Wifi router 802.11ax

[Jlabute]

Time to upgrade. My old router is about 8 years old and needs rebooting more often. No more updates for it. Perhaps it is time to try out a new Wifi 6 router with support for the latest. I am thinking of the Asus ax92. I’d prefer not to mesh as everything works alright now with a router in a central location. Anyone highly recommend anything?

[vegas1500]

Im no expert but I had to purchase this one to get proper coverage/distribution in my house. The range is insane and the the speed actually went up over 100MBPS over what I pay for.

[kelownman]

I have read rave reviews of the TP Link Archer AX11000. These AX11000 all appear to be similarly priced.

[Jlabute]

That’s the Linksys EA9500 AC5400. Looks like it has good reviews, around the $450 mark or so. Looks like a good performer. 1.4ghz dual-core. I kind of had my heart set on ax... but, this puppy could be an option. Interestingly, I don’t see any ax stuff on the linksys site.

Giving the Asus RT-ax88 some consideration too. The RT92U is about $269.99 at Bestbuy.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07KX6FF8J?tag=georiot-ca-default-20&th=1&psc=1&ascsubtag=tomsguide-1419444313835950260-20


^^^ The TP link is a beast for sure. $550. Kinda up there. Not sure if I wanna spend that much. Hmmm.

[JagXKR]

The ax is only supported by a limited number of devices. So isn't it a bit overkill if you don't have one? Just sayin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ax

Devices
On March 8, 2019, Samsung released the Galaxy Fold and Galaxy S10 family (S10e, S10, S10+ and S10 5G) supporting 802.11ax.
On August 23, 2019, Samsung released the Galaxy Note 10 series (Note 10, Note 10+, Note 10 5G and Note 10+ 5G) supporting 802.11ax.
On September 10, 2019, Apple announced the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max supporting 802.11ax. However iOS lacks the necessary functionality to take advantage of it.

[Jlabute]

True enough, but I hope to have the router for a number of years. Long enough that other devices may begin to take advantage of it. Plus, the ax routers don’t seem to be too much more pricier... and some seem quite reasonably priced.

On a geeky perspective, I wonder if a radio that is supporting 1024-QAM, would support lower modulations better. Would the radios in general work better on an ax router since they are built to a higher standard in order to support 1024-QAM?

[JagXKR]

I don't believe so, but there may be some difference. Could also be a net loss in the lower bands as the 1024QAM may be the optimized signal and anything below is "2nd class" and therefore would not have as much engineering time dedicated to it. The lower data rates would not be what engineers would be mostly looking at.
1024QAM does have one downside, lower receiver sensitivity. For every doubling of QAM the sensitivity is reduced by -3db. Throughput is of course increased but not the same percentage every time that it is doubled.

Eventually the percentage increase becomes negligible.

https://www.microwave-link.com/microwav ... m-4096qam/

[Urban Cowboy]

We just had our modem and PVR changed by Telus and for what it's worth the modem and extender they use is awesome.

Great coverage and speed anywhere in the house, with the best part being it didn't cost us anything extra as the older modem was misbehaving.

The Linksys is a good router option, but I'm inclined to feel that free is a preferable price for someone on Telus.

[Bsuds]

We just had our modem and PVR changed by Telus and for what it's worth the modem and extender they use is awesome.

We have gone through several replacements of their equipment so keep an eye on it. Would be nice if you didn't lose all your recordings when the PVR dies too. That's annoying as heck.

I have a hardwired router set up as an extender because the Telus modem speed drops drastically from one end of the house to the other. As far as I Know we have the latest modem/router from them.

As to getting a 6g router, from everything I have read it will be a few years until there are enough devices to warrant buying one.
I would wait until then as prices will drop too.

[Jlabute]

I don't believe so, but there may be some difference. Could also be a net loss in the lower bands as the 1024QAM may be the optimized signal and anything below is "2nd class" and therefore would not have as much engineering time dedicated to it. The lower data rates would not be what engineers would be mostly looking at.
1024QAM does have one downside, lower receiver sensitivity. For every doubling of QAM the sensitivity is reduced by -3db. Throughput is of course increased but not the same percentage every time that it is doubled.

CableFree-QAM-increase-table-56MHz.jpg

Eventually the percentage increase becomes negligible.

https://www.microwave-link.com/microwav ... m-4096qam/

Thanks Jag. That's a good link. I wonder if semantics is the issue here. Doubling the QAM is halfing the sensitivity (-3db) from a perspective where amplitude changes are half the size which is semantically the same as saying half as sensitive. Sources of interference or obstacles will make ax more difficult. I wonder if newer radio hardware might have a lower noise floor, more linear, or ???? in order to support higher QAM levels. If I were to purchase a new AC router, would it mean that it was engineered specifically for AC and b,g,n performance would suffer? Yet at the same time, the same physical layer supports all these.

Perhaps the things we don't see are improvements in beam-forming, antenna gain, transmit power, and all other other things that increase link budget. I suppose when it comes down to it, it is a matter of trial and error as always with wireless.

Asus RT-AX88U radio BCM43684
Asus RT-AC86U radio BCM4366E

I don't have specs for the broadcom radios as they have to be requested. There are things in the new broadcom chips that older chips do not support I believe, such as Uplink & downlink OFDMA and ZeroWait DFS.

Just an FYI: Microsoft Surface has 802.11ax as well.

[Gilchy]

We just had our modem and PVR changed by Telus and for what it's worth the modem and extender they use is awesome.

Great coverage and speed anywhere in the house, with the best part being it didn't cost us anything extra as the older modem was misbehaving.

The Linksys is a good router option, but I'm inclined to feel that free is a preferable price for someone on Telus.

Our Telus router had ok at best range, but added the mesh system and now it's great! Can typically get a new one out of them every 2 years, which is good.

[Urban Cowboy]

We just had our modem and PVR changed by Telus and for what it's worth the modem and extender they use is awesome.

Great coverage and speed anywhere in the house, with the best part being it didn't cost us anything extra as the older modem was misbehaving.

The Linksys is a good router option, but I'm inclined to feel that free is a preferable price for someone on Telus.

Our Telus router had ok at best range, but added the mesh system and now it's great! Can typically get a new one out of them every 2 years, which is good.

Most of our stuff is hard wired which I believe will always be better, but for the phones and tablets this Wifi improvement is noticeable. Our plan is 150Mbps yet now when I test with my phone, I'm getting 170mbps in every location I tried, and that's in a place with metal siding and roof.

I wasn't present when the modem was upgraded, but I've never seen one like this so it must be quite new. It looks like a white plastic barrel about 4" diameter and 10" tall or thereabouts.

[vegas1500]

We just had our modem and PVR changed by Telus and for what it's worth the modem and extender they use is awesome.

Great coverage and speed anywhere in the house, with the best part being it didn't cost us anything extra as the older modem was misbehaving.

The Linksys is a good router option, but I'm inclined to feel that free is a preferable price for someone on Telus.

I like free also but I was faced with a main floor that has a layer of foil insulation for the floor heat. Couldn’t get internet in the basement at all. Now I can get it across the street....lol

[Urban Cowboy]

We just had our modem and PVR changed by Telus and for what it's worth the modem and extender they use is awesome.

Great coverage and speed anywhere in the house, with the best part being it didn't cost us anything extra as the older modem was misbehaving.

The Linksys is a good router option, but I'm inclined to feel that free is a preferable price for someone on Telus.

I like free also but I was faced with a main floor that has a layer of foil insulation for the floor heat. Couldn’t get internet in the basement at all. Now I can get it across the street....lol

Similar situation here as this place makes for a great faraday cage. We have the modem/router upstairs centrally located, and downstairs is one booster/repeater which solved the poor signal issue downstairs. As a bonus I placed that unit on a window ledge so there's a decent strong signal out on the patio gazebo too.

[DANSPEED]

Go open-source! The main problem with routers I've found is the lack of firmware updates after the warranty period. Instead of listening to customer complaints and issuing new firmware manufacturers simply discontinue the model and release the new and improved version. I guess it's called profit but I don't like being a beta tester! That's why the only router I'll buy for now on is an open-source model. My ASUS Linux based RT-N66U router is still going strong. Currently it's running Merlin firmware. Being Linux based I can easily login and setup things like PXE booting (JFFS2 support). Also I don't have to deal with ASUS's horrible tech support! The RT-N66U ran hot out of the box but I fixed that. Surprisingly it didn't void the warranty! ...