[aklug] Re: New NETGEAR R6300v2 AC 1750 Router

On Wed, 2 Oct 2013, Jeremy Austin wrote:

> One reason to get routers to market is that they will may have a longer
> installed life. Clients come and go, but I only replace my routers when
> they break or a new technology comes along. Ideally.

No doubt, but look at how long 802.11n's been around. I have yet to come
across a client that actually does 3x3 MIMO. Either the WAP/router
manufacturers are exceedingly optimistic about the future of technology on
the client, or they're adding in that capability nominally as a marketing
ploy: we *can* do this, but in reality you'll never get the chance to use
it. They can compete with other companies as to who's the fastest when
pragamatic reality dictates that they're all equally slower because of the
client.

> I haven't seen any 802.11ac clients yet, but I have tested and installed
> some Apple and Netgear APs, and for add-on NICs I've started to stock
> 802.11ac.

PCMCIA, or PCIe? What kind of specs do they have?

> In a busy environment, features like the beam forming and extra antennas
> are really going to pay off. It will matter less whether any single client
> supports the full bandwidth of the router; in fact, some installations may
> not want that! I think of it as backbone. Not a perfect analogy to copper
> or fiber, as it really is a shared medium. But it's great to see the
> continuing engineering that's going into wireless; from one polarity to
> two, from two to spin, wider channels, higher modulation formats and
> framing.

In my case, I only upgraded off of 2.4GHz 802.11g because a) I have a ton of
interfering neighboring WAPs, and b) doing backups over wireless was
beginning to become exceedingly painful without the extra bandwidth. Single
client throughput was a big deal for me.

> I have a building where I can't push 802.11ac down one floor and about 40
> feet away. That's what two cinder-block walls will do to you!

There's only so much one can do. :-) I was having trouble getting a good
signal 30ft away, upstairs, in a wood frame house with my old Netgear
WAG102. The Ruckus, with the adaptive antenna array and beam forming has
been a revelation. My geek crush on thier equipment is starting to approach
SGI territory.

         --Arthur Corliss
           Live Free or Die
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Received on Wed Oct 2 11:07:01 2013