News NETGEAR Stealthily Goes Public With Its Draft 11ax Routers

[Cris]

when will the client come out with 11ax support? otherwise it wont take a big improvement in real life experience.

 

[Killhippie]

Sorry but I have had to remove all information posted, the product is still under a NDA until next year. I cant say any more and would appreciate any posts with quotes on project Leopard I mentioned to be removed. (sorry guys its the rules of my NDA) I believed the router was out and clearly it isn't yet so I cannot talk about it further.

 

[psychopomp1]

According to the post above.. you will NOT be allowed to "Buy" the AX12 - "the ONLY way to experience the AX12" - You will need to sign up for a monthly plan (for example: $19.99 a month - with a cancelation fee of $900 if canceled before your 18 month subscription) as part of the program you get "premium tech support" Accidental damage coverage - also they will upgrade you "for free" to the new AX15 that supports the "Official 802.11AX standard in 2019) by returning the AX12 Model ( it's similar to the Cisco Meraki business model - except you don't "buy hardware" + subscription licensing) - think of the I-Phone program from Apple.. at least Netgear Insight licensing is much cheaper then Meraki... hopefully I am wrong but I am just surprised nobody noticed this... - click the photo above read carefully..

I would be utterly gobsmacked if Netgear didn't give you the option to buy the AX12 outright. However I suspect the AX12 isn't going to be cheap (at least $600) so they will also offer the monthly plan to those wishing to spread out the costs which also includes premium support, better warranty and of course, first dibs at owning the router (aka being a guinea pig).

 

[Killhippie]

I cannot see the point of AX routers without the clients, well apart from marketing and finding ways to get people to open wallets and companies to make money for something that wont benefit users till AX clients actually exist (but it says AX in shiny letters so people will buy it no matter what). Also with the way Netgear firmware has been going recently they are not something I really want to invest in, I would prefer solid updates not not buggy ones with things like wifi issues. Recently Netgear has really dropped the ball even further with that side of things while still making great hardware. I just wish they could do both well.

 

[psychopomp1]

I cannot see the point of AX routers without the clients, well apart from marketing and finding ways to get people to open wallets and companies to make money for something that wont benefit users till AX clients actually exist (but it says AX in shiny letters so people will buy it no matter what). Also with the way Netgear firmware has been going recently they are not something I really want to invest in, I would prefer solid updates not not buggy ones with things like wifi issues. Recently Netgear has really dropped the ball even further with that side of things while still making great hardware. I just wish they could do both well.

I agree to a point, but let's not forget that 802.11ax appears to be the true successor to 802.11n (ie works on both 2.4 & 5ghz bands unlike 802.11ac) so its only a matter of time before we see the market flooded with 802.11ax clients.

 

[thiggins]

Kevin: The NETGEAR information you are referring to is describing a Beta program. It says nothing about pricing. Where are you getting your information from?

 

[heidarren]

Someone in China has it in hand and testing it out now, let’s wait for the result

 

[heidarren]

 

[idesign]

According to the post above.. you will NOT be allowed to "Buy" the AX12 - "the ONLY way to experience the AX12" - You will need to sign up for a monthly plan (for example: $19.99 a month - with a cancelation fee of $900 if canceled before your 18 month subscription) as part of the program you get "premium tech support" Accidental damage coverage - also they will upgrade you "for free" to the new AX15 that supports the "Official 802.11AX standard in 2019) by returning the AX12 Model ( it's similar to the Cisco Meraki business model - except you don't "buy hardware" + subscription licensing) - think of the I-Phone program from Apple.. at least Netgear Insight licensing is much cheaper then Meraki... hopefully I am wrong but I am just surprised nobody noticed this... - click the photo above read carefully..

Has there been any more confirmation about the AX12 only being able to be "leased" on a subscription model?

 

[thiggins]

Has there been any more confirmation about the AX12 only being able to be "leased" on a subscription model?

Neither pricing nor availability have been announced. Only an invitation-only beta program.

 

[Simba501]

Anyone know how much ram each have?

 

[Razor512]

A subscription service for a router will be horrible. We do not need another skydog or revolv situation. Cloud reliance is only beneficial to the company making the product as they have greater control over the end of life of a product.

 

[Internet Man]

Anyone know how much ram each have?

From another thread about these routers...

They didn't but the RAX120 has 512MB Flash and 1GB RAM according to the firmware file published for it. I can't tell what the RAX80 will have yet but it should be at least 512MB of RAM.

 

[avtella]

512MB Flash & 1 GB RAM.

 

[Razor512]

I wonder why they are still giving routers such a tiny amount of RAM, even entry level $120 smartphone snow have 2GB of RAM. For high end routers, they should really start to push to 4+GB of RAM.

 

[thiggins]

For high end routers, they should really start to push to 4+GB of RAM.

Why?

 

[avtella]

It would just unnecessarily add to production cost with almost no benefit to the average end user.

 

[RMerlin]

I wonder why they are still giving routers such a tiny amount of RAM, even entry level $120 smartphone snow have 2GB of RAM. For high end routers, they should really start to push to 4+GB of RAM.

A home router has no need for such amounts of RAM. Unlike a phone, it doesn't try to run apps, play videos or render websites.

 

[sfx2000]

A home router has no need for such amounts of RAM. Unlike a phone, it doesn't try to run apps, play videos or render websites.

I would appreciate 1GB of RAM - but RAM is cheap so maybe 2GB...

Really depends on the chips and memory bandwidth there...

I would more appreciate devices moving from naked/MTD NAND to eMMC, as that's a better solution in the long run for reliability...

 

[RMerlin]

I would appreciate 1GB of RAM - but RAM is cheap so maybe 2GB...

1 GB makes sense (as I see high-end routers using about half of it once you add a few services.). 4 GB however makes no sense. First issue being the number of address lines needed to address that amount of RAM - significantly increases the design complexity and hardware cost (and that's assuming the CPU has 36-bit or more of address space, as it needs some address space for the I/O).