professional page.

Any opinions on best setting here? My current setting is "DL OFDMA Only", which I guess is the default since I've never touched it myself. There are a few other settings options, and so that is why I'm wondering about it. My network is working fine, so it's not a troubleshooting problem, so much as just curiosity. I do have a number of AX devices.

Thanks,
Anton

 

[L&LD]

I'm running DL/UL OFDMA + MU-MIMO on mine since January of this year. No issues, seemed more responsive (when I had tested for this setting at that time).

You know how your network responds now, change it, reboot the router and see if it's an improvement for you, or not.

 

[RMerlin]

Does OFDMA Really Work? Part 2

Our test of six Wi-Fi 6 routers found no significant benefit from OFDMA. Continue reading on SmallNetBuilder

www.snbforums.com

 

[thiggins]

The 802.11ax spec allows for downlink and uplink forms of both OFDMA and MU-MIMO. Implementation of all forms is not required. Support in both APs/routers and devices is not clearly spec'd by manufacturers.

ASUS is the only manufacturer I know of that provides control of subsets of OFDMA and MU-MIMO. Like many of the settings it provides, they can lead to more confusion (and misconfiguration) and hurt vs. help.

Typically, the defaults are what the manufacturer things will cause the fewest support incidents. There is no right answer for these settings.

 

[Mitt]

I wanted to chime in on this, OFDMA UL / MIMo is terrible is cause major network issues with wifi printers where the printers would be found, seen and could attempt to connect but would never actually add.

Hours of trouble shooting and this issue was a cause, one of the most strange and frustrating wifi issues I’ve dealt with yet.

Doesn’t help, it’s a error infested technology, even my ISP tech who was working in the area said they use OFDMA for cable, and it’s causing endless issues for them that they just disable it.

 

[sfx2000]

ASUS is the only manufacturer I know of that provides control of subsets of OFDMA and MU-MIMO. Like many of the settings it provides, they can lead to more confusion (and misconfiguration) and hurt vs. help.

Well said - sometimes too many knobs and levers..

 

[DJones]

Well said - sometimes too many knobs and levers..

Honestly if I’m paying for a flagship router I want all the knobs, levers, gizmos, and thingamabobs I can have. Providing good documentation reduces misconfiguration.

But from a practical standpoint for support towards keeping things simple for users “sometimes too many” is true. But depends on the user. I’m personally off the camp if they don’t know what *X* feature does they should experience misconfiguring it so they can learn. If they really don’t want to waste hours of their life in frustration to not learn buy an Apple like product and never touch it again.

 

[Tech9]

This is an old thread and not sure why it was bumped up, but @DJones - you can't learn much from a consumer router with copy/paste settings from older firmware versions some of which do nothing or were renamed to follow some consumer marketing strategy. And because of no built-in dependencies Asuswrt allows completely contradicting settings not making any sense. As mentioned above - too many exposed and unnecessary. The reason we have hundreds if threads with "check my settings" questions. On the consumer market user friendly, works and never touch it again is what people like better.

 

[Squall Leonhart]

I wanted to chime in on this, OFDMA UL / MIMo is terrible is cause major network issues with wifi printers where the printers would be found, seen and could attempt to connect but would never actually add.

Hours of trouble shooting and this issue was a cause, one of the most strange and frustrating wifi issues I’ve dealt with yet.

Doesn’t help, it’s a error infested technology, even my ISP tech who was working in the area said they use OFDMA for cable, and it’s causing endless issues for them that they just disable it.

AX radio's in a printer are a design flaw making mistake.

 

[sfx2000]

AX radio's in a printer are a design flaw making mistake.

This is actually becoming a thing for a lot of IoT devices - older 802.11 a/b/g/n chips have been discontinued as they were on older process nodes.

Newer 11 n/ax IoT chips are basically a drop in replacement, and at a lower cost...

These chipsets are not what you find on PC/Tablet/Mobile - they run single stream and usually work with a MCU over I2C/SPI/UART...

They are remarkably cost effective, and perhaps not very fast, but they are efficient on both energy and wireless bandwidth... and looking forward towards Wifi7/8 - they'll be more efficient over the WLAN compared to legacy 11 b/g

AX isn't just about really fast speeds - it's not that much faster than 11ac...