Wireless Access Point vs Router Performance

[Invaderska]

Hi,

A similar question was recently posted, but the judgement was not clear for me. Really just looking for a fast and clear answer:

In general, is the wireless performance of (consumer grade) Wireless Access Points on par with an average AC1900 router, not considering price?


And if you wouldnt mind, here is my situation: I have a 3 story house. Due to the design and construction of the house, I certainly need 1 wireless access point (or router) on each floor. My budget is $600. House is wired for ethernet. I will put 1 x $200 AC1900 router on floor 3, and all the ethernet runs to that.

All things aside (features, etc) except wifi performance, for floors 1 and floor 2,should I buy 2 x $200 APs or 2 x $200 AC1900 routers?

If the answer is AP, any recommendations on models?

My skill level is intermediate, but I am putting this together for a large family with little to no networking skill. Many wireless devices. Traffic will be light/moderate video streaming, light audio streaming, and day to day surfing.

Thank you so much and happy new year!

 

[coxhaus]

You have not posted your skill level nor what you are using them for other than wireless. What comes to mind is a consumer router the same as a pro level router. They both route. This is not a black and white answer. There is lots of gray around.

With all that said why do you want to pay for routers to use as access points?

 

[Invaderska]

You have not posted your skill level nor what you are using them for other than wireless. What comes to mind is a consumer router the same as a pro level router. They both route. This is not a black and white answer. There is lots of gray around.

With all that said why do you want to pay for routers to use as access points?

My apologies. I have edited my original post to reflect your points. I don't need any routing features (aside from the AC1900 which will do all the routing). Just need the AP.

I would be willing to pay for routers to use as access points because (thanks to this site) I know which one to buy, where to buy it, and how to use its basic features. Access points I have no idea. I don't have any experience with them, which is where my original question came in.

 

[coxhaus]

I think that is a perfect answer to a gray question.

 

[sfx2000]

All things aside (features, etc) except wifi performance, for floors 1 and floor 2,should I buy 2 x $200 APs or 2 x $200 AC1900 routers?

Most Router/AP's can be configured as AP's (disabling the routing function), and since just running as AP, might consider something like the TP-Link Archers, or perhaps even the Trenda 1900... these are all sub-200 range and should be fine..

 

[sfx2000]

Due to the design and construction of the house, I certainly need 1 wireless access point (or router) on each floor. My budget is $600. House is wired for ethernet. I will put 1 x $200 AC1900 router on floor 3, and all the ethernet runs to that.

All things aside (features, etc) except wifi performance, for floors 1 and floor 2,should I buy 2 x $200 APs or 2 x $200 AC1900 routers?

There can be such a thing as "too much" wifi that can hurt overall performance - you didn't mention square footage, or number of potential users - but generally, a dual-band router/AP can light up around 1500 sq ft at 2.4GHz, and around 850/900 sq ft (sometimes more) at 5GHz - also consider a typical AC1900 class AP can easily support 25 plus clients without much of a challenge.

 

[coxhaus]

I like and use the Cisco small business WAPs. They have a single point setup so if you need to add more units it is real easy. They can do complicated things but I think they can be setup for a simple network with multiple units which share the same SSID and security. This way you get a kind of roaming effect. Price wise they are more expensive than a cheaper router but the single point setup sure is nice if you need to run more than one unit.

 

[Daniel123]

The only real advantage to using a router as an AP is the built-in switch ports. If you use an AP, you'll also need a switch so you can connect the AP and PC to the cable coming from the main router.

If any of your wireless devices support 5ghz, then I would suggest getting a simultaneous dual-band router or AP for the second location.

 

[Klueless]

"Should I ... buy 2 x $200 APs?"​

Some of those wireless range extenders can also work in "bridge" mode meaning you can hard wire them to a router and use them as a wired AP. Now you would be looking at about $100 per AP rather than $200 per.

(Do something nice for the wife and kids with the extra $200 : -)

 

[sfx2000]

Some of those wireless range extenders can also work in "bridge" mode meaning you can hard wire them to a router and use them as a wired AP.

Most don't, so check the spec sheet, and if there's any question, reach out to the vendor and ask them before laying down good money...

 

[stevech]

wouldn't that bridge mode actually be an ordinary Access Point? Or does "bridge" mean that it is SSID-agnostic whereas an AP is SSID-specific?

 

[sfx2000]

wouldn't that bridge mode actually be an ordinary Access Point? Or does "bridge" mean that it is SSID-agnostic whereas an AP is SSID-specific?

Bridging is at the 802.xx layer (typically ethernet 802.3), whereas SSID is specific to 802.11..

 

[sfx2000]

Part of the problem however is that different vendors use different terms - which makes things difficult for end-users and potential customers...

 

[Klueless]

wouldn't that bridge mode actually be an ordinary Access Point?

In this case it would. (Right or wrong it was just the term the vendor used.)

I've been looking at replacing our now failing range extender at work.

Most of them come with an Ethernet port as an aid to configuring. It can then be used to connect a device to give it network access but that's about it.

A few vendors offer "bridge mode" allowing you to hard wire that port directly to one of your wireless router's ports thus making it an Access Point as you've already observed. As such it seemed like an affordable AP. I also thought it was a nice contingency feature in case the normal range extender function doesn't solve the problem.

The feature I'm interested in is the "backhaul" or the "fastlane" function. I should be able to use one radio (in my case the 5Ghz radio) exclusively to communicate with my wireless router next door (a wireless bridge?) and use the other (2.4Ghz) radio to communicate to the PCs further back in bldg. 2. It should/could reduce the hit in performance you normally see in range extenders?

 

[stevech]

Bridging is at the 802.xx layer (typically ethernet 802.3), whereas SSID is specific to 802.11..

Yes, I know.
I've not seen a "bridge" for WiFi to TCP/IP layer of an Ethernet 802.3 medium. Can't be done as these are different MAC layers. I've not seen a device that will bridge all WiFi IP packets no matter the SSID, since this would require passing WEP or WPA encrypted payload packets across the bridge.

 

[sfx2000]

I hope this isn't a "senior moment" for either of us...

Seriously though, a bridge is ethernet in this context... up and down the stack...

 

[Klueless]

OSI model:

• Layer 1: physical; coax, twisted pair, Ethernet the wire/cable, air waves. Use a repeater.
• Layer 2: data. Ethernet frames, MAC addresses. Use a bridge/switch (collects MAC addresses). Can reconcile dissimilar cables, physical media.
• Layer 3: network. protocols like IP start here. Use a router (collects network numbers).

Thus you should be able to at least use the word "bridge" (between air and wire) if it's done at layer two-ish?

 

[stevech]

802.11 breaks an IP packet into lots small of MAC and PHY frames.
802.3 repackages MAC layer packets with an IP header. Not analagous to 802.11's frame with error correction coding, and more complex coding to reduce bursty errors in wireless.
Because 802.3's copper medium is is switched (no competition for the media access), and the medium isn't wireless with interference and collisions, the MAC is far simpler than 802.11 which has to use small frames. The small frames are individually coded for error correction and have an ACK per frame, mostly do permit wireless spectrum sharing. (Again, 802.3 switched ethernet does not have sharing of the PHY medium).

So I think of 802.11/WiFi Access points as a layer 2.5 or layer 3 device since 802.11 frames have to be reassembled to full packets then given a legitimate 802.3 packet header.

It's not like bridging X.25 to 802.3 due to 802.11's tiny frames.

I'll quickly yield if my thinking is flawed.

 

[Klueless]

Ouch. My head hurts.

Hopping onto the Waay-Back machine, back to a time when I was less old, Ethernet (IEEEE 802.3 base5) ran over Ether-hose (big fat yellow coax cables that looked like garden hoses) then later (base2) thin wire (skinnier coax). Depending where the cables were run there was interference. It was single-wire for send and receive (half-duplex) and because all users were on the same wire there was plenty of contention and collisions. Cables also had distance limitations so at layer 1 they would use a repeater to resend the signal thus lengthening cable.

Since you could only have 250-ish devices on a single cable they would also use layer 2 bridges which not only lengthened the cable but also allowed multiple groups of 250-ish devices.

When twisted pair (baseT) Ethernet (looks like telephone lines) came out it made cabling a lot easier but was subject to even more interference and distance limitations. So, in a centralized area (closet) they collected all these twisted pairs into a layer 1 multi-port repeater called a hub. But the whole thing was layer 1, still only 10 Mbps shared, half-duplex and rampant with collisions.

Then someone got the idea of replacing layer 1 hubs with multi-port layer 2 bridges. (Marketing called them switches.) This meant that each user now had his very own collision domain to stabilize performance . It also meant the rules of the highway had changed such that you could run full duplex (one pair for send and another for receive). I think this is about when you come in so it's kinda hard to step back and break down what we have now to what it used to be / what it really is. In many ways wireless has simply resurfaced the issues of the past; noise, interference, distance limitations, half-duplex, collisions, etc.) and forthcoming solutions will be similar in nature.

OSI is merely a reference model. Most protocols don't line up exactly but the functionality is in there somewhere. (Sometime back the Euro-standard for products stated that products must be a true OSI implementation -or they would not allow import- so an OSI protocol was actually released but quickly fell to the wayside when the web exploded and IP suddenly became the golden boy. The only protocol I ever worked with that actually lined up with the OSI model was AppleTalk.)

So even 802.3 has a history of noise, interference, distance limitations, contention and collisions.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, I vote "bridge" : -)

 

[coxhaus]

You must be as old as I am. Remember bridging SNA or at least that is what we called it. Those were my early days.