Wide Bandwidth AX Access Point?

Just a quick question... is there any wifi 6 (AX) 5 GHz access point with a 160 MHz bandwidth?

(Access point = flat square/round thing, wall mount type, usually a white color enclosure, no external antenna, quietly looks like a smoke detector, POE, wired backhaul, for use with latest 2x2 phones/laptops/devices)

Thanks!

 

I'm using a Zyxel NWA210AX for tis purpose and it responds well for data pushing 1.25gbps. When I was looking around one thing that I kept in mind to get these great speeds you needs a wired port on the AP that does more than 1gbps and the 210AX has a 2.5gbps port for this purpose. It comes with an AC adapter or you can do POE and I found a POE that does 10gbps to make sure I'm not speed limited by something in the chain. I tested with both a direct connection and through POE to make sure I wasn't leaving bandwidth on the table. I went with a 4 port 5GE card in my server/router since most consumer grade options don't have the option for higher than gbps on them. Besides the card was $200 vs a $600 "router" that underperforms.

160mhz channels on the AP market is limited though to a couple of options at this point still. The Zyxel though usually sits in the $230 price range while others hit $500+,

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HQQ4SPQ

 

@Tech Junky wow that graph looks super! This Zyxel NWA210AX certainly looks promising.
I was looking at their website and they also have an NWA110AX model but it's a 2x2 type. I was thinking this should work too. But it doesn't say 160 MHz bandwidth for this 110AX model (says 80 MHz) but it does for the 210AX (says 160 MHz). Does that mean i need a 4x4 model to do 160 MHz bandwidth, or does the 210AX supports 160MHz using some other method? Is this 160MHz a requirement to makes it fast when in a difficult/further location?
Thanks.

 

Ehhh... the 100 is the baby brother to the 210. I was focused on a few things when picking an AP since my QWA-AC2600 internal card and no other AX internal card was available at the time for hosting an AP. The QWA-AC2600 handled WIFI great but, upgraded my devices to AX and wanted something that did AX. I'm a Network Engineer so, I look deeper at the specs than most when selecting things.

4x4 is allowing you the higher throughput with more clients. The 160 vs 80 is just a manufacturing preference for Zyxel. There's a couple of other brands like Engenius I looked at but, they didn't have the right mix of tech and some of them had subscriptions needed for updates / features and while that's ok for work w/ Cisco / Juniper / etc. it's not something I want to keep feeding at home.

160 is still marked as beta in the FW though even though it's obviously showing a 160 band of spectrum in the wifi analyzer capture. It did take some tinkering / segregation to get things pumping at full speed though. I named the 2.4 band something different and 5 another name. Devices attaching to 2.4 don't have AC enabled on them and I have a couple of devices that link up at 1200+.



My phone is the bottom one that's in "standby" which is why it's showing lower than normal 1200x1200 is usually what the AP is reporting when I'm actively using it.

My place is ~1300sq ft and there's no dead spots on 5G band and even outside on the patio I still push 600mbps on my phone on wifi. Laptop hits ~1.25gbps internally to the server it's connected to.

I expect with further FW releases they may pump up the bandwidth to push the HW a little harder. The AP is only a year old or so at this point and they're still releasing FW updates as recent as a couple of months ago. I opened a case with them disputing some of the marketing info and real world experiences. I tend to mangle this thing through the CLI though as I can deleted crap i don't use and remove their potential backdoor info. I think I trimmed about 1/3 of the base config items out to declutter things.

Each radio though has up to 8 different profiles you can create for different purposes. I'm pretty happy with it so far but can't wait for something AX-E to hit the market at a reasonable price and not bundling in a router. I bult a PC for that function and well....let's just say it blows away the plastic junk off the shelf. I also combined 5-6 devices into it for a smaller footprint / electrical draw from multiple devices.

 

No, but it's nice to have the fat pipe regardless. 5ghz won't get you much penetration through walls so it's mostly LoS speed. If you have a gig pipe it's necessary to hit speeds close to that limit over wifi instead of throttling @ AC speeds to max 866mbps. The reason for the NIC upgrade was to be able to get beyond the WAN speed limt as I bundle 2 gig ports on the modem to 2 ports on the PC for a 2GE pipe which allows me to use the over provisioning bandwidth as well. I get speed tests of 1200mbps over VPN (wireguard) on a 1gbps plan. theoretically it should be provisioned @ 1250 mbps.

@work I tend to be dealing with bundles of 10GE ports between switches and even get to play with 100GE WAN links so, this is just a hobby to outperform on a residential basis. When I'm doing serious data transfers though I'll hardwire with a 5GE USB-C adapter to the card in the sever and be able to pull 400MB/s for transfer speeds using a Raid 10 setup for data.

 

I've had luck with Ubiquiti U6-LR. Bear in mind though that success with 160 MHz is entirely beholden to DFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_frequency_selection

I've deployed two in different cities and both have been been knocked back down to 80 MHz presumably by the AP detecting the signal of a radar tower somewhere in the city.

Like TechJunky I also am eager to have laptops and AX-E access points in the coming years so that DFS is no longer a variable.

 

Don't get me started on DFS!!!!!

Such a PITA that's not really needed at this point. Radar easily overpowers these 30W signals.

 

Thanks! Wow those are fast network stuff there. Yeah I'm trying to do the LoS method too by putting this AP on the wall or ceiling there in an open hallway near my laptop's spot in the formal dining room table. It's already quite fast after going thru a few walls. The new router is now twice faster than the previous router, but I'm trying to double it again to 950+ mbit/s max like near the router (comcast 800 plan). I just ordered the 110AX AP to see if i can get 950 mbits/s while near it. To make it a ceiling mount I'll carve into the sheetrock to hide/bury the network cable (just 2 or 3 inches anyways). (Wallmount near there is way too easy.) If i don't get 950, I'll quickly order the 210AX.
Thanks again for your help!

 

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to hit 900+ with the110. For ~$70 more going with the 210 is more of a guarantee though you would have good coverage and speed. Using the 2.5gbps port will let you snag any free additional bandwidth from overprovisioning.

Either way though these things are a bargain to just attach to an existing network for a boost in speed / coverage. Better than dealing with stupid mesh / pods / extenders and so on. Just give it the same credentials and not deal with the loss of speed.

When they first came out the FW was a bit finicky when it came to channel selection. Reminds me on 160 you have to manually pick one not auto picked for you. Just download wifi analyzer on your phone and take a look what's around you. I try to force other networks in my building to use the higher channels with placement / power settings. Power outages / reboots help in clearing the airwaves for better signal / speed. Try to avoid picking channel 36 as most devices default to that and it will chew up your speeds contending for air space. I usually aim for 40-44 as the sweet spot for this thing. Higher channels tend to be a bit more ornery about working well for some reason.

 

Uh. Great. What a slippery slope. I just tried to cancel the Zyxel NWA110AX (too late, will return) and ordered the NWA210AX. You're right... need the extras with the 2.5Gb port, 4x4 (and probably the 160 MHz bandwidth too if it works) to get to 900++ mbits/s and probably will have a better coverage at a further distance too. I saw a comparison article/video and the 110AX was topping out at 700++ mbits/s while the 210AX was stronger/faster there.

 

700mbps for the 110 seems a bit low. even a 2x2 single client should be able to hit the right numbers like an AC multibeam. The Intel AX210 card for AX-E is a 2x2 which I'm using with the AP.

I think some of the testers / writers don't have a full understanding on this stuff. If you setup the network A-Z with proper hardware it works as designed. If you mix in an AC card with an AX AP you won't see 900+ over wifi because AC is 866 and w/ overhead it's going to be significantly less.

For testing this stuff the clients have to be capable of handling the kind of throughput enabled by the setup. Making sure you knock out any bottlenecks from the mode / router / AP / client and segregating the 2.4 / 5 bands / clients from each other improves the performance. Trust me when I say you don't want to be duriing a sports car in rush hour traffic with a manual transmission because your leg will get tired and cramp. With the 2.4 clients being mostly a/b/g/n they throw more road blocks in timing into the equation causing your AC/AX clients to have to hit the clutch more often to allow the other traffic to merge.

 

That tester sounded pretty sharp. He tested 4 APs the same time and the 210AX came up tops. Anyways I just looked behind/inside the wall. Looks like my small project just turned into a bigger project. The cable will have to go around some studs/framing and there's more custom sheetrock work to make it look pretty (wireless).

 

Yeah, mounting / installing out of the way can get to be a huge project. If I were going that route I would probably follow the wiring for my doorbell as it's centrally mounted less than 10 feet from where I have it sitting on a bookshelf. The doorbell is an easy option because there's access / low voltage line run already that goes back to a box that is prewired for ethernet to other locations wire throughout. Would make it easy to bridge things from the wall / box / to another wall / server.

If you don't want to run cabling twice use Cat6 but, if the length is reasonable you can get away with cat5E and still run @ 2.5GE.

 

I have some leftover cat 6e cable from the previous projects... soon will cut it to the appropriate length and crimp the connectors (giant 1000 ft roll/box, some DIY projects here and there). All those rolls/boxes of network cables came from Fry's and Fry's is sadly no longer around. Anyways will find the shortest path and string this network cable from the open hallway/wall to behind the TV/entertainment area/wall where i have some network ports handy. The amazon van just brought over the POE injector and NWA110AX (couldn't cancel this in time). So i'm toying with them now and trying to figure which way to point it.

 

Sounds like you've been thinking about this for awhile now. I just lay mine on a bookshelf I use for a media stand. If you're doing a mounted it should work in either position but, I would opt for ceiling for better coverage radiation out from center.

 

ok all done and it's working ultra good!
Thank you Tech Junky for the Zyxel 160 MHz bandwidth setup method/info. It helped me a lot!

Since i have both the Zyxel NWA110AX and NWA210AX... i got to speedtest.net both lol.

Laptop is the Dell XPS 15 with intel AX210 wi-fi module. Phone is a Samsung S21 Ultra. Internet is Comcast/Xfinity with their 800 mbits/sec service.

NWA110AX: Fastest i could get is 652.87 mbits/sec to my laptop in the normal spot (formal dining room table, 14 ft away LoS). Phone is 529 to 650 mbits/s at my 3 favorite spots (all LoS too, 14 to 25 feet away).

NWA210AX with 160MHz bandwidth enabled: It's already 941.5 mbits/s to my laptop on the first try!! Same spot... and that's going thru 2 Netgear switches and a Cudy PoE500 injector! Phone is 905 to 935 mbits/s at my 3 same favorite spots. The internet speed with this NWA210AX is like standing next to the Asus RT-AX86U Zaku-II wi-fi router in the closet upstairs!! Ok i'm most definitely keeping/using this NWA210AX box!!

 

That box runs warm. I have the Max Power setting enabled for both boxes too before running speedtest.net. I'll probably add a 3/4" thick spacer one of these days so that it's slightly further away from the ceiling.

 

50% faster with the 210 is good to hear. I wondered how they would compare since they're fairly similar other than the 2x2 vs 4x4 = the 21- has the 2.5GE port on it for full speed backhaul. For the extra ~$70 getting closer to your subscribed speed makes it worthwhile.

When I first saw the AX210 + 110AX numbers I was worried and then the 210AX kicked its butt. I'm fairly certain with the 210AX/AX210 card combo hitting 1250mbps w/ VN on is the most they can do per client even though they sync up at 2400. Just waiting to fid out when they release a 6E AP w/ full 6ghz private band. Then we should be seeing some real full throttle speeds internally at least.

I'm glad it worked out for you though and you saved some $$$$ on other brands that charge 2X the price w/ 1/2 the speed.

 

Its there for a reason. It’s not as simple at seems, it definitely can cause interference, would show like a line or wedge shape fashion on a radar map especially if multiple APs in neighborhoods are involved, some decent articles out there with decent explanations. Radars if I’m not mistaken often use high enough gain antennas to pick up these signals especially when in high concentrations it can be pretty intrusive.

 

It's there for a reason but it works like crap. The pastern recognition routines embedded in the radio chip firmware that are supposed to recognize weather radar are crap.
I'm sure they recognize the radar - eventually, having reacted to everything else before.

 

I must be one of the few lucky ones without DFS issues lol being in a more favorable location, keeping my fingers crossed. My Netgears’ have not dropped me more than maybe 2-3 times in a couple of years. I can imagine those being near airports or closer to city centers facing big issues (probably higher chance of false detection in latter case). But yeah some vendors are worse than other in regards to DFS.

 

Well, I'm in a City of which has 2 primary airports at least 10 miles from where I'm located and near downtown within ~3 miles of city center. There's a lot of congestion even just in my building w/ ~20 AP's from carriers consuming airspace. I've figured out the best placement through trial and error to avoid getting knocked down due to DFS calculations happening. Shielding the AP in my TV stand minimizes the interference I was seeing when placed elsewhere and it still provides great speeds.

It wouldn't surprise me though with 4 majors TV stations their radar is causing the DFS interference as they all boast about having the most Wattage to cover the region. I tend to believe them since I'm running an OTA antenna and pick up clear reception from all 4 w/o needing an amp or booster or external antenna. The reflectivity of their signals though is a bit odd when you think of RF needing LOS to bring in a strong picture. Mounting the TV antenna on a wall and obstructing the LOS a bit actually works better than glass mounting it with a direct LOS.

Personally I don't care if WIFI interferes with an over powered radar system in a miniscule way if it means consistent coverage / speed. There's no reason for them to boost their power that high instead of adding additional radar sites for a mesh coverage. Ideally they would just share systems instead of all bringing up these systems. This is mostly why people don't bother setting up their own WIFI and rely on their provider to do it for them. Though the providers don't bother setting things up correctly either allowing their systems to auto scan and pick 1/6/11 channels on their own. Their 5ghz do the same with most picking 36 as their primary and pushing each other around the spectrum causing all sorts of issues with neighboring devices.

 

Auto 1/6/11? then you haven’t seen NETGEAR’s auto select lol. Selections like 8,9 on HT20 and HT40 in congested environments when their routers do go on 1/6/11. Even auto select in 2.4 GHz is an issue for some vendors. And yeah in your environment I can imagine DFS being an issue. Lastly I think LTE-U will be a big threat to WiFI performance along with false DFS detections it may cause, especially in cities. Qualcomm & Verizon were some of the big proponents and I think even TMO might have a few sites up.

 

Well I tested VZW (Visible) here and got turd coverage / speed. I'm talking maybe 20mbps on a good day and some areas under 2mbps. Switched back to TM (Mint) and top out around 650mbps. So, having worked for a couple of cell carriers I'm all to familiar with problems they can cause. I also have a cell site on the side of my bldg to add to the "noise" in the immediate area. Using some LTE mapping tools I'm surrounded by sites from various companies.

Finding clean RF is a lost cause but, it's just the trade off you have to make for better connectivity sometimes. Funny though with the cell site it doesn't show up on the map. 5G should clean up some of this though as companies turn down 2G/3G and go with the higher / lower frequencies. Shuffling spectrum around will help. It's just a matter of time and 6E would be more ideal in avoiding them all together.

 

Oh don’t worry Qualcomm has that covered too lol as it’s pushing for 5G NR-U to build on its LTE-U work to now take advantage of unliscenced 6Ghz. With increasing cell spot concentrations 6Ghz WiFi performance will also start getting hammered if you’re in a city.

Google, Comcast and other WiFi/ISP groups were against LTE-U vs Cellular companies/Qualcomm and some others, as there were worries about spectrum sharing. Probably same back and forth tussling with white papers from both sides with this too, is my guess. But

 

*sigh* Leave it to the big Q to muck things up even further. They have to try something since every major phone player seems to be dumping them and creating their own chips now for more control over multiple things besides shortages. Just have to keep zigging and zagging in metro areas to keep things working well.

 

I saw 963 mbit/s to the laptop yesterday!! This Zyxel AP thing is fast!

I finally got around to make a spacer. I found some 5/8” and 1/8” thick MDF/HDF in the garage and cut it to the appropriate rectangular shape and then painted it. They put a few hundred small vent holes at the top of the AP box facing the ceiling. That sure made the ceiling warm. With the spacer, the air gets to circulate better. Both the ceiling and the AP box now run cooler (maybe might last longer if lucky).

 

And it's 60% cheaper than routers that should be doing the same speeds. Routers though lack the uplink in most cases to hit speeds beyond 1gbps because they cheap out on the physical ports. You really have to build something yourself to unleash the full potential of this and other AP's. Sure, the adhoc client to client that don't require routing can go up to full speed across this thing but, if you have to exit the LAN you're bumping up against that HW PHY limit of the port if you're not running a 2.5GE card that it's connected to. There's a handful of routers out now that have a 2.5GE single LAN port and either 2.5 or 10GE uplink to the ISP / WAN. You pay dearly though for speed if you go off the shelf. For the same price as some of those routers you can get better port density piecing it together yourself if you have a spare PC sitting around.

4-port 5GE card (QXG-5G4T-111C) - $200 OR there's a cheaper option 2 port 2.5GE card for $50 (the only issue with this is the 2 ports use a switch/mux instead of being full 2.5 100% of the time)
AX210 AP - $230
PC - $0 if repurposing / adding functionality

vs.

Router - $600

Here's a speedtest on the LAN from another post I replied to in another thread:


More @ http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/nbase-t-vs-sfp.834356/page-2#post-11125318

 

I hit 950 mbit/s speedtest.net on my cell phone too from 24 ft away! This Zyxel NWA210AX AP really is something. Also should say it's stable too... hasn't drop/disconnect yet.

Ha... you know i just started looking for a router with two or more 2.5 gbe ports (one WAN "input" and the rest LAN "outputs") but didn't seem to see any! I was toying with the idea of subscribing to the comcast/xfinity 1.2 gb/s service to see if i can get 1.45 gb out of them lol. It will be nice to build a router/PC/appliance with a few 2.5 gb ports but I probably don't have skills to configure it (also no time too when i have to watch netflix/amazon videos lol and do other stuff too). I used to assemble PCs long ago but the last 8 have been laptops/tablets (the two kids assemble their PCs though). Anyway I'm just dreaming of going beyond 1 gb/s for the fun of it.

I actually tried a Linksys Hydra Pro 6E wifi router a few weeks ago too. That wasn't a pleasant experience. It didn't seem to have a 160 MHz bandwidth setting and so the wifi speed was much lower than the Asus which has it (Asus speed drops to the same as the Linksys with the lower 80 setting). When very close by, the 80 bandwidth is plenty fast (as they all advertised) but when further away the 160 bandwidth suddenly becomes a necessity to maintain the top speed. The big problem was I couldn't even connect to the Linksys 6 GHz radio after going thru a few walls! The 2.4 GHz works strong everywhere and the 5GHz was ok too. That was when i figured there must be some big empty zone where I park this laptop and maybe I should get a mesh or access point/box for max speed no matter which router I use. So that's why i had to install this Zyxel box downstairs for line of sight use.

 

It's kind of funny how different gear performs with similar specs isn't it?

Those in the know of 160 see a difference in their experience compared to the standard 80 Finding something running 160 reliably though is a bit of a game. Even on AC it's a bit of a gamble to get something reliable. When I was still on AC and buying off the shelf solutions it took 2-3 attempts / testing to get a working device and even then it wasn't 100% satisfying. I had a couple in mind after looking at reviews and specs but, ultimately landed on a Netgear R7800 which worked better than the other options but, it still had some FW bugs to contend with. After fighting with it on / off for awhile I decided to just build something into my server using hostapd / QWA-AC2600. Before venturing into the full blown router configuration it was up and running better than the OTS options. It took some tweaking by copying the .service file and duplicating it to cover both 2.4/5 bands as the card in linux shows each band independent of each other. Using the AP is much easier as it's self contained and just requires some configuration and then leave it alone.

The basics of setting up a homebrew router though aren't all that complicated and there are several write ups for it. Expanding on that though and adding bridging (LAN) and bonding (WAN) is a couple of extra steps that are painless. DHCP server is fairly easy to contend with. DNS I use pihole because it can block out annoying sites / windows updates by name / regex instead of dealing with antiquated hosts files that need constant updating. FW I've got down to 60 lines total of which most are generated automatically of which 16 are manual entries. You could make it even simpler though and cut a few of those out for less granularity. 3 of them I use as "containers" to put rules under for easier management and then each in/out/forward section only has 3-5 rules to keep out the bad stuff and let out the LAN originated traffic.

The bond/bridge allows coupling of ports for WAN/LAN functions instead of having to name each port in the configuration. Putting ports into the group is an easy task under /etc/network/interfaces.

#outside to inside (WAN FW)
-A INPUT -j PERMIT-IN
#self / LAN
-A PERMIT-IN -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A PERMIT-IN -i br0 -j ACCEPT
#allows session traffic to come back in
-A PERMIT-IN -m conntrack --ctstate RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
#implicit drop of inbound traffic that didn't originate from LAN
-A PERMIT-IN -j DROP

#allows from LAN to WAN
-A FORWARD -j PERMIT-FWD
#LAN to WAN
-A FORWARD -i br0 -o bo0 -j ACCEPT
#session permitted traffic
-A PERMIT-FWD -m conntrack --ctstate RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
-A PERMIT-FWD -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j ACCEPT
-A PERMIT-FWD -j DROP

#allows traffic to the world
-A OUTPUT -j PERMIT-OUT
#self / LAN
-A PERMIT-OUT -o lo -j ACCEPT
-A PERMIT-OUT -o br0 -j ACCEPT
#session outbound traffic
-A PERMIT-OUT -m conntrack --ctstate RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
-A PERMIT-OUT -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j ACCEPT
#implicit drop of outbound traffic that didn't originate from a LAN device ((yes this happens))
-A PERMIT-OUT -j DROP

#NAT out to the world
-A POSTROUTING -o bo0 -j MASQUERADE



Oh, and I set each section to DROP because by default it's PERMIT which is a bad idea.

You can do this all a lot simpler in a text editor like Notepad++ instead of dealing with all of the CLI commands / syntax you need.

Running with less "jumps" to different triggers allows for close to wireline speed / processing. I've tweaked / attempted different approaches to handle threats and this simplified version works best. There's another option called UFW but, that's a PITA to deal with and uses multiple config files to hide things. UFW is basically scripting the changes I can make in N++.

Anyway this is deviating from the original objective but, it should give you an idea or two regarding setup.

 

News out in the open now... Intel chopping some SKUs... https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-discontinues-network-controllers-to-fight-shortages
Should be sad to see the 211 go away.
Realtek did similarly a month or two ago, to concentrate on making fewer part numbers.

 

Meh, it's not the end of the world it's only a couple of SKU's. The newer SKU's typically perform better w/ lower power draw.

It would be nice if more NBASE-T cards would push into market and bring down the prices. The 4x5GE card I got for $200 through Intel would have been at least $350.

RTL + networking.... I use them for my NVME enclosure over the other 2 companies because it preforms better but, I'm not really impressed with their NIC's or WIFI cards.

Each company excels at one or two things reliably but, crossover into other realms doesn't usually work well for them or consumers.

 

@ vaio.phil

How's the experience so far now that it's been a couple of weeks?

 

Thanks for asking Tech Junky! It's working awesome and fast! I flashed the most recent firmware to this NWA210AX box too a few weeks ago. The POE500 injector is stable too. Everyone with 2 floors and a wired house should get this wireless box! It didn't drop any connections or lock up or any problems at all. I have also pointed a few nearby security cameras and IoT devices to it too. I gave this AP box downstairs two slightly different SSID names (instead of being same SSIDs as the upstairs' router) because i wanted these nearby devices to lock on to this exact AP instead of randomly tagging on to the other one. I also found out Zyxel makes some 2.5Gbps switches. If i buy the next switch, this might be the one.

 

https://www.faceofit.com/best-2-5-gbe-switches/
QNAP QSW-1105-5T 5-Port ~$120
TRENDnet 5-Port Unmanaged 2.5G $130
Zyxel 8-Port 2.5G $170


I do the multiple SSID thing as well to lock slower devices to 2.4 as it keeps 5G clean and fast. I looked into the SWX though as an option and since I built a router I opted for a 4-port 5GB card instead w/ 2 x WAN for LACP to the CM and 2 x bridged ports for the LAN (only have the NWA210AX plugged in and everything is wireless). The CM w/ 2 ports exceeds the 1gig plan though the 5ge ports are overkill it keeps things tidy on 1 card in the PC. ( QXG-5G4T-111C) ~$200 shipped)

You can get 2.5 NIC's for ~$30-50 for single/dual ports though

Sounds like you're optimized and speedier now throughout the house. Kind of surprised you didn't disable the other router for testing throughput around the house

 

Yeah i just run all tests as-is, let all of them share/clash the bandwidth the same time.
I just saw a Zyxel AX6000 https://www.amazon.com/Zyxel-Armor-12-Stream-Multi-Gigabit-Router/dp/B08K3GCBJM
hmm... it has a pair of really fast WAN and LAN ports... oh no....

 

For $350 that's not bad w/ 2.5G WAN and 10G downlink to a switch. Reviews aren't great but, these mature quickly from crashing to soaring. I'm still waiting to see 6E come down from enterprise pricing over $1K still with a handful of AP's turning up / being announced. At least it's not a Netsmear @ $600 but, that has 6E / Router. AP's are the way to grow instead of replacing the whole d@mned thing every couple of years at a higher price. Before I built a router of my own I was looking at the Edgerouter Pro 8 and thinking of building off of that but, then I rethought it all and I would still end up with more crap plugged in to do the same thing. Each of those plugs adds up over time.

Now I'm venturing into rebuilding my router with Alder Lake components since it's a legit jump from PCI 3 >>> 5 and the board I'm going with has both PIC 4/5 for selective bandwidth usage on the cards and a few PCI 3 for the lower tier stuff. I'm picking up a couple of Gen 4 x4 NVME's to run in Raid 1 vs sticking with a solo drive as I have been. This thing will FLY for processing everything I need it to do. Someone more gamer minded questioned where my GPU was on the list of HW and well, you don't need one for a server that's headless unless you're troubleshooting something. SMH

I figure I can build this AL version with some upgrades / enhancements for ~$1500 and then sell the current box for ~$1200 making ti a pretty efficient upgrade with minimal costs for 3X boost on NVME's + raid. The market really needs to get in gear though making gear that hits 4 & 5 bandwidth. Seems to always be a lag with new interfaces and HW. Thought he phone market is changing that with the new SnapDragon 988 coming out EOY and handsets releasing within a month or so of the chip SoC release. Usually there's a longer lag before devices come to market. Then again it took PCI 4&5 awhile to be deployed and DDR5 is still scarce / over priced even though they have had ample time to ramp up production.

It's always a struggle to adopt new tech when the rest of the players are not ready to jump into the puddle with their products. I have a 6E NIC in my laptop / phone but, nothing that it can connect to on 6ghz which is pitiful.

 

We have 3 devices that has 6E now. The Linksys Hydra Pro 6E router the other day had 6E but i took it down real fast (the 6E radio couldn't connect after going thru my walls/floor combination, only fine/ok standing nearby) and it didn't seem have a 160 MHz bandwidth. I guess an affordable 6E PoE AP with line of sight will be the way to go later/soon. Anyways, Comcast has this 1.2 gbps service that's a few dollars more, but i have to swap more wired boxes to get 1.2 gbps at every wall/port (hopefully get 1.44 too randomly lol)

 

I have Comcast and use a MB8600 and LACP 2 ports together to get that sort of speed out of them even w/ VPN on top of it using Wireguard. I don't think you'd have to change much other than maybe the 2.5G switch to the gateway / or router that has a 2.5 port on it.

Personally I hate using provider equipment and haven't used it since well, probably ~20 years. It's a ripoff to pay a rental fee for a modem over an extended period of time. Even if it needed to be replaced it's easily recouped in a few months. Besides that it's nice knowing there's not a backdoor being left open for them to probe. I've worked for a couple of the cable co's in the past going back to 2000 when cable internet was still coming around @ 7mbps speeds.

 

@ vaio.phil

Been working on my server that I rebuilt from the ground up to 12700K for the tech benefits. Anyway I was making a backup to the "share" and noticed the network speed hitting 1.5gbps which is the highest I've seen so far. Not sure if it's the overhead being handled better by the 12700 or something on the new MOBO the card connects into.

 

@ vaio.phil

Just a heads up they released a new FW update this month and it seems to work better than ever.

https://www.zyxel.com/us/en/support...id=20190717120008&tab=Firmware&pname=NWA210AX

 

Thanks!
Sad this forum might be closing:/

 

Like a Phoenix it will rise from the ashes.

 

When I get around to it, I'll have to move the AP to the loft area upstairs. I got chased out of the formal dining room downstairs because I was making way too much mess here. Visitors that come over will see all the mess after stepping in the front door! The loft area is of course hidden and a messy semi-WFH area. I just got a new 60" tv to put in this loft area too. It'll be my home theater #2 with 7.1 speakers wired all around lol. A simpler setup here to watch some Netflix junk dramas in this loft too. The AP should be here so that there's LoS for the laptops.

 

I would put the AP in the location where you're using devices most in close proximity for the best speeds. It's powerful enough though to cover larger areas as you already know it's just not as fast at distance due to the obstructions like walls killing the signal.

Since updating the FW it fixed a couple of things I was having issues with on 6.25 where I needed to reapply the conf post-reboot and missing some L3 breakouts on my DNS (pi-hole) where anything over WIFI just got reported as coming from the AP IP instead of the client IP. It does seem a bit quicker and they took off the BETA remarks for 160mhz but still didn't enable DCS.

 

Thanks! I will definitely install the new AP firmware very soon.
The new spot for the Zyxel AP will be at the top "right" of the loft area picture. The right side opens to the formal living room downstairs and there'll be LoS downstairs too. I normally hang out there on the sofa with the phone or tablet. A bunch of indoor/outdoor cameras in the front area there might like this AP too. My laptop spot in loft is on the left (with a single external monitor). I'm still halfway thru making all these speaker boxes. The two larger ones are using MDF and the small ones are 3D printed. The TV is still in the box downstairs lol (arrived last week).

 

Lots of projects.... how many get completed?

 

Lol yeah too many projects. Eventually it'll get done. I had to hire people to do the big projects for me. They just finished putting in a new floor. Another subcontractor painted the walls outside. Next week a kitchen refresh/upgrade. I had/have to be home for those and got to do some parts/projects here and there. Eventually I'll get them done.... just not sure when ha ha. Now have to go to home depot to get paint for my boxes.