4 ms·

6E can already deliver 1.5 Gbps or so per device with good signal at 160 MHz channel width. But most AP manufacturers have optimized for client density rather t

6E can already deliver 1.5 Gbps or so per device with good signal at 160 MHz channel width. But most AP manufacturers have optimized for client density rather than raw single client performance.

phkahler 4y ago
Most APs don't have an upstream connection faster than that anyway. Clients generally don't need that speed anyway, and if they do its only for a few seconds anyway (large file transfer).
- nixgeek 4y ago
  Most APs aimed at domestic situations are still on 1Gbps, but WiFi 6-series (not 6E/7) APs aimed at business/enterprise environments have had 2x5Gbps uplinks for years now - since September 2018, i.e. Aruba AP-555’s [1]. I happen to use these at home and they’re great with 100’s of concurrently connected clients (across 5+ APs and 15+ radios, usually ~70 clients per radio max) vs. Ubiquiti/Eero which always had lots of issues. Obviously though, YMMV! Definitely agree that it’s generally not needed (>1Gbps) but game updates these days run 100GiB+ in some cases (particularly for AAA titles) and it’s nice to have a little more speed sometimes. Individual clients are usually 80MHz 2x2 so best case will get ~1.2Gbps [2], but the radio can handle a couple clients doing things at once (MU-MIMO). For external connectivity, Comcast is now selling 1.2Gbps services in many US markets (they also overprovision the profile so speedtest.net will often see 1.4Gbps), and consequently cable modems have had 2.5GE ports for a couple years now. When combined with APs that have >1Gbps uplinks this can actually get used! Some markers can now get Comcast with 2000/200 (down/up) [3], which is a huge improvement over 1200/35 — the previous maximum. So, it’s nice to have APs with more uplink, and it’s nice to have >1Gbps Comcast, but I’d definitely not call it mainstream yet. [1] https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP550Series.pdf https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP550Series.pdf [2] https://mcsindex.com/ https://mcsindex.com/ [3] https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-increasing-internet-speeds-and-launches-new-2-gig-speed-across-northeast https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-increas...
  - azinman2 4y ago
    Sonic has 10GB symmetric fiber with no data caps in parts of the Bay Area. The best ISP!!!
    - sgtnoodle 4y ago
      I'm excited with the prospect of possibly getting upgraded from 46Mbps to 100Mbps this year. Meanwhile, my friend sent me this to presumably taunt me... https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/d33ffb1e-4bb8-4693-b174-d1be0ea996aa https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/d33ffb1e-4bb8-4693-b174-d...
    - gorbypark 4y ago
      I recently moved to Spain and got 1 gig symmetrical for 20 euros a month, and my ISP just sent an email saying 10 gig symmetrical is available in my building now for just 10 euros more. So tempting just to say I have 10 gig as I really have no use for it..
      - mike97 4y ago
        Nice, in Romania it's about 8 euros for 1 gig, unfortunately 10 isn't available in my city yet. Edit: Just checked and for 10 G it would be about 10 euros and for 2.5 G - 9 euros, that's a very good upgrade, probably they assume that most users won't take advantage of the full bandwidth.
        gorbypark 4y ago
        My ISP is Digi, which if I'm not mistaken is Romanian! Occasionally IP geolocators think I'm in Romania, even though doing a traceroute shows none of my traffic actually goes through Romania. I'm guessing they re-assigned some blocks of IPs over to their Spanish subsidiary and the geolocation databases haven't caught up yet. I definitely don't have any way to take advantage of 10g, that's for sure. I guess WiFi 6 might be able to make some use of 2.5G. I'd upgrade for 1 euro more if I was you.
  - twoodfin 4y ago
doublepg23 4y ago
Yeah a friend has been pulling 1.2Gbps off a Ubiquiti U6 Pro - not sure how with the uplink being 1GbE but the numbers seem real.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  I wish 10GbE switches and NICs would finally come down in price. I'm not interested in investing in 2.5GbE gear and then have to do the same again in a few years :(
  - nixgeek 4y ago
    One of the more affordable options nowadays is the Ubiquiti Flex XG [1] ($299) for a 5-port unit with 4 being 10GE. I’m using lots of their Switch XG 6 PoE [2] ($599) since it can drive 5GE ports on my APs and supports 802.3bt (which is required to power them up without limitations!). Lots of prebuilt PC systems are coming with 2.5GE NICs - “build your own” and it feels like most motherboards are now 2.5GE? Upgrading existing to 2.5GE is pretty cheap (~$30 USD), even via USB adapters [3]. To me, I think it’s fine with NBase-T that the switches be 10GE and the clients negotiate at 2.5GE or 5GE, although I’d note that both Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Studio can now be OEM specified with 10GE NIC for I think $100 additional. [1] https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/usw-flex-xg_ds https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/usw-flex-xg_ds [2] https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/us-xg-6poe_ds https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/us-xg-6poe_ds [3] Plugable 2.5G -https://a.co/d/hjV8LTd https://a.co/d/hjV8LTd
    - wkat4242 4y ago
      For me that's not affordable. I'm using 1GbE 8 port semi-managed switches from TP-Link that cost me €30 a piece 10 years ago (and are still the same price these days). Semi-managed because they only support some features but all I need is VLANs and port mirroring. €300 for 5 is a fortune for me :(
      - nixgeek 4y ago
        Only way I know to get $/port much cheaper than $50-75 is to pick up a used Arista on eBay, there are typically 48-port 10GE models going for ~$400-500. That's what I use to drive 10GE ports where I don't need 802.3bt. There are significant tradeoffs that you may not tolerate: (1) They are very noisy (vs. the Flex XG which is fanless) so if your "Tech" is anywhere near your living space, this may be unworkable; (2) They consume lots of power and also don't do 802.3{af,at,bt} for PoE either, you can solve PoE using an injector (for a few ports), a midspan (for more ports) but note that injectors/midspans usually don't support NBase-T and if you want the combination of 2.5/5/10GE and PoE you might be back to buying a specific switch which can do that; (3) Learning curve is steeper than unmanaged or most semi-managed switches and you likely need to be comfortable with serial consoles to get them configured. With all those and likely more tradeoffs considered, they are ~$10/port!
tracker1 4y ago
I don't have many 6E devices, my M1 Macbook air can get 600Mbps from my 6E Access Point, where my old(ac) AP would get about 180Mbps. So, I should be able to close to max out the 2.5gb uplink with 4 devices (quad-channel)... I don't have anything that needs that at the moment. Aside from file xfer to/from my NAS. Will say, as far as I'm concerned not seeing a need to upgrade any time soon for my own needs. Short of another project where I regularly have to xfer a couple hundred gigs of files, where my internet provider is 1gb down, 40mb up.

6E can already deliver 1.5 Gbps or so per device with good signal at 160 MHz channel width. But most AP manufacturers have optimized for client density rather than raw single client performance.

phkahler 4y ago

Most APs don't have an upstream connection faster than that anyway. Clients generally don't need that speed anyway, and if they do its only for a few seconds anyway (large file transfer).

nixgeek 4y ago
Most APs aimed at domestic situations are still on 1Gbps, but WiFi 6-series (not 6E/7) APs aimed at business/enterprise environments have had 2x5Gbps uplinks for years now - since September 2018, i.e. Aruba AP-555’s [1]. I happen to use these at home and they’re great with 100’s of concurrently connected clients (across 5+ APs and 15+ radios, usually ~70 clients per radio max) vs. Ubiquiti/Eero which always had lots of issues. Obviously though, YMMV! Definitely agree that it’s generally not needed (>1Gbps) but game updates these days run 100GiB+ in some cases (particularly for AAA titles) and it’s nice to have a little more speed sometimes. Individual clients are usually 80MHz 2x2 so best case will get ~1.2Gbps [2], but the radio can handle a couple clients doing things at once (MU-MIMO). For external connectivity, Comcast is now selling 1.2Gbps services in many US markets (they also overprovision the profile so speedtest.net will often see 1.4Gbps), and consequently cable modems have had 2.5GE ports for a couple years now. When combined with APs that have >1Gbps uplinks this can actually get used! Some markers can now get Comcast with 2000/200 (down/up) [3], which is a huge improvement over 1200/35 — the previous maximum. So, it’s nice to have APs with more uplink, and it’s nice to have >1Gbps Comcast, but I’d definitely not call it mainstream yet. [1] https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP550Series.pdf https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP550Series.pdf [2] https://mcsindex.com/ https://mcsindex.com/ [3] https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-increasing-internet-speeds-and-launches-new-2-gig-speed-across-northeast https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-increas...
- azinman2 4y ago
  Sonic has 10GB symmetric fiber with no data caps in parts of the Bay Area. The best ISP!!!
  - sgtnoodle 4y ago
    I'm excited with the prospect of possibly getting upgraded from 46Mbps to 100Mbps this year. Meanwhile, my friend sent me this to presumably taunt me... https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/d33ffb1e-4bb8-4693-b174-d1be0ea996aa https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/d33ffb1e-4bb8-4693-b174-d...
  - gorbypark 4y ago
    I recently moved to Spain and got 1 gig symmetrical for 20 euros a month, and my ISP just sent an email saying 10 gig symmetrical is available in my building now for just 10 euros more. So tempting just to say I have 10 gig as I really have no use for it..
    - mike97 4y ago
      Nice, in Romania it's about 8 euros for 1 gig, unfortunately 10 isn't available in my city yet. Edit: Just checked and for 10 G it would be about 10 euros and for 2.5 G - 9 euros, that's a very good upgrade, probably they assume that most users won't take advantage of the full bandwidth.
      - gorbypark 4y ago
        My ISP is Digi, which if I'm not mistaken is Romanian! Occasionally IP geolocators think I'm in Romania, even though doing a traceroute shows none of my traffic actually goes through Romania. I'm guessing they re-assigned some blocks of IPs over to their Spanish subsidiary and the geolocation databases haven't caught up yet. I definitely don't have any way to take advantage of 10g, that's for sure. I guess WiFi 6 might be able to make some use of 2.5G. I'd upgrade for 1 euro more if I was you.
- twoodfin 4y ago

doublepg23 4y ago

Yeah a friend has been pulling 1.2Gbps off a Ubiquiti U6 Pro - not sure how with the uplink being 1GbE but the numbers seem real.

wkat4242 4y ago
I wish 10GbE switches and NICs would finally come down in price. I'm not interested in investing in 2.5GbE gear and then have to do the same again in a few years :(
- nixgeek 4y ago
  One of the more affordable options nowadays is the Ubiquiti Flex XG [1] ($299) for a 5-port unit with 4 being 10GE. I’m using lots of their Switch XG 6 PoE [2] ($599) since it can drive 5GE ports on my APs and supports 802.3bt (which is required to power them up without limitations!). Lots of prebuilt PC systems are coming with 2.5GE NICs - “build your own” and it feels like most motherboards are now 2.5GE? Upgrading existing to 2.5GE is pretty cheap (~$30 USD), even via USB adapters [3]. To me, I think it’s fine with NBase-T that the switches be 10GE and the clients negotiate at 2.5GE or 5GE, although I’d note that both Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Studio can now be OEM specified with 10GE NIC for I think $100 additional. [1] https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/usw-flex-xg_ds https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/usw-flex-xg_ds [2] https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/us-xg-6poe_ds https://dl.ubnt.com/ds/us-xg-6poe_ds [3] Plugable 2.5G -https://a.co/d/hjV8LTd https://a.co/d/hjV8LTd
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    For me that's not affordable. I'm using 1GbE 8 port semi-managed switches from TP-Link that cost me €30 a piece 10 years ago (and are still the same price these days). Semi-managed because they only support some features but all I need is VLANs and port mirroring. €300 for 5 is a fortune for me :(
    - nixgeek 4y ago
      Only way I know to get $/port much cheaper than $50-75 is to pick up a used Arista on eBay, there are typically 48-port 10GE models going for ~$400-500. That's what I use to drive 10GE ports where I don't need 802.3bt. There are significant tradeoffs that you may not tolerate: (1) They are very noisy (vs. the Flex XG which is fanless) so if your "Tech" is anywhere near your living space, this may be unworkable; (2) They consume lots of power and also don't do 802.3{af,at,bt} for PoE either, you can solve PoE using an injector (for a few ports), a midspan (for more ports) but note that injectors/midspans usually don't support NBase-T and if you want the combination of 2.5/5/10GE and PoE you might be back to buying a specific switch which can do that; (3) Learning curve is steeper than unmanaged or most semi-managed switches and you likely need to be comfortable with serial consoles to get them configured. With all those and likely more tradeoffs considered, they are ~$10/port!

tracker1 4y ago

I don't have many 6E devices, my M1 Macbook air can get 600Mbps from my 6E Access Point, where my old(ac) AP would get about 180Mbps. So, I should be able to close to max out the 2.5gb uplink with 4 devices (quad-channel)... I don't have anything that needs that at the moment. Aside from file xfer to/from my NAS. Will say, as far as I'm concerned not seeing a need to upgrade any time soon for my own needs. Short of another project where I regularly have to xfer a couple hundred gigs of files, where my internet provider is 1gb down, 40mb up.