+1 from me too! I discussed this with Edmunds (representing sales team) at the MUM in Yogya last December and as a product idea/request - he dutifully wrote it down and thanked me for it. Problem with MT, it seems, is that product development team are a league of their own, and they apparently ignore all of the feedback that comes via sales team (i.e. from actual customers ;-) They seem (to me) to be driven more by what the chip manufacturers are producing than the actual market - whether chip manufacturers have a connection to the market is equally questionable. There are some kinds of products that I have been lobbying about for literally YEARS. A routerBoard with miniPCI-e and more than one Ethernet port for example! :-D Cheers! Mike.
-----Original Message----- From: Public [mailto:public-bounces@talk.mikrotik.com.au] On Behalf Of Greg Sowell Sent: Wednesday, 4 June 2014 1:22 PM To: public@talk.mikrotik.com.au Subject: Re: [MT-AU Public] Public Digest, Vol 4, Issue 4
Mike,
While we are somewhat on the subject of 5Ghz, I really wish they would release a 751 or 2011 version that is 5ghz...I could see a 2011 that is dual band doing quite well.
Greg
On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 9:00 PM, <public-request@talk.mikrotik.com.au> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: 802.11ac on Mikrotik (Mike Everest)
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Message: 1 Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 09:21:12 +1000 From: "Mike Everest" <mike@duxtel.com> To: "'MikroTik Australia Public List'" <public@talk.mikrotik.com.au> Subject: Re: [MT-AU Public] 802.11ac on Mikrotik Message-ID: <03be01cf7f82$82480df0$86d829d0$@duxtel.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Yah, in these cases, you just need to offer a couple of options, make clear to them the advantages and drawbacks of each, and then let them make their own decisions.
Regarding 802.11ac, there are a few gotchas as far as I can tell:
1. as with 802.11n, to get the maximum benefit, you need orthogonal antenna polarities else you don't get the full 'speed' benefit of multiple antennas. Not only do you need to make sure that all antennas (up to three) are arranged at right angles to each other, but also THE CLIENT ANTENNAS need to be almost EXACTLY aligned. In reality, for a mobile client device, chances of that happening are almost nil. Therefore, fallback will be something like 802.11g with multiple antennas offering nothing much more than diversity
2. 802.11ac offers wider channels - up to 160MHz. That means that it can potentially use up the entire indoor spectrum allocation - thus lots of potential interference from other transmitters.
3. ac is 5GHz only - which means that older devices that have 2Ghz only won't be able to connect unless there are also some 2GHz devices deployed, or use duial band APs
4. like 802.11b to 11g, mixed modes drag the network down - if you some devices NOT using ac, then you can't achieve the maximum performance with ac clients anyway
5. careful of speed expectations - although it is much faster (433mbps carrier compared to 150mbps of 11n using 40MHz channel and single stream) those rates are CARRIER rate - actual payload rates will follow the usual estimates of about 2/3 of the carrier rate in UDP transfer and about 1/3 in TCP transfer. So for most mobile device applications, we are talking about around 120mbps of TCP throughput, HALF DUPLEX only, and shared between all connected devices.
Too often, I still hear wireless being pimped up as real alternative to cables - I never heard of a cabled network that shares it's total capacity among connected clients like wireless does! ;-)
There are, however, some up-sides:
1. ac includes 'beam forming' - but the standard defines it as 'optional' whatever that means. In the end, it is a good feature, so make sure that the equipment can support it else one of the only advantages is moot.
2. ac is 5GHz - can this be an upside and a downside? I think so ;-)
3. yes, it IS faster! (though as mentioned above, probably not as fast as the customer might expect ;)
In the end, your customer needs to understand all of the considerations and make their decision an informed one. Otherwise, you can end up with disappointed customers blaming you for not telling them in advance - like THAT ever happens! :-D
As far as MikroTik goes, sure - they are great hardware, but to be fair, they are not "the best" available, and not ideal for EVERY application. Yes, you heard it from me! ;-)
As a ROUTER, though, they are untouchable for almost every routing application, and so even if your customer decides to go with some alternative AP solution, there is definitely a clear argument to recommend routeroard as the routing (and potentially switching) solution for their project.
Good luck with it! :)
Cheers, Mike.
-----Original Message----- From: Public [mailto:public-bounces@talk.mikrotik.com.au] On Behalf Of Paul Julian Sent: Wednesday, 4 June 2014 8:35 AM To: 'MikroTik Australia Public List' Subject: Re: [MT-AU Public] 802.11ac on Mikrotik
Thanks Mike, I concur with your thoughts about it being bleeding edge and quite honestly I don't think it's needed really, I suppose though really I just wanted to sell the customer Mikrotik rather than Netgear or DLink, unfortunately if I don't sell him something he will go with one of those anyway, marketing hype sells anything !
Regards Paul
-----Original Message----- From: Public [mailto:public-bounces@talk.mikrotik.com.au] On Behalf Of Mike Everest Sent: Tuesday, 3 June 2014 6:15 PM To: 'MikroTik Australia Public List' Subject: Re: [MT-AU Public] 802.11ac on Mikrotik
Hi Paul,
None that I am aware of - note that even if an interface module were available, it would need drivers to work. It is next to impossible that routerOS dev will release drivers for non-MikroTik hardware before the mikrotik branded devices were available.
My expectation is that ac release will follow approximate path of 11n support in mikrotik - 802.11n support became available only about 12 months after the standard was eventually ratified, and even then it required upgrade to a still- unstable routerOS release (early v4 from memory)
Since the ac standard was really only finalised mid December last year, I wouldn't expect to see a stable release until close to the end of 2014 - probably part of routerOS 7
For those thinking of jumping in and taking on the bleeding edge right away, I urge caution - let others take the lead and let them sort out the bugs! :-)
Cheers, Mike.
-----Original Message----- From: Public [mailto:public-bounces@talk.mikrotik.com.au] On Behalf Of Paul Julian Sent: Tuesday, 3 June 2014 4:44 PM To: public@talk.mikrotik.com.au Subject: [MT-AU Public] 802.11ac on Mikrotik
Hi guys, is anybody aware of wireless cards which will work in Mikrotik routers yet which use 802.11ac or are already using them ?
We have a customer looking for the "latest" technology and wants this, we use Mikrotik everywhere but I can't find anything about support for 802.11ac as yet and I really don't want to install a crappy prosumer router.
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