Real world speed/reliability/distance differences? Worth upgrade AC86U to AX6000 and SB8611? Testing....

[weaverinva]

Hello again.....On this topics one more question of nuance. How important are upload speeds to you all? I can see bandwidth for security cameras etc but I don't have those. I pay for a 1.2/35 connect with Comcast but I am thinking of downgrading to a 600/20 because not many services even allow for high upload usage. I uploaded 0.4GB of pictures to a onedrive share last evening and it did not go over 24Mbit upload speed. With Comcast overprovisioning, a 600/20 would be provisioned to 28Mbit. I have watched my Asus traffic analyzer. It seems that I could save money. My latency is great. My ping to the closest Comcast server is 14ms.

What other reasons would I want 35 or higher upload speeds? I am not running any DDNS servers at this point. I can vpn into my home network via OpenVPN.

Thank you in advance for your excellent wisdom. This is such a great community! Peace. ✌

 

[Tech Junky]

@weaverinva

It's up to you. If you're not doing things that require higher UL speeds like video meetings a downgrade to save makes sense. I ditched CC completely and went 5G instead to test it out initially but, $50/mo including all taxes makes up for any perceived "loss" in speed. It might take a couple of extra minutes to DL something but, it's really not that big of a deal and the UL's are typically 70mbps which is double that of the plan you're currently on. If I move the gateway outside away from the building it hits 600/100 speeds.

UL speeds make an impact if you're sending data for offsite backups, video chatting, audio / VOIP.

 

[weaverinva]

@weaverinva

It's up to you. If you're not doing things that require higher UL speeds like video meetings a downgrade to save makes sense. I ditched CC completely and went 5G instead to test it out initially but, $50/mo including all taxes makes up for any perceived "loss" in speed. It might take a couple of extra minutes to DL something but, it's really not that big of a deal and the UL's are typically 70mbps which is double that of the plan you're currently on. If I move the gateway outside away from the building it hits 600/100 speeds.

UL speeds make an impact if you're sending data for offsite backups, video chatting, audio / VOIP.

Great points. Thank you for your response. Interesting thoughts on other options....there is TMobile Home Internet in my area too.

Come to think on it, I do quite a bit of uploading to Microsoft Teams drives, and yes a laptop backup client that uploads but is throttles. I have 5 active people in my household. I will look at traffic stats during the evening streaming times and see what presents.

I am on Teams, Zoom, RingCentral meetings all the time but those streams are usually very reasonable.

 

[Tech Junky]

@weaverinva

TMHI is a good option in my view. It's been reliable. I setup a task in Windows to reboot it every 8 hours though for a monitoring interface I have setup and it keeps the API alive for monitoring. Also, it works to keep the speed intact if there's an issue with the cell it's connecting to. Reboots take about a minute to reregister online but, it's a small inconvenience to keep tabs on it.

There have been a couple of times it slowed to a crawl and rebooting the GW fixed it immediately. It's an interesting little device at times. When you peel back the plastic housing it's a pretty simple device to work with. There are 4 antennas for 5G and 4 for WIFI that you can replace if you want / need to. The stock setup isn't too bad but, could be improved if needed.

If I were in a slightly different physical location it would be a boost in speeds but, for $50/mo and typical 200/70 speeds I'm content. I bypassed the wall wart though and power it off a USB-C power bank that provides 16 hours of power if there's an issue. I can also power it off the server using the TB port if need be. Only problem with that is rebooting the server also reboots the internet but, the server is the router as well. Takes longer to reboot the 5G though than the server itself.

5 streams won't even take a bite out of the bandwidth even on the high side of 20mbps/stream you're still only at 50% of the bandwidth in my case. If you're in an ideal position for the signal it won't even be noticeable. In some areas there are people posting 1-2gbps DL speeds which give me a case of envy.

From the phone side I've tested VZW as well and for me / my location they just don't work as well. Mind you it's testing with an MVNO and not a true red plan / phone. Some areas of town only registered the bare minimum for connectivity ~1mbps. At home though they only pushed ~20mbps. They've been sending out a bunch of mailers and I've scanned some SSID's showing they have switched to VZW. Then again most of the people in the building have ATT and that's a ripoff at $50/mo for 50mbps. There's some fiber a couple of blocks away but, they won't extend it to the building as I've already probed a couple of companies to see if they would light things up. I don't think I could get enough people to sign up to make it worthwhile for the fiber extension.

 

[jsz]

@ OP
I've owned a GT-AC2900 (upgraded/special version of AC86) as my main router for 2.5+ years. Zero issues, but I wanted better range performance @ 25-30FT.

I upgraded to GT-AX6000 and while it improved performance, my walls/interference weren't allowing me to push max ISP speed which is currently 580MBPS... I would hover @ around 500MBPS during the day. My GT-AC2900 would push 400-450 at same time/distance effectively making it a moot upgrade.

I bought an AX86S on a whim and the performance is greatly improved from when I first tried the AX86U at release. The AX86S I grabbed today can push full ISP speeds at my desired location though walls and with 160mhz enabled on UNII1+ extended... The GT-AX6000 cannot.. at least in my specific environment.. (tested both main 80mhz blocks and with 160mhz disabled).

This sucks because I would have preferred to keep the GT-AX6000.. It's made in Taiwan and has insanely good ID/build quality. GT-AX6000 does do LoS EXTREMELY well.. Better than this AX86S

PHY rates actually match and hover at higher rates than my GT-AC2900.. the GT-AX6000 was significantly lower. Again, this is likely due to environmental factors, walls, newer radio/FW.

I will fully recommend AX86S/AX86U at sale prices that make sense. I bought the AX86S for $148 + tax today. AX86U has dropped to $220 USD a few months ago (Amazon had Zaku model). Both are fair price points.

 

[weaverinva]

@ OP
I've owned a GT-AC2900 (upgraded/special version of AC86) as my main router for 2.5+ years. Zero issues, but I wanted better range performance @ 25-30FT.

I upgraded to GT-AX6000 and while it improved performance, my walls/interference wasn't pushing max ISP speed which is currently 580MBPS... I would hover @ around 500MBPS during the day. My GT-AC2900 would push 400-450 at same time effectively making it a moot upgrade.

I bought an AX86S on a whim and the performance is greatly improved from when I first tried the AX86U at release. The AX86S I grabbed today can push full ISP speeds at my desired location though walls and with 160mhz enabled on UNII1+ extended... The GT-AX6000 cannot.. at least in my specific environment.. (tested both main 80mhz blocks and with 160mhz disabled).

This sucks because I would have preferred to keep the GT-AX6000.. It's made in Taiwan and has insanely good ID/build quality. GT-AX6000 does do LoS EXTREMELY well.. Better than this AX86S

PHY rates actually match and hover at higher rates than my GT-AC2900.. the GT-AX6000 was significantly lower. Again, this is likely due to environmental factors + newer radio/FW.

I will fully recommend AX86S/AX86U at sale prices that make sense. I bought the AX86S for $148 + tax today. AX86S has dropped to $220 USD (Amazon had Zaku model). Both are fair price points.

Thank you @jsz Wonderful experiential information. I had the gt-ax6000 and then sent it back. I purchased a lightly used ax86u on Facebook marketplace and it is spectacular in my 2100 Sq ft two floor house. I was going to use my ac86u as a bridge node but it all works so well I don't need to. I just got 648 Mb download on my tablet in my living room.

Sure over gigabit download speeds might be better on speed tests but things are very snappy with my effective 945 Mb download and 42 up on Comcast. If a person wants to use greater than 1Gb speeds, the gt-ax6000 is good option. The ax86u will be fine for me for years.... solid, ddns, vpn.... lovely and as one of the reviews on the internet said, it is very low latency. I get 14ms pings on my closest Comcast speed server.

Peace

 

[jsz]

Thank you @jsz Wonderful experiential information. I had the gt-ax6000 and then sent it back. I purchased a lightly used ax86u on Facebook marketplace and it is spectacular in my 2100 Sq ft two floor house. I was going to use my ac86u as a bridge node but it all works so well I don't need to. I just got 648 Mb download on my tablet in my living room.

Sure over gigabit download speeds might be better on speed tests but things are very snappy with my effective 945 Mb download and 42 up on Comcast. If a person wants to use greater than 1Gb speeds, the gt-ax6000 is good option. The ax86u will be fine for me for years.... solid, ddns, vpn.... lovely and as one of the reviews on the internet said, it is very low latency. I get 14ms pings on my closest Comcast speed server.

Peace

Yeah.. I was also planning on using my GT-AC2900 as a wired backhaul node, but the AX86S allows me to default to one router. Thought I needed a 8x8 QCA platform as single point solution (AX89X), but I guess not.

It's just a shame that the GT-AX6000 doesn't perform well for me (enviroment/walls).. I doubt it was defective, but who knows..

I did notice my TPLINK WIFI switches and dropping on the 2.4G on this AX86S.. hopefully this isn't a reoccurring theme. They were rock solid on the GT-AC2900.. Not sure if it's a BCM6710 radio issue.

 

[Tech9]

I did notice my TPLINK WIFI switches and dropping on the 2.4G on this AX86S.

Something to start with:

[Wireless Router] How to improve compatibility of IoT device with ASUS WiFi 6(802.11 ax) router? | Official Support | ASUS Global

And some more to experiment with:

In Wireless, General:
- wireless mode N only
- set fixed 20MHz channel
- Authentication WPA2-Personal
- disable Protected Management Frames

In Wireless, Professional:
- disable TX Bursting
- disable WMM APSD
- modulation to 802.11n
- disable Airtime Fairness
- disable both Beamforming and MU-MIMO
- TX power on Performance

More:
- Group Key Rotation Interval to 0 (no update), 7200 (2h), 86400 (24h)

 

[jsz]

Something to start with:

[Wireless Router] How to improve compatibility of IoT device with ASUS WiFi 6(802.11 ax) router? | Official Support | ASUS Global

And some more to experiment with:

In Wireless, General:
- wireless mode N only
- set fixed 20MHz channel
- Authentication WPA2-Personal
- disable Protected Management Frames

In Wireless, Professional:
- disable TX Bursting
- disable WMM APSD
- modulation to 802.11n
- disable Airtime Fairness
- disable both Beamforming and MU-MIMO
- TX power on Performance

More:
- Group Key Rotation Interval to 0 (no update), 7200 (2h), 86400 (24h)

Most are disabled by default, but I'll force N only/20mhz. Hopefully that helps.

 

[Tech9]

This is just ideas what IoT devices may not like. Some work on default settings with no issues, others need more experimenting with settings.