True "Gigabit Wifi"?

[VirtualLarry]

Will it ever happen? Will we be able to run our WiFi LANs, locally, perhaps between a room or two, at REAL gigabit-wired-equivalent speeds? (Granted, Wifi is half-duplex, and wired is full, but still.)

I'm using an AC1200 Wireless bridge, using 80Mhz channels, and getting 42.2MB/sec transfer rates for ISO files using Windows Networking (Windows 10 to NAS). Client machines are all-SSD, NAS has four 5TB Seagate 7200RPM desktop drives, and a 64-bit Intel Atom CPU in RAID-5, and can sustain 110MB/sec transfer speeds when I connect my gigabit wired LAN up to these PCs in the living room.

Just wondering if some of those all-singing, all-dancing, routers that cost $300-400+, with multiple 5Ghz channels, can use those channels simultaneously to give effective Gigabit wifi speeds, when purchasing two of them and operating them in a bridge mode. (Which would really be like a dual bridge, if both 5Ghz channels were bridging together. Or maybe using 160Mhz channel widths.)

 

[XavierMace]

Will it ever happen? Sure.

Is it possible now in the real world on consumer budgets? No.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Frequency goes up, wavelength goes down, interference goes up, range goes down, costs go up, interest goes down ...

 

[Genx87]

Remember you are also sharing that radio. And in consumer grade junk the radios are usually not MIMO, or if they are, not very good at it.

 

[mnewsham]

Will it ever happen? Sure.

Is it possible now in the real world on consumer budgets? No.

Depends what you mean by consumer budgets.
I've seen the UniFi AP AC HD do 880-935mbps consistently from 5-10 feet to a macbook pro 3x3 client.

The Unifi is $299-350, not exactly beyond consumer price range. It's at the upper range though.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I bought a couple additional AC68R units from Newegg last night. They were only $79.99 for factory refurbs. I believe that they are 3x3, whereas my AC1200 bridge is only 2x2, so I'm hoping to bump up my throughput to maybe 60MB/sec, if I switch out my bridge for another one of these units running Tomato in bridge mode.

 

[Muadib]

Depends what you mean by consumer budgets.
I've seen the UniFi AP AC HD do 880-935mbps consistently from 5-10 feet to a macbook pro 3x3 client.

The Unifi is $299-350, not exactly beyond consumer price range. It's at the upper range though.

I ordered this yesterday.along with one of their routers. Just got fios gigabit, and their G1100 router has horrible wifi speeds, and my current Asus router can't handle the new speeds I've asked of it. If I can get the speeds you saw, I will be a happy guy.

 

[mnewsham]

I ordered this yesterday.along with one of their routers. Just got fios gigabit, and their G1100 router has horrible wifi speeds, and my current Asus router can't handle the new speeds I've asked of it. If I can get the speeds you saw, I will be a happy guy.

It relies on 80MHz DFS and close proximity to the router with line of sight. Your client must also have at least a 3x3 radio to approach 900mbps. I know in the original anandtech review for the 2013 MBP the OS itself was the limiting factor for Wifi performance, but from what i've seen apple has made changes and macbooks should be able to get good wireless speeds approaching gigabit speeds with the proper setup.

None of my client devices personally have anything more than a 2x2 radio setup so I'm limited to ~300-400mbps on the G1100, with the Unifi AC HD I might eek out another 100mbps, but 2x2 radios generally can't get past that.

Here is a macbook connected to the Unifi AC HD though just to show it's possible with the proper circumstances and a relatively clean RF environment.

 

[Muadib]

I'd be quite happy to get 300-400 mbps on my client devices on wifi. Right now I get 20-30mbps on wifi on 5Ghz, which is lower than the 50mbps average I got when my internet speed was 75mbps.

 

[mnewsham]

I'd be quite happy to get 300-400 mbps on my client devices on wifi. Right now I get 20-30mbps on wifi on 5Ghz, which is lower than the 50mbps average I got when my internet speed was 75mbps.

Have you done a spectrum analysis to make sure you're using the clearest channel(s) available?

The Unifi AC HD with DFS support should certainly help if you have client devices that can support it.

The biggest problem i've noticed is people have older client devices that they want to connect wirelessly and they simply don't realize just how old that clients radio is. Or people who want to get full speeds from their router from 100+ feet away and 4+ walls between you and the router.

I was actually pretty impressed with the G1100, I have it in my basement and from 2 floors away at the opposite end of the house, about 35-40 feet and plenty of woodwork + drywall + carpet in the way, and I'm managing over 90mbps over wifi with my phone at only 1 bar of signal strength for the wifi, From 5-10 feet and full signal strength I get 300-400mbps.

 

[XavierMace]

Depends what you mean by consumer budgets.
I've seen the UniFi AP AC HD do 880-935mbps consistently from 5-10 feet to a macbook pro 3x3 client.

The Unifi is $299-350, not exactly beyond consumer price range. It's at the upper range though.

I'd argue that's not a consumer product, but I also specified real world because how often is your device going to be 5 feet from the WAP with nothing in the way?

 

[Rifter]

Depends what you mean by consumer budgets.
I've seen the UniFi AP AC HD do 880-935mbps consistently from 5-10 feet to a macbook pro 3x3 client.

The Unifi is $299-350, not exactly beyond consumer price range. It's at the upper range though.

5-10 feet? LMAO. That kinda defeats the purpose of wireless, might as well plug it in. How does it do in real world situations, like 100 feet through a wall?

 

[mnewsham]

5-10 feet? LMAO. That kinda defeats the purpose of wireless, might as well plug it in. How does it do in real world situations, like 100 feet through a wall?

You can buy yourself the highest end enterprise wireless AP with 4x4 radios MU-MIMO, etc, etc. You'll spend $1,300+ and you'll still get 100-200mbps at most from that distance through walls. Which is better than a consumer router would give you, but still nowhere near gigabit speeds.


5Ghz gives great speeds, but terrible penetration. 60Ghz is even better for speeds(802.11ad), but bounces off walls and doesn't penetrate at all, at least 5Ghz has SOME penetration.

Even with 802.11ax over the current 802.11ac you wont see more than 200mbps from distances like you're talking about.


The only way you'll get wide area full gigabit wifi is if you're spending $2,500+ on multiple wireless access points that are each spread out and expected to provide full speeds to small areas directly around them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I guess I should be happy I'm getting such great performance from my 5Ghz wifi. Though, it's just in the other room from the router. Not more than 15 feet away, through one wall.

 

[jdstern]

So a reasonable (guess reasonable is subjective) would be some type of mesh environment or hybrid of AP's hard wired back to the router/gateway.

 

[mnewsham]

So a reasonable (guess reasonable is subjective) would be some type of mesh environment or hybrid of AP's hard wired back to the router/gateway.

Essentially, and even then I wouldn't expect more than 500mbps unless you really go for broke on the access points.

Ethernet will always be preferred if possible. The simple fact it's full duplex will keep it ahead of wifi for a long while.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Give up.

You will be assimilated.