Netgear Announces Nighthawk RAX80 and RAX120 802.11ax AX6000 Routers
Netgear has announced imminent availability of their first 802.11ax router - the 8-stream Nighthawk RAX80, along with the technical details, pricing, and other information. In addition, they have also unveiled the 12-stream RAX120. While the RAX80 will be available for purchase this month, RAX120 will make it to retail in Q1 2019.
802.11ax has had an uphill adoption curve. Silicon vendors have been announcing draft-compliant chipsets since late 2016 (Quantenna - Q4 2016, Qualcomm - Q1 2017, Broadcom - Q3 2017, Marvell - Q4 2017, and Intel - Q1 2018). Device vendors were not far behind, with Asus going public about its plans to release a router (RT-AX88U) based on the Broadcom platform as early as September 2017. A year after the announcement, the RT-AX88U finally made it to retail at a $350 price point. D-Link also gave a sneak peek into their AX6000 and AX11000 routers based on the Broadcom chipset at the 2018 CES. In the meanwhile, we have had deployments of the Qualcomm chipset in the carrier gateways from KDDI and NEC in Asia, as well as enterprise access points from Huawei and Ruckus Wireless.
[...] It must be noted that the aim of 802.11ax is not to target peak data-rates, but, improve the aggregate performance over several simultaneously active clients. The OFDMA-enabled[*] simultaneous transmission to several users results in increased efficiency. Thanks to the lowered waiting time, the battery life of client devices also increases.
[*] OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiple access - Wikipedia); not to be confused with OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing - Wikipedia.)
Also at The Verge.
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Wi-Fi Alliance Announces Wi-Fi 6E Moniker for 802.11ax in the 6 GHz Spectrum
The FCC has been considering the opening up of the 6 GHz band (essentially, the 1.2 GHz unlicensed spectrum span just above the currently used 5 GHz band) for unlicensed operation. Wideband unlicensed channels of 160 MHz and more may become essential to achieve expected performance from 802.11ax, 802.11be, 4G LTE, and 5G NR in unlicensed spectrum. Opening up a continuous 1200 MHz chunk will enable substantial amount of new bandwidth over multiple wide bandwidth channels.
Unfortunately, even though there are no currently unlicensed users of the 6 GHz band, certain fixed wireless point-to-point long-range deployments are licensed to utilize it. Wi-Fi platform vendors such as Qualcomm and Broadcom have been confident of working with those users to prevent any interference. Their key message to the licensed incumbents is that any Wi-Fi deployment in the 6 GHz band would use LPI (low-power indoor) operation and can also implement AFC (automated frequency coordination). LPI operation, for example, may impose restrictions on the total EIRP (effective isotropically radiated power) and PSD (power spectral density) for Wi-Fi devices. This will prevent interference due to low power levels and substantial building losses. In addition, most licensed users of the spectrum have their point-to-point endpoints well above the ground (mounted atop towers and buildings), and devices rated for LPI operation are not likely to affect them. AFC involves the maintenance of a database where licensed users are tracked based on their deployment location, and any unlicensed Wi-Fi usage in that spectrum capable of interfering with the licensed users could automatically shift to a different channel.
The Wi-Fi Alliance is introducing a new terminology to distinguish upcoming Wi-Fi 6 devices that are capable of 6 GHz operation - Wi-Fi 6E. This is essentially the benefits of Wi-Fi 6 / 802.11ax (higher performance in terms of faster data rates as well as lower latency) in the 6 GHz band. Wi-Fi 6E devices are expected to make it to the market relatively quickly after regulatory approval, as it only requires changing the antenna tuning / RF front end on existing devices.
802.11be is likely to become Wi-Fi 7 and also operate in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands.
In retrospect, the new Wi-Fi naming scheme is not that bad. Or at least, it's not as bad as USB yet.
Previously: Wi-Fi Alliance Rebrands Wi-Fi Standards
Related: Netgear Introduces its First Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Routers
Intel Launches a Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Wireless Network Adapter
Intel Launches Wi-Fi 6 AX200 Wireless Network Adapter
Intel has quietly launched its first Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless network adapter, codenamed Cyclone Peak. The new WLAN adapter will deliver up to 2.4 Gbps network throughput when used with a compatible access point, but, like Wi-Fi 6 in general, its main advantage is that it will work better than existing adapters in RF-noisy environments where multiple Wi-Fi networks co-exist.
The Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 is a CNVi WLAN card that supports 802.11ax via 2x2 MU-MIMO antennas over the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. And never found too far from a Wi-Fi card, Intel's AX200 also supports Bluetooth 5.0.
[...] Intel's web-site says that the first Cyclone Peak wireless network adapter has been launched, so the device is available to makers of PCs. Depending on the order, the Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 costs Intel's customers from $10 to $17.
One of the commenters linked to this paper about 802.11be, a generation of Extremely High Throughput (EHT) Wi-Fi technology beyond 802.11ax that could offer a maximum throughput of at least 30 Gbps.
Previously: Netgear Introduces its First Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Routers
Related: Wi-Fi Alliance Rebrands Wi-Fi Standards
Qualcomm Announces 802.11ay Wi-Fi Chips that Can Transmit 10 Gbps Within Line-of-Sight
Intel Promises "10nm" Chips by the End of 2019, and More
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:05AM
Router software and security though is shit. Too many exploits, and I don't think either of those two companies gives enough fucks to make a truly secure and decent OS for their routers. So unless it can be overwritten with open source, it's just another low end consumer product.
I'll be interested in the access points though. I can at least protect those on an internal network, and compromises may require the attacker being in range.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:11AM (1 child)
> In the meanwhile
Shoot the Anandtech editors !
Put a [sic] !
/triggered
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:48AM
Don't read one of their Anton Shilov articles, you might game end yourself.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:03AM
I have a good enough firewall between my cable modem and my internal GbE smart switch (Cisco 8-port; it's nice that I can manage the network to keep its traffic local). My best friend, however, has only wireless devices: phone, tablet, laptop, ... Next update cycle of those will likely include 'ax, so, to keep her aggregate bandwidth up, I just need an AP to replace the current Linksys LAPAC1750 (selected because the command/control interface is on a different VLAN from the user data). She could use a simpler one at home, since, in addition to the things she brings here, she has a TV, too, and it's quite old, so its replacement may well include 'ax.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:36AM (1 child)
I worked for a company in, um, '02 or so? They had video wireless tech that would let you shoot video from a server to your TV. Remember those commercials that indicated you could move your TV to the pool, or the garage, or wherever, and the cable would follow? Yeah, they bought that tech from this company after they flamed out.
The goal was you could hang a TV on a wall and the only wires needed were the AC power. And the tech worked. Problem? There was an upcoming 802.11 (I think g, not sure, we're talking '01 here) spec that used the same spectrum we did, and was gonna have everybody and their mother stomping all over our QoS links that we were all about. Company had to get their stuff commercialized before the 802.11x spec got finalized.
Company failed mainly due to 2 big issues. First, they realized too late their chip needed to connect to a USB port on a PC, but it took 2 USB ports to supply the power. Second, they had (I think) 8 channels, 2 were isochronous for video, the others were for whatever. Internal to the chip there were 8 FIFOs, the isochronous ones had first priority with respect to bandwidth.
The problem? All 8 on chip queues were fed by a single queue from the PCI bus. So those low priority channels that got packets sent when no higher priority packets were waiting? Yeah, all the high priority packets were in the PCI queue waiting for those low priority packets to get out of the way.
I'm conflicted on the company. Mainly, the tech worked and it was awesome. We had range, bandwidth (HDTV with the receiver in the lower left of a 3 story steel framed building, server in the upper right as far away as we could get). I worked with some really smart people.
Bad? I have never worked with a bigger bunch of snakes than I did at that startup. They had a habit of getting rid of people just before they could vest stock options. They canned me after 1 year 11 months, when at 24 months I'd have vested my first bunch. And it wasn't just me, by the time I got close to vesting I knew I was gonna be toast and started looking. Oh yeah, they had a mandatory 6 PM friday all hands meeting. I wish I could say what happened, but I never made it to a single one. I was a 7-3:30 type, more is overtime, and making it to 6 on a friday wasn't happening.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @11:35AM
Cool story bro! Thanks for the mindless chit chat at 4 am!