Recommendation for Wifi 6 router mesh system that can handle 2 Gbps?

[thiggins]

The asus rog ax11000 (or whatever the model number is) advertises 11000Mbps.

It's a combination of the maximum link rates for all radios in the product, usually rounded up. For the ASUS AX11000 and AXE11000, with three radios each, maximum link rates for Wi-Fi 6 or 6E STA:
Four stream 2.4 GHz @ 40 MHz channel bandwidth @ 0.8 us Guard Interval (smallest) = 1147 Mbps
Four stream 5 GHz @ 160 MHz channel bandwidth @ 0.8 us GI = 4808 Mbps
Four stream 2nd 5 GHz or 6 Ghz @ 160 MHz channel bandwidth @ 0.8 us GI = 4808 Mbps
1147 + 4808 + 4804 = 10755, rounded up to 11000 Mbps.

As has been pointed out, most Wi-Fi devices are two streams, so divide all the numbers in half.

Why would they do that? So they advertise multi-gig or 10gig speeds, but then they bottleneck it with gigabit switch ports? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Every consumer router on the market right now is like this?

Ah, the good ol' Big Number On the Box (BNOB). This is a time-tested marketing ploy to sucker uninformed buyers. The same thing is done, mainly by NETGEAR, when counting streams. A dual-band router with two-stream radios is advertised as a four-stream product.

Take a look at this article for a look at what you can practically expect from today's routers.

How Much Total Throughput Can Your Wi-Fi Router Really Provide? - SmallNetBuilder

It's harder than you think for that expensive router of yours to deliver all the throughput the big number on its box promises. We show you why.

www.smallnetbuilder.com

 

[L&LD]

An AiMesh configuration as I've described is 'daisy-chaining'.

The only difference is that we've used the 2.5GbE port to extend the 2Gbps ISP service throughout the home.

A single point of failure is 'laughable' when you have multiple, identical units in the building. It will literally take less than 10 minutes (probably 5 actually), to get yourself connected to the 'net again, if the main router evaporates (very unlikely to happen in my experience).

 

[Big Ry]

You still can't view 6x 1920x1080 and 2x 2160x3840 pixels in the same time. You have to look at the cameras one by one in HD. Instead of streaming main stream all the time, you can switch to it when you need it. My business place cameras are monitored on 2x 24" PC monitors, the image for each camera is envelope size. 18x cameras fit in under 100Mbps internal network traffic from the NVR to the control PC. I haven't measure it, but it's low. You're choking your system with unnecessary high bandwidth requirements. If you want it this way, prepare for higher cost ISP service and expensive network equipment. Most home routers hardware is good for Gigabit and only with hardware acceleration enabled. Any firmware option incompatible with hardware acceleration drops the router performance to ~350Mbps, even on flagship Asus GT-AX11000. We are talking about >$500 firewalls, >$500 multi-port multi-gig switches, >$500 each WI-Fi 6 business APs. With so much in/out traffic you may want something doing IPS/IDS and in your case it's x86 Intel i7 class. Tiny ARM home router CPUs can't do it.



Common compressed 4K video stream - 25-40Mbps.

You aren't making a compelling argument. Perhaps on whatever infrastructure you use, you're limited to 1 single full HD camera stream at a time, but by no means is that the norm. Simply remotely accessing each individual cameras stream on its own in a browser, outside of any management software, would enable you to view unlimited full resolution streams, in theory... assuming you have the bandwidth and the hardware to do so. And for Plex, one single 25-40Mbps stream already maxes out my current uplink, so that only goes to show why I should move to better service like Fios. I see no argument for reducing the quality of my remote streams here.

 

[Big Ry]

An AiMesh configuration as I've described is 'daisy-chaining'.

The only difference is that we've used the 2.5GbE port to extend the 2Gbps ISP service throughout the home.

A single point of failure is 'laughable' when you have multiple, identical units in the building. It will literally take less than 10 minutes (probably 5 actually), to get yourself connected to the 'net again, if the main router evaporates (very unlikely to happen in my experience).

How is it daisy chaining when all nodes connect to a switch which connects to the main router? Daisy chaining would be node connected to node.

 

[Tech9]

but by no means is that the norm.

I own an apartment downtown. The security system there was upgraded in 2019 and uses 4x NVRs with 70+ 4K cameras, >$60K equipment. I assisted the management to build it. I know what the norm is and streaming full resolution out to Internet is out of question. What you imagine will improve your experience is just not necessary. It is a good example of bandwidth waste. On this forum you'll get consumer gear recommendations. Try with whatever fits your budget and skills, but make sure you have long enough window to return the equipment. If you know better, just go ahead.

 

[Big Ry]

I own an apartment downtown. The security system there was upgraded in 2019 and uses 4x NVRs with 70+ 4K cameras, >$60K equipment. I assisted the management to build it. I know what the norm is and streaming full resolution out to Internet is out of question. What you imagine will improve your experience is just not necessary. It is a good example of bandwidth waste. On this forum you'll get consumer gear recommendations. Try with whatever fits your budget and skills, but make sure you have long enough window to return the equipment. If you know better, just go ahead.

You can have your opinions about what's wasteful, but it's just that, your opinion. Your use case doesn't apply universally. I don't even use NVRs, so we're not in the same ballpark.

 

[Tech9]

Try with what you believe fits. If you need more, I can assist with better network setup. The best source of information here on SNB is member @Trip. Read the new home setup threads around. He can assist you in building high performance network with model numbers and best compatibility advice.

 

[L&LD]

How is it daisy chaining when all nodes connect to a switch which connects to the main router? Daisy chaining would be node connected to node.

What do you think the 2.5GbE port is? It is also part of the switch that the router uses.

We just need more of them (and why I suggest the 'affordable' QNAP's, today.

There is no dedicated AiMesh/wired network in these routers (yet). But we can configure it to be so.

 

[Tech9]

I don't even use NVRs

Just curious, what do you use to keep your cameras footage? Perhaps the high bandwidth requirements come from your equipment choice. Low maintenance surveillance systems use single Network Video Recorder with protected/isolated camera network, multiple PoE ports and internal storage.

 

[L&LD]

Some people just have to be right, rather than helpful.

 

[Big Ry]

What do you think the 2.5GbE port is? It is also part of the switch that the router uses.

We just need more of them (and why I suggest the 'affordable' QNAP's, today.

There is no dedicated AiMesh/wired network in these routers (yet). But we can configure it to be so.

Kind of just seems like semantics at this point, no? I was only talking individual devices. But nevermind that whole argument anyway. I realized after your last post that i must have previously looked up a different model qnap multi-gig switch, because i was thinking the one in question was a few hundred bucks. I didn't realize it was actually more like $100. That really is cheap.

That said, prior to the comment above about reliability, i had also read about issues with these qnap switches myself. So I'm wondering if the tplinks or other alternatives might not be a better alternative. What makes the qnap the popular choice here, considering there are others at the same price point? I've personally had good experiences with tplink switches in general, but my experience is still quite limited given I'm just a general home user.

 

[Big Ry]

Just curious, what do you use to keep your cameras footage? Perhaps the high bandwidth requirements come from your equipment choice. Low maintenance surveillance systems use single Network Video Recorder with protected/isolated camera network, multiple PoE ports and internal storage.

What? Storage? I use wd purple hdds for surveillance storage. No redundancy on the surveillance drives, because frankly i don't care if i lose the data. My Plex data on the other hand is on wd gold helium hdds in raid 6. Bandwidth requirements are a function of the configuration of the equipment, not the environment in which they operate... generally speaking. Some NVRs do offer proprietary and/or more advanced configuration capabilities than their software-based competitors, but the savings in efficiency are marginal at best in my experience and it often includes tradeoffs like file incompatibility. I've used both setups, and both have their place. But what I'm running now is plenty reliable and practically zero maintenance. It's been less of a headache than the NVR with integrated PoE and internal HDD that I ran before it actually. And I'm running all my spinning discs in a single tower with no extra vibration isolation. Haven't had a hiccup, and it's been going for a few years now

 

[thecheapseats]

I'm closing on a house on Friday, and it appears Comcast 2 Gbps service is available at the address (2Gig down and up), so I'll probably be going with that. <snip>... Don't really have a budget per se, but I'm not gonna drop several grand on all this. I'm also not a networking pro by any means, so anything requiring advanced knowledge of networking wouldn't be a good solution for me.

two observations...

(1) trying to leverage anything above 1 Gbps (in your case 2Gbps fiber) using consumer networking equipment like asus - is impractical... 1Gbps is the upper limit for these plastic boxes, even if the mfgs hang a 2.5Gbps port on them and you play with aggregation... you can certainly try, but in doing so you will have created a new part-time hobby for yourself in admin and troubleshooting...

(2) hardware (just a guesstimate) to do it correctly is likely $3-5k before stateful packet inspection (spi) and intrusion detection solutions (ids) hardware, plus initial admin setup and ongoing periodic admin... performance costs money - it's just the way it is...

you do have one advantage - in that you have the ability to build a 10Gbps capable LAN backbone into your new home premises - good/great... but don't kid yourself that stringing together consumer-grade routers is a practical solution...

I use asus boxes for my home - just fine for a 600/30 cable modem connection (all I can get here)...

but for my business net (that never touches my home network) which originally started with 2 Gbps fiber years ago, the initial hardware cost was 4-6 times from the demarcation entry to the premise devices compared to a cable-class connection...

today (now 4 bonded fiber connections) it is far beyond what I would try to admin, even with four decades of IT experience... again as I said before - performance costs money and accepting that fact upfront, will likely save you time (money) and frustration... good luck...

 

[Tech9]

Haven't had a hiccup, and it's been going for a few years now

What system do you use? This is not an argument, but exchange of ideas. I have different NVRs in use and dedicated hardware is doing the compression. The files are standard, readable on any PC/Mac. Switching between low resolution monitoring and high resolution full screen is in 2 clicks. Boxes are power efficient and contain the same WD Purple drives inside for storage. Storage means few days/weeks of footage, not archive. NVRs record the two streams in the same time. If you want to see all the cameras at once for past periods, the extra stream shows them to you in seconds. You click the camera of interest and the main stream pops up on your screen. It's very convenient, you don't lose any recording quality and bandwidth demands are low. Of course, you can see both main and extra stream on-line. One of my offices is in another city 550km away. I can see the cameras there clearly using only 10Mbps upload or less.

(1) trying to leverage anything above 1 Gbps (in your case 2Gbps fiber) using consumer networking equipment like asus - is impractical...

Well, I tried.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Maybe this is what you've been waiting for? It has dual 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports.

ZenWiFi Pro ET12 and XT12 wireless routers mesh with the best - Edge Up

Today’s highest-performing wireless networks need to serve more and more devices with more bandwidth than ever before. ZenWiFi Pro mesh wireless routers offer the most MU-MIMO capacity of any ASUS mesh system for the most demanding environments. The ZenWiFi Pro ET12 harnesses WiFi 6E to offer...

edgeup.asus.com

 

[Trip]

@Big Ry - Welcome. Congrats on the house and internet options. Instead of approaching this from the already narrowed point of view of "which of the best of ____ set of consumer gear could hit ____ performance", I would focus on the things you'd like to be able to do in practical terms (ex: __ streams of 4K Netflix at once; ___ 4K LAN-WAN security cam feeds at once, etc), to build a case for however much performance will actually be needed, or roughly thereabouts, then work a solution from that point. Or maybe you just simply want multi-gig LAN and WAN because you do so, which is fine, too. I just try to focus on the lowest common denominator if/where it makes sense...

To that effect, it's one thing to just string up a mix of multi-gig consumer equipment; it's a whole other thing to actually get sustained, usable, reliable throughput of whatever amount to each/all of your endpoint(s), at once or even individually. As others have touched on, the speed on the tin is most often not the speed you'll be noticing, especially with wifi.

I'll stop there for now. If you think you've got enough of what you've come for from everyone else, then great. If you want to explore perhaps other directions, such as how an integrator might approach your home setup, I'm happy to look at specifics more in-depth.