I'm a little behind with wireless tech. It seems that 600Mbps is only available with 802.11-2012 which is very new and operates at 3.7GHz. See here. I doubt if there is any 11-2012 kit available right now and if there is, it's bound to be flaky. I would settle for dual channel 802.11n. TP-Link's kit is here. You may want to wait for someone more knowledgeable than me to come along. There are plenty of wireless experts around on this forum. They're a bit like buses. You wait for ages and then three appear.

Edit: See. I told you so.

Edited by micksharpe (Sun 27-Jan-13 21:35:17)

3.7GHz is unlikely to be made available for licence exempt devices in Europe.

The fastest ratified standard is 802.11n, which offers up to 450Mbps - but only on triple stream 40MHz, which is unlikely to be possible on 2.4GHz - especially if there are already devices on channel 6, right in the middle of the band. Some 802.11n gear won't offer 40MHz channels on 2.4GHz because it's usually a poor choice. A lot of 802.11n devices only support single or dual stream, which is why most gear quotes a maximum of 300Mbps (dual stream 40MHz). There's no point buying an expensive 450Mbps access point (which will probably land up being an expensive business grade access point such as an HP MSM 460 or Cisco Aironet 2600i - both cost around £500) if you have no triple stream devices.


There's much more room on 5GHz, which is a better choice where possible. Invariably these days, a device supporting 5GHz also supports 2.4GHz - so you're looking for "dual band" equipment if you want 5GHz support.


The next revision of 802.11 will be 802.11ac, which is currently at draft stage. It will offer much faster speeds on 5GHz - there's not really much more that can be done in the narrow and congested 2.4GHz band and 802.11ac does not address this band. The white paper from Cisco on 802.11ac tells you all you need to know. The absolute maximum possible on 802.11ac is 6.93Gbps bit rate, with 4.9Gbps actual throughput, but practical devices are likely to support far less than this, not least to preserve band space.

I don't think there'd be much call for an access point that needs a 10G-Ethernet port, takes the whole of the 5GHz band and for which there are no clients. Still, I suppose you could pair it with the BT 10Gbps FTTP trial installation using XGPON - which, I hasten to add, is a technology demonstrator rather than anything vaguely resembling a commercial product at this stage. It does, however, show that you can run multiple speeds simultaneously over the FTTP infrastructure BT Openreach are using (the trial service comes in over the same fibre infrastructure as the site's commercial 330Mbps FTTP service), that the fibre infrastructure is future-proof and that you can therefore upgrade subscriber ONTs to support faster products as their needs grow.

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Jan-13 00:01:12)

Many thanks for that. What is the maximum throughput you can get with 802.11a?

In reply to a post by micksharpe:

Many thanks for that. What is the maximum throughput you can get with 802.11a?

802.11a is the original 5GHz Wi-Fi standard - 54Mbps maximum bit rate, around 24Mbps maximum real life throughput. It is almost exactly what became 802.11g on the 2.4GHz band, though 802.11g includes support for old 802.11 and 802.11b clients (which weren't needed in 802.11a as there was no earlier 5GHz standard).

802.11n came next. The throughput on 2.4GHz and on 5GHz depends on the width of the channel used and how many simultaneous streams are supported. 3 streams in 40MHz tops out at 450Mbps bit rate - it's much easier to find room for a 40MHz channel on 5GHz than on 2.4GHz. Few clients support three 802.11n streams (though I'm sat at the keyboard of one that does - it has an Intel 5300 card with three antennas connected - the much more common 5100 and 6100 cards only support two streams).

802.11ac - it's far too early to know. There's some gear available to early draft specifications, but I'd steer clear until the standard is ratified.


I'm considering whether to replace our old 802.11a/g dual band simultaneous access points and replace them now or wait for 802.11ac. I suspect I'll jump sooner rather than later - it's going to be at least another year for 802.11ac to be ratified and mature, and when it arrives I'll have no 802.11ac clients for a while.

We use business grade access points, as we use features like dynamic VLAN allocation by our RADIUS server, which aren't supported by consumer gear. Cisco have an access point that will have a slot in module to upgrade the 5GHz radio to 802.11ac, but there's no controllerless version, and we certainly can't justify a Wi-Fi controller (the biggest Wi-Fi installations have special access points co-ordinated by an outboard controller - these things cost thousands).

In truth, 450Mbps on 5GHz should be enough for our wireless needs for a while, especially as we use cables wherever possible, and I'd rather go with mature 802.11n kit that's hopefully well debugged than early adopter 802.11ac kit with a load of hassles.


The slightly broken WPA2 implementation of what I've got (3Com 8760 - now an HP product after the HP take-over) sometimes leaves clients connected but unable to pass traffic, with modern tablets and smartphones we have several devices permanently connected, also they are now too slow (we have 80/20 FTTC at maximum available speed and gigabit LAN infrastructure). I've updated these access points to the latest firmware available from HP, and though they're more robust, they're still not right. It isn't worth spending any more effort on obsolete technology - and I doubt HP will issue any more firmware updates, especially for legacy products like these where they don't charge for updates.

I am thinking about replacing the main AP with an HP MSM460 on a five year Care Pack, so I will have access to software updates and speedy hardware replacement for the usable life of the product. I'll keep the 8760s for fill-in coverage in fringe areas (on a different SSID, so that I can set my devices to prefer the MSM460) - it isn't worth the cost of a second expensive MSM460.

I had also looked at the standalone version of the Cisco Aironet 2600i (about the only other full feature 450Mbps business-grade access point in the market), but by the time you add on a SmartNET contract for software and hardware support, the already eye-watering price becomes near obscene.

The Netgear WNDAP660 doesn't appear to support VLAN allocation by RADIUS server, also it needs more power than my 802.3af Power over Ethernet infrastructure can provide for 450Mbps operation (four options - supply local power, two 802.3af ports, one 802.3at high power port or limit the device to 300Mbps). However, it looks to be a more cost-conscious option for a simultaneous dual band 802.11n access point with 450Mbps support.


The cheapest dual band access points operate on one band, rather than both simultaneously - you have a choice of which band. I'd recommend simultaneous dual band gear, as 2.4GHz covers a wider area and some clients lack 5GHz support.

Thanks again for a very detailed reply. From this Wiki page, it looks as though 802.11ac consumer kit is becoming available, although firmware still seems to be a bit iffy.

my speed tests are coming back around 15Mbps

802.11g at 54M should do better than that - are you sure wireless is the limiting factor ?

I often wonder if we are sometimes tilting at Don Quixot's windmills on the question of achieved speed. I would surmise that one of the major problems in this mass internet age is the ability of the connected server to deliver at high speeds in the first place to the connected clients.

Just a thought.

Meldrew

Hi baby_frogmella

when i mentioned 600mbps dual channel adapter i meant that it utilises the full capacity of both up and down @ 300mbps each way...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261150049320?ssPageName=ST...

In reply to a post by FractalFragger:

when i mentioned 600mbps dual channel adapter i meant that it utilises the full capacity of both up and down @ 300mbps each way...

I hate the way up and down speeds are added like that to get the biggest figure for a 'marketing speed'. 300Mbps each way is 300Mbps duplex bit rate - maximum transfer speed in each direction will be about 60% of that.

300Mbps bit rate is dual stream 802.11n on a 40MHz channel at the highest speed - a lot of 5GHz capable 802.11n gear can manage that (as I explained in my earlier reply, 40MHz on 2.4GHz is not recommended). 450Mbps is possible if you hunt for the right 802.11n gear. Anything faster is draft 802.11ac, with all the perils of immature firmware and possible incompatibility with the eventual ratified standard.