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Forum Discussion
Was 802.11n a failure?
A bit of a rhetorical question here, one that I've wanted to ask for a while, and let me explain why I chose the range extender forum for it - range extenders are the latest hot thing in WiFi - every manufacturer is selling one.
When 802.11n was in draft, it was hyped as being able to provide 15x the speed, 12x the coverage - these numbers by the way are taken directly from a Netgear datasheet, but they are typical of the claims made by all manufacturers around the time that product was released.
It looks to me like instead of delivering product that lived up to those numbers, the industry has very quietly backpedalled away from them, and is now offering a repeater by another name - the "range extender".
What are your thoughts?
Oh - by the way - 802.11ac is shaping up to be an even bigger disaster.
Still in draft and touted as 3x the speed, but no mention of the fact that it's a 5Ghz only technology, subject to the attenuation of the higher frequencies, and if you don't have the signal strength (sorry the coverage), you're not going to get the speed either.
One last comment - I'm still running a 2.4 GHz 802.11g wireless access point - 802.11n provided no significant improvement - seems that a lot of the product never offered the necessary hardware to deliver the spatially separated streams necessary to maximize throughput.
When 802.11n was in draft, it was hyped as being able to provide 15x the speed, 12x the coverage - these numbers by the way are taken directly from a Netgear datasheet, but they are typical of the claims made by all manufacturers around the time that product was released.
It looks to me like instead of delivering product that lived up to those numbers, the industry has very quietly backpedalled away from them, and is now offering a repeater by another name - the "range extender".
What are your thoughts?
Oh - by the way - 802.11ac is shaping up to be an even bigger disaster.
Still in draft and touted as 3x the speed, but no mention of the fact that it's a 5Ghz only technology, subject to the attenuation of the higher frequencies, and if you don't have the signal strength (sorry the coverage), you're not going to get the speed either.
One last comment - I'm still running a 2.4 GHz 802.11g wireless access point - 802.11n provided no significant improvement - seems that a lot of the product never offered the necessary hardware to deliver the spatially separated streams necessary to maximize throughput.
9 Replies
searay wrote: Based on range claims to extend it, yes a complete failure. As for increased speed no, speeds have improved
I've done few test on speed so far, but for coverage I agree completely.
Some manufacturer puts pictures of a house of some floor, also with a garden, and a wawe surrounding it all.
That's completely false.valerio_vanni wrote: and a wawe surrounding it all.
A wave...
Sorry, I cannot edit my posts.- searay - what sort of speed improvements have you seen?
I've had fairly consistent 20mbps connections on my wireless-g and at most double that on 802.11n - nowhere near the promised 300mbps, and that has nothing to do with "cheap" wireless-n cards, more with the router's hardware not being designed to support multiple streams, which led me to a search for hardware capable of delivering the fabled 3x3 - trust me there's very little of it out there.
In the mean time, we're seeing claims for 450, 600 & 900 mbps - I only tested using download speedtest to many other variables involved with PC hardware and I don't know what would be a reliable benchmark program. G=25 N=115 on 2.4 or 5g no change Tested using a WNDR4000 With Intel 6235 I typically use 5g and the rest of the family uses 2.4 My reported connection rate is maxed at 300 5g and 144 2.4 I have no interest in using channel bonding in 2.4 unless I'm bored and want to watch the numbers change all day. At some point increased wifi (AC) speed is fluff and hype. The only home use for it that makes sense is to use as a bridge to a entertainment center, but even that is dependent on location. When I beta tested Comcast Docsis 3 several years ago I told them great Idea but unless you reconsider your service cap at 250 gig a month why bother, who needs it for sending e-mails. I now have to send tomorrow's insults today because it's so fast. I spent months trying to find a Sony Laptop with a Intel 6300 & i7 and never could find one that I could afford. I settled on a 6235 with a i5 and changed out the hard to a Seagate 750 hybrid drive. Win 7 pro 64 takes 8 seconds to PassWord screen and 7 seconds to complete boot up, no swirling mouse pointer, ready to go. I do own a R6300 and it's new beaming is something that may make me purchase a USB Client since I do have USB 3 ports. More than you asked for, Bill
- That's interesting - you ran a download speed checker and were able to clock 115 (presumably mbit/sec) on wireless - how fast is your internet connection?
I was never able to do more than 40mbps over wireless and that was a local LAN~LAN transfer. My network speed tests are usually done with a utility called QCheck from IxChariot - it tests raw network throughput and eliminates variables that can causes errors when methods like timed file transfers are used.
I believe 115 mbit/sec is faster than most people ever see - 40~80 is perhaps more "normal" - ISP Comcast 115Mbps down & 22Mbps up
A lot of these threads lately have been Comcasters who have just had speeds double and tripled an is my case and their routers were never put to the test, WAN to Wifi and now it's a problem.
I see no difference between wired and WiFi when testing. Ping time is usually at 10ms.
That software you mentioned is it freeware? - QCheck is (or used to be) free - it's a reduced feature version of IxChariot's commercial tool.
- Qcheck is probably the best I use and use for all the throughput test...
