[PLUG] Wireless access point failing?

[Russell Senior]

On Sun, Jun 9, 2019 at 1:15 PM King Beowulf <kingbeowulf at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/9/19 12:43 AM, Russell Senior wrote:
> ...
>
> >  802.11n has some
> > advantages over 802.11ac, namely the drivers are completely open source.
> > All 802.11ac radios have firmware blobs that can limit functionality and
> > disrupt the ability for end users to fix bugs. Whether that is something
> > you care about is a separate question, but it matters to me and how I use
> > them.
> >
>
> That's a red herring, and indeed not true.  802.11n has no advantages
> over ac, especially at 5GHz. Numerous real-world tests have been posted
> in the reliable tech trades.
>

Most of the advantages of 802.11ac are due to wider channels in the 5GHz
band. There are some tweaks to spectral efficiency.  802.11ac can indeed
deliver higher data rates. Whether you can take advantage of those higher
data rates depends on what you are doing (for example, you might be
constrained by your ISP connection to the Internet).  See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac

The binary blob can be an issue.  For example, Intel radios (which, afaik,
have relied of a firmware blob forever, including their 802.11g, n, and ac)
often don't support all the modes, e.g. client mode and not access point
mode. That's because they are designed to go into laptops that aren't
typically used as access points. That's not universally true, but it's true
enough to have made an impression. Even the QCA (e.g. what used to be
Atheros) 802.11ac radios have bugs in the firmware blobs that have caused
major headaches in the OpenWrt world.  Sometimes the blobs don't support
IBSS, which is important in the mesh networking world.

Again, not everyone will care about these limitations and I am not
suggesting that you should care, but I do.

Often 802.11n is good enough and when combined with the firmware advantages
and price opportunities can make it a reasonable choice. In the case of the
MR24, you are getting a last-generation enterprise-grade device that cost
$600 a few years ago, with decent fully-open source driver supported
radios, a quality PowerPC SoC, decent memory and flash space for about $20.

YMMV.