802.11ax News - Page 9 of 10 - CNX Software

November 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

The First 802.11ax WiFI 6 Routers are Now Shipping for $350 and Up

802.11ax WiFi, to be known as WiFi 6 for consumer, promises a much higher throughput up to 10 Gbps, and a better ability to manage high density scenario (i.e.). crowded places where may users connect at the same time. ASUS announced several 802.11ax routers at CES 2018, and the entry-level model – ASUS RT-AX88U – with a combined maximum throughput of 6000 Mbps (referred to as AX6000) is now sold on Amazon for $349.99. NETGEAR has also unveiled their own WiFi 6 routers with respectively Nighthawk AX80 (RAX80) and Nighthawk AX120 (RAX120) routers. I’ve already covered ASUS routers in a previous post, and the 12-stream RAX120 will only become available in Q1 2019, so I’ll focus on the spaceship looking 8-stream RAX80 router since it’s available now. RAX80 WiFi 6 router specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM49408 quad core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.8GHz with network packet co-processor @ 800 MHz WiFi […]

October 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Linux 4.19 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architectures

With Linus Torvalds taking a leave from the Linux kernel project, Greg Kroah-Hartman was the one to release Linux 4.19 last Sunday: Hi everyone! It’s been a long strange journey for this kernel release… While it was not the largest kernel release every by number of commits, it was larger than the last 3 releases, which is a non-trivial thing to do. After the original -rc1 bumps, things settled down on the code side and it looks like stuff came nicely together to make a solid kernel for everyone to use for a while. And given that this is going to be one of the “Long Term” kernels I end up maintaining for a few years, that’s good news for everyone. A small trickle of good bugfixes came in this week, showing that waiting an extra week was a wise choice. However odds are that linux-next is just bursting so […]

October 17, 2018October 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Qualcomm QCA64x8 and QCA64x1 802.11ay WiFi Chipsets Deliver 10 Gbps Bandwidth

WiFi has evolved in recent years with the introduction of 802.11ad and 802.11ax (now called WiFi 6). THe latter is now official, and in the last year several 802.11ax chipsets and WiFi 6 routers have been announced, but I’ve not heard much about 802.11ad with claims of up to 7Gbps bandwidth at 60 GHz when unveiled in 2016. The latter have been supplanted by 802.11ay, with Qualcomm having just unveiled QCA64x8 and QCA64x1 802.11ay chipsets capable of delivering 10Gbps and operating at a frequency of 60 GHz. According to Wikipedia, 802.11ay is not really a new standard, but just an evolution of 802.11ad adding four times the bandwidth and up to 4 MIMO streams. Qualcomm chipsets will enable 10+ Gps speeds with wire-equivalent latency, while keeping the power consumption low, and bring the ability to play 4K UltraHD videos over WiFi, virtual / augmented reality games, fixed wireless mesh backhaul, […]

October 4, 2018October 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

New WiFi Naming Scheme: 802.11n Becomes WiFi 4, 802.11ac WiFi 5, 802.11ax WiFi 6

Terminology used by engineers may be confusing for end-users, so for example in the TV market 720p becomes “HD Ready”, 1080p “Full HD”, and 4K may be referred to “Ultra HD”. A few years ago, I tried to buy a 1080p TV, and the seller was really confused at first saying they only had “HD Ready” or “Full HD” televisions. Two terms I had personally never heard of myself, but eventually we managed to understand each other… Up to now the official IEEE name for different WiFi standards like 802.11n, 802.11ac, or the new 802.11ax may have been a little confusing to consumers. So the WiFi alliance has decided to launch a new scheme naming scheme. We’ll soon have to refer to 802.11n routers as WiFi 4 routers, AC routers as WiFi 5 routers, and it will probably be less confusing for 802.11ax routers since I expect them to be […]

June 27, 2018June 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Qualcomm IPQ8078 based H3C WA6628 802.11ax WiFi Enterprise Router Supports up to 1000 Concurrent Clients

802.11ax WiFi aims to deliver aggregate throughput up to 10 Gbps, and better manage use cases with many users providing with up to 4 times average throughput per user compared to 802.11ac. We’ve already seen some ASUS 802.11ax routers, but if you ever have to organize an event with hundreds or thousands of users, or setup WiFi in crowded places like airports or train stations, Qualcomm IPQ8078 (datasheet) powered H3C WA6628 802.11ax enterprise router could be an interesting as the company claims its 12 stream channels can serve data to up to 1000 client devices simultaneously. The WA6628 routers comes with a 10G Ethernet port, built-in Bluetooth, and is said to improve wireless network transmission rates by at least three times compared to 802.11ac Wave 2 access points. Some of highlights of Qualcomm IPQ8078 SoC / WA6628 router include: 8×8 MU-MIMO doubles the number of devices which can be concurrently […]

June 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

ASUS Announces 802.11ax WiFi Routers at Computex 2018

802.11ax is a new WiFi standard offering better performance, especially in high-density scenario, where average per usage bandwidth may be improved by up to 4 times, so city dwellers should benefit the most. Last year, we started to see 802.11ax compliant chips from Broadcom, Marvell, Qualcomm, and others, so it should come as no surprise that some of first 802.11ax WiFi routers are launched this year. ASUS introduced two 802.11ax WiFi routers at Computex 2018 with ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 tri-band 802.11ax router, RT-AX88U dual band 802.11ax router , and the AX6100 WiFi System for mesh networking. ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 The ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is a high-end router with a peak aggregate throughput of about 11000 Mbps. Specifications: Processor – Quad core processor @ 1.8 GHz System Memory – 1 GB RAM Storage – 256 MB flash Connectivity WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax, IPv4, IPv6 Tx/Rx – 2.4 GHz 4×4, 5 GHz-1 4×4, 5 […]

December 12, 2017December 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Marvell 802.11ax WiFi Chips are Designed for Enterprise Gateways, Mainstream Routers, and Set-Top Boxes

High-Efficiency Wireless (HEW), better known as 802.11ax, is a new WiFi standard that is supposed to deliver up to 10 Gbps bandwidth over 2.4 and 5.0 GHz frequencies, and improve the average throughput per user by a factor of at least 4 times in dense environments. Several draft of the specifications have been voted on, but the latest 802.11ax timeline seems to indicate the final 802.11ax specifications will only be approved sometimes in 2019. This has not prevented companies to announce or unveil 802.11ax SoC or solutions based on the draft specifications, as we’ve seen in the past with NXP Layerscape LA1575 programmable WiSoC, Qualcomm gateway reference design, and Broadcom Max WiFi chips. Marvell has now joined the fray with their 802.11ax wireless portfolio. All Marvell 802.1ax WiSoCs support all using uplink & download OFDMA / MU-MIMO, 1024 QAM, off-channel spectrum scanning, dedicated in-service monitoring, and precision location. Three SKUs […]

August 26, 2017August 26, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Broadcom Introduces Three 802.11ax “Max WiFi” Chips: BCM43684, BCM43694 & BCM4375

We’ve already written about the new 802.11ax WiFi standard that promises up to 10 Gbps data rates, support for 2.4 & 5 GHz bands, up to 4x longer range, and better handling of high density scenarios. It appears 802.11ax we’ll be known as Max WiFi to the masses, and Broadcom has unveiled Max WiFi solutions for home and enterprise routers, as well as a smartphones. There are currently three Max WiFi solutions from Broadcom: BCM43684 & BCM43694 4×4 802.11ax chips, respectively optimized for residential and enterprise access points, share the same key features: Support for four streams of 802.11ax 4.8 Gbps PHY rate 160 MHz channel bandwidth 1024 QAM modulation Uplink & downlink OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) MU-MIMO ZeroWait DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection) AirIQ interference identification Full compliance to IEEE and WFA 802.11ax specifications BCM4375 smartphone combo chip: Support for 2-streams of 802.11ax Bluetooth 5 including Low-Energy Long […]