Why I prefer Wifi 5 routers over 6/6E! Fast, cheap and fun

[Tech9]

You don't really have to occupy the entire spectrum. I run multiple multi-AP systems on less channels. For reliability I don't use DFS channels. In my main office/warehouse there are 8x AP's in use @40MHz wide channels on 5GHz and @20MHz wide on 2.4GHz. Some AP's in open spaces run 5GHz only, some 2.4/5GHz. The two bands have different range and I need 8x 5GHz radios, but only 4x 2.4GHz radios. Good planning is the key. At home I prefer more speed and I run 4x dual-band AP's @80MHz wide channels. One pair on 36-48, the other on 149-161, the further apart positioned. I do see other networks around, but I get >500Mbps on 5GHz and about 90Mbps on 2.4GHz to common 2-stream clients. The house is 6600sqf.

 

[peaks]

Ah interesting. In your work environment you have intentionally handicapped the network (yes I do know why) to 40mhz (bad for bandwidth comparisons) and at home you use 4x dual band. Since you didn’t specify and most dual band APs are 2.4+5, it sounds like you have 4 2.4 networks? Sounds like overkill, you might have sad neighbors a few blocks away jk

At home i have 5 APs, running 5ghz on all, but 2.4 is only on 3, and with one triband AP, I have 6 independent and non-overlapping 5Ghz channels. So you have 4 APs with 2 overlapping channels 5ghz channels (36x2 and 149x2) along with 4 2.4ghz channels (at least 2 overlap).

Me: 5 APs, 6x5ghz and 3x2.4 for 9 unique channels. 470mbit. A total of under $200 and a clear channel for every person and more. Admittedly that much clear bandwidth could be less important with well implemented MU MIMO in wave 2 or wifi 6, but I’m wave 1 so a full channel for each person works extremely well.

tech 9: 4 APs, 4x5ghz (always overlapping) and 4x2.4 (some overlap), 8 channels but only 5 unique. 500mbit (my own service maxes out at 470) throughput. Sounds pretty good! And also almost identical performance to my 6-9 year old gear network. How much did the 4 APs cost and what class? Sounds possibly worth it for the extra 30mbit jk; really we aren’t that dissimilar.

my office is an 18000 sf warehouse, i no longer am in IT so my network needs are just boring business stuff no bandwidth hogs. I have a single TP A7 (paid full price $50) and it’s flashed to the latest build of dd wrt (late 2021). I use it for channel 100; the other office around have filled up 36/149, and I had awful performance when I was on those channels. So I flashed to ddwrt, flipped to 100, and immediately got 100% of my office bandwidth (a mere 250 down, damn business pricing) in all the areas I use computers. 80MHz channel, noise free, and it’s everywhere. It was a total transformation. YMMV! I have the AP turn off and back on every night in case DFS got triggered at some point in 24 hours. I have never seen it leave 100.

you guys really “respect” (really, avoid) DFS in a way I do not understand. It’s an amazingly useful tool that’s totally overlooked and under appreciated IMHO. Using DFS channels indoors is fine and the hardware has the DFS logic so using DDwrt doesn’t disable DFS awareness/switching (“putting millions of indoor planes and weather tech in danger” again jk) it just allows you to use it! Due to local interference, my office went from intermittent 25mbit to solid 250mbit when I went from TP-links forced choice of 149 to ddwrt’s ch 100. Cost me nothing but 20 minutes of downloading and configuring. Didn’t even move the router or touch it. 10x performance for free. Who wouldn’t like that??

 

[Tech Junky]

EE degree

5 APs

my network only cost me a couple hundred MAX.

APs are old routers from 2016 or earlier

2015 cable modem and the core WAN router is a 2013 AirPort Extreme

if I ran 5 wifi 6 APs, they would mostly be stumbling over each other on 36/149,

Your 160Mhz is using 36,

Actually if you look at the peak it's on channel 40 and since AX uses multiple channels it doesn't drop to 80mhz

It's ok to be cheap but, you end up paying for it one way or another. Cobbling together a bunch of junk doesn't make a reliable network or in this case efficient.

The benefits rolled into AX though would be a benefit to you with all of your gadgets on 2.4 allowing them to communicate simultaneously and have less interrupts to contend with other devices slowing them down. Just because I mentioned faster 2.4 bandwidth doesn't mean that's the only perk of running newer equipment. If you invest in decent HW instead of secondhand you tend to get better results in the long run and you shouldn't be using Routers as AP's. AP's specifically designed for the purpose perform quite a bit better than the junk you're picking up and placing on your network. The AP I'm using easily covers 1300sq ft and ~1.5gbps of throughput internally on the LAN.

I could safely say using 3 AP's configured correctly in your environment would produce the same or better results and if you have POE switch they would tie into that instead of all of the AC adapters sucking juice. POE would provide what's needed not what's being pushed from the wall.

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Not everyone needs / wants bleeding edge technology but, being informed about said technology helps you understand all sides of the conversation not just your personal experience. A lot of the comments come from experience with different perspectives from home users to Network Engineers that gather here. Personally I deal with nationwide networking w/ more focus on routing WAN links between different states w/ a minor of datacenter functions including everything from WLC's to FW's or switches the size of a mini fridge.

 

[peaks]

POE+ uses a lot of watts iirc. All my routers are energy sippers. Yes, there’s a 20% loss on AC/DC conversion but the same would be true for POE+ power supplies. Even if they are 90% efficient, we are talking a handful of watts diff max. And first I’d have to buy a new (well, used) POE+ Switch.

here’s what it comes down to: my network is up 99.99% aside from when spectrum is down. Maybe 5 9s. And I fully amortized the cost 5+ years ago, plus I haven’t had to fiddle with network cables etc since it was all initially installed. I get 470mb almost everywhere, the most my ISP can deliver to my location.

upgrading would NOT give me more bandwidth. It also wouldnt save any real energy, and if it did that would be TOTALLY offset by the additional cost, the production of new gear co2 and the methane/pthalate seep from the landfill where my routers end up may be even worse emissions. All for no noticable difference to any users including my EE self.

does not add up.

tell me again the benefit to wifi 6 for my network? I could buy 3 new aps to toss 5 and get the same performance?

again protocols are cool, I love em. OFDMA is a miracle of ingenuity. But the only way I would care
and pay for it is if
1. I need more performance and
2. It will provide noticeably better performance.

currently both are false so I’ll save the money and cruise at the same speeds as y’all without buying new gear. Thanks to the genius of DFS as implemented in Wave 1 AC, even in 2013 draft form!!!

come on, you gotta admit that’s cool. If not, your just a different kind of nerd than me!

 

[Tech9]

How much did the 4 APs cost and what class?

Cost is relative. I use Cisco equipment for business and Netgate/Ruckus at home.

My routers collection, may be interesting for you. I know what home routers are and what they can do.

Most are DD-WRT, OpenWRT, FreshTomato, Asuswrt-Merlin, some Voxel compatible.

 

[peaks]

In truth, cost is absolute not relative. It’s a number which you can share. But of course I am aware how much Cisco gear costs, as even back when I had Oracle running on Sun Microsystems servers we were running all Cisco networks. $$$

the whole point of this thread and my setup is that it’s CHEAP and FAST. Which it is—as fast as your network. and I no longer have access to a pipeline of barely used corp IT gear as it sounds like you might. I remember those days as well! I remember taking a spare 8 port gigabit switch home once when all home gear was 100baseT max. It was amazing, also huge and loud, extra deep 19” rack mount monster that sucked energy like a fridge

I will check out your routers. I like tech most when it is high performance but dirt cheap. It happens to all tech over time. I remember when it really made a difference to buy an external D/A converter for audio production, and now even the crappiest Bluetooth adapter has pristine output. The same should be true for networking but they keep adding not that useful protocols to keep the price up. The proof is in this thread.

no doubt in time I will embrace 6E once it’s widespread, there’s a lot of real improvement there. But I’ll wait on 6 and get a few more years out of my “garbage” gear that’s still giving me a perfect home network experience, for free.

 

[peaks]

A couple more visuals for everyone. I am maxed out as you can see; siting on my sofa my network is showing 489mb of bandwidth and currently pulling 457mb from spectrum, max varies a bit during the day due to spectrum or my family members streaming. If I went to Gigabit internet I would indeed benefit from wifi 6. But I have zero need for that speed and spectrum doesn’t offer it yet at my place anyway. So since I’m maxxed out, I am a happy nerd.

 

[peaks]

One last old gear shoutout: I run a 2009 gen1 Apple Time Machine as my NAS. It has an upgraded 6TB drive and a new power supply in 2019. I can easily stream 2 4k streams and a bunch of HD streams from it wirelessly from anywhere on the property at the same time. I also read endless mixed reviews about affordable NAS units and with the modern-feeling network performance I get from it…I’ll just replace the power supply again if needed in 2029. It can fill a gigabit pipe so it will suffice for even a future wifi 6 network. Crazy right? 2009! 13 years old and if you were streaming from it at my house you would never be able to tell. One of the best products they ever made. Nothing else I own and still use is that old. I use it daily. !!

 

[thiggins]

@peaks Thanks for sharing your perspective and experience and for taking the critiques from forum regulars in stride.

What you have is obviously working for you, so I agree there's no need to change it. If you do try one of the inexpensive Wi-Fi 6 routers, it would be interesting to hear your experience.

AX OFDMA is still a work in progress and you need multiple Wi-Fi 6 devices. That means most of the home 2.4 GHz "IoT" devices in the wild can't do OFDMA, or TWT, for that matter.

A few questions:
- Have you tried running 40 MHz wide 5 GHz channels to see if there is any user impact?
- Do you have any way to measure channel use/congestion? It would be interesting to see how much of the available bandwidth you are using in each channel.
- Do you do any band steering / load balancing across radios?

 

[L&LD]

@peaks, FYI.

Apple Time Capsule Winter 2009 review: Apple Time Capsule Winter 2009 - CNET

Is the Apple TM connected via Ethernet or wirelessly to the rest of the network?

The streaming requirements that you state are between 30Mbps to 64Mbps (depending on the codec used) for the two 4K streams and each additional HD stream is 1.5Mbps to 3Mbps on top. As you can see, the performance required isn't 'exceptional'. Particularly since most of the improvements are in the 6TB HDD you added to the TM. Compared to the anemic 13-year-old 500GB drives in the original unit, the newer drives can hit around 180GB/s throughput, on their own. Something that the TM won't be able to ever offer, BTW.

 

[torstein]

Really, you all seem very biased toward the new tech, but I see bandwidth as the be all/ end all for my needs.

What about latency with such a mixed network as yours? Do you experience it?

 

[peaks]

W

@peaks, FYI.

Apple Time Capsule Winter 2009 review: Apple Time Capsule Winter 2009 - CNET

Is the Apple TM connected via Ethernet or wirelessly to the rest of the network?

The streaming requirements that you state are between 30Mbps to 64Mbps (depending on the codec used) for the two 4K streams and each additional HD stream is 1.5Mbps to 3Mbps on top. As you can see, the performance required isn't 'exceptional'. Particularly since most of the improvements are in the 6TB HDD you added to the TM. Compared to the anemic 13-year-old 500GB drives in the original unit, the newer drives can hit around 180GB/s throughput, on their own. Something that the TM won't be able to ever offer, BTW.

It's connected by GigE to the main switch and can max out on a wired connection around 750-800mbit, filling the pipe for all intents. without a doubt it is an ancient dinosaur. But yes the 6TB made it faster and bigger, and I described the streams not to claim enormous throughput from a 2009 device, but rather that it is more than enough to have all 3 humans in my house watching their own 4k streams while doing backups--it's just more simultaneous throughput than I even need in 2022. Backups aren't particularly fast admittedly but they happen seamlessly in the background so I don't mind. I am SURE there is a better NAS out there, (after 13 years?? there better be!), but that would be an unnecessary upgrade considering my needs, and I wouldn't really appreciate the improvement. If it dies I'll put the drive in another machine, and in fact I could lose all the data and be fine. So I keep it running almost as an engineering experiment, but it also serves a real daily purpose.

BTW got to my office and found that some of the locals are now occupying ch 100 with a couple 40MHz channels, just like Tech9 (but they aren't avoiding DFS clearly). I switched the DDWRT TP A7 to ch 116 80Mhz and went from 120mb download max to the full 250mb in a few seconds. In my experience, clean and clear channels give much better throughput in a chaotic radio environment, but y'all say it doesn't make much of a difference to you (co-channel interference) so maybe that's the main benefit of wifi 6, but in the real world I find switching to a clear channel brings full speed back every time and it's the simplest and cheapest way to get exactly what we need: full ISP speed everywhere. And any significant co-channel interference at minimum halves my performance, IME.

 

[peaks]

What about latency with such a mixed network as yours? Do you experience it?

No I don't. You can see ping time is 13ms on the speed test above; it ranges from 6-15ms generally and a few spots, like my back stairs where I shouldn't be using my phone anyway , it goes up a little higher. One of the main benefits of running on clear 80MHz channels is that there is no latency from the AP negotiating airtime with other APs. Like I said about my office, as soon as there is co-chan interference I see throughput drop by half. So I try and make sure all the areas of my house, when you are sitting there, are operating on a totally clear 80MHz channel vis-a-vis the (micro)local radio environment. Works great.

While it is mixed, decisions about which AP are handled entirely by the phone or Mac, and every AP is connected via gigE to the switch, then to the router/WAN, so this architecture is very low latency. I'm sure better corporate network roaming tech would make for faster switching between nodes, but ever since I got my iPhone 13 pro max (had an 8+ prior) the transitions have become almost seamless. If I walk around on ZOOM holding my Mac or phone, I might get a single frame dropped as I switch nodes, but it doesn't impact the meeting. Good enough! And if I am streaming, its usually not noticable.

 

[L&LD]

In your specific environment, your network is 'more' than adequate for your needs, agreed.

But without proper testing of new hardware in exactly the same environment, it is just an assumption on your part that you'll see no worthwhile improvement (apart from the cost).

Looking forward to your testing of new/current networking equipment in your environment someday. Saving money is great. But using it to benefit today is better.

 

[peaks]

@peaks Thanks for sharing your perspective and experience and for taking the critiques from forum regulars in stride.

What you have is obviously working for you, so I agree there's no need to change it. If you do try one of the inexpensive Wi-Fi 6 routers, it would be interesting to hear your experience.

AX OFDMA is still a work in progress and you need multiple Wi-Fi 6 devices. That means most of the home 2.4 GHz "IoT" devices in the wild can't do OFDMA, or TWT, for that matter.

A few questions:
- Have you tried running 40 MHz wide 5 GHz channels to see if there is any user impact?
- Do you have any way to measure channel use/congestion? It would be interesting to see how much of the available bandwidth you are using in each channel.
- Do you do any band steering / load balancing across radios?

Hi Tim! Thanks again for bringing back full SNB! Your site has been an amazing resource for me for a very long time. I was worried when reviews tapered as there is no way to trust any other reviewers! I will be following your 6E reviews closely and upgrading when it's clearly matured according to YOU. That's a few years away, but I love the depth of your testing and reviews, for an EE there are NO BETTER REVIEWS ON THE INTERWEBS. So, thanks!

I have not tried 40MHz, as that would cut my throughput in half by definition, and I'm looking for max bandwidth. Since none of my devices support 160MHz, 80MHz is my holy grail and so I don't want to use 40Mhz, or 20 etc. But I get why corp environments do it when they have a lot of users to support. Like the 20MHz slices at stadiums etc. Nah, my home is full speed all the time.

I don't use any central tools but the DDWRT instances do have ways of measuring use and congestion. That said, I just do it with speedtests and wifi sweetspot as I move around my house. If I see less than 400, I'll bring up the Wifi Explorer to see what's happened. 9 times out of 10 any slow down is due to either a (new) neighbor co-channel, or one of my own DFS channels switching due to, well, DFS. I always know, if chan 36 slows down, that an AP has bailed from DFS to 36, because that instantly halves my performance. The nightly radio resets on the DFS APs make that very infrequent, or at least something I rarely notice.

I don't do band steering or load balancing, but the topology of the network is such that different channels are stronger in different places and the clients tend to switch accordingly. When I was optimizing, I lowered the power of a couple APs because they were too sticky, but since most of the channel choice decisions are done on the client side I just cater to that, as most of your reviews make AP based steering seem...weak at best, when trying to counter the much stronger client choices.

The 5GHz network is only for users. Phones, computers and TV streamers stay on 5Ghz, and all the IoT stays on 2.4. So band steering isn't needed; the 5 and 2.4 nets have different names and are functionally distinct. I haven't bothered implementing VLANs, but if I do it will be to sequester the IOT. I hated when my devices would pop to 2.4 years ago when I had same name 2.4/5; that's why I went all 5Ghz and broadcast 6 channels; at no point does performance depreciate from 5GHZ 470Mbit to 2.4MHz 70Mbit, because I've always hated when that happens. This is why I am blanketed in 5GHz channels. I keeps it 5G

 

[Tech9]

I’m at 470mb over 7000sf with 7-9 year old gear.

I'm a little in doubt, because the routers you have on 5GHz drop to about 1/2 speed 30ft away line of sight.

 

[peaks]

I'm a little in doubt, because the routers you have on 5GHz drop to about 1/2 speed 30ft away line of sight.

I'm usually within 10 ft of an AP, 20 ft at most. Anywhere I would use my computer is close to an AP. Thats the real benefit of multiple 5ghz APs IMO. And since they are all on diff channels I don't have to worry about co-chan interference as I drift away from the AP.

Sitting in my yard right now, with my wife also on her Mac, I'm about 20 ft from the closest indoor AP running on 100. I'm getting 300-350mb with 17ms. PHY says 468. This is about as low as I ever see on average. So your are right it isn't 470 everywhere, but its usually mid-400s, and in the places I sit with my Mac, sofa, office, bed, etc its totally maxed out. Late at night that gets me 470; spectrum slows during the day to mid 400s.

I'm pretty sure at this location rn the main issue is my wife's Mac presence on the same channel. I only get 470 when I'm alone on a channel. Wave 2/6 MUMIMO could make that better for sure. But I only care about dropping to 300 when benchmarking; the experience will all the apps I use is the same everywhere.

 

[Tech9]

Thats the real benefit of multiple 5ghz APs IMO.

That's Wi-Fi pollution. I actually cover 6600sqf with 3x AP's. The 4th is used when I have people outside on the back yard.

Sorry, but there is no comparison between this (once best budget router):

AC1750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router

Archer C7 is a highly prestigious Wi-Fi 5 model, recommended as 'the best router for most people' by Times.

www.tp-link.com

and this (enterprise class access point with a lot more engineering involved):

RUCKUS®R610: Indoor 802.11ac Wave 2 3x3:3 Wi-Fi Access Point

And this is an old model by today's standards. I can get full speed much further and through walls.

 

[peaks]

No comparison? All relative? Dude it’s easy to compare, and the cost difference is absolute. But I hear you—you like fancier and newer gear and you have enormous respect for your local 5ghz radio spectrum. Cool cool! Here’s hoping it helps with getting into heaven, or taxes, or something.

Meantime, I like crystal clear channels and I can have them. Like everyone will rave about in 6E…all those clear channels…but today, with my existing devices and ancient network gear.

 

[Tech9]

Dude it’s easy to compare

Dude? This conversation is over.