this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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It does. Wifi uses MIMO (Multi-in, multi-out) to run multiple concurrent data streams over the same channel width, which overcomes individual channel bandwidth limitations (there's only so much radio frequency space to go around). Each stream having its own antenna, and having larger antennas, gives stronger signal/noise ratios, less retransmitted packets, and overall better connections.
A lot of those high end "gaming" routers are often oversold though.... MIMO improves throughput if you have an Internet link it can saturate; realistically even a midrange 2x2 802.11AC router will provide more wifi bandwidth than your internet does. And for gaming, they do nothing to improve latency no matter how many streams you run, as wifi's inherent delay (5-15ms) is pretty much a fixed quantity due to its radio broadcast time-sharing nature. The meme is correct. A $6 ethernet cable beats any and all wifi routers and client adapters, and always will.
To be more precise it's not each stream having it's own antenna, you combine the signals from all antennas and then "spatially filter" it into separate streams, but the number of concurrent streams is limited by the minimum of the number of antennas at both ends of the connection, if your device has only one antenna and your access point has eight you can only have one data stream.
2x2 AC on 5ghz has an 867mbps max PHY throughput, which after a 50% derate for signal quality and overhead is still a very comfortable 400mbps.... typical cable internet is around 100 to 500mbps with a lot of places offering "1gbps" that it never actually reaches, so it's certainly sufficient for 90% of people.
If you have a very heavy multi user (6+ devices always on) household you may find some benefit from an AX 2x2 or 3x3 router just because it can handle congestion better.
Six plus always-on devices is rookie numbers. I'm in the twenties, in a house with a handful of people.
And yes, the router I'm currently using is faster than all my wired devices over wifi, save for the two that pair some form of 2.5/10Gb ports. Also yes, my 1Gbps WAN hits about 900-ish on the downstream, with the ISP guaranteeing at least 800 as a legal requirement. I don't know if other regions allow ISPs to sell connections that run at 50% of the advertised speed, but... yeah, no, that's illegal here.
Honestly, full home coverage is the biggest issue I have. If this was a new house I would have wired it as a solution, but as it is, I only got the whole home fully connected with reliable speeds by spending a bunch of money in wireless networking gear.
Yeah the meme is just trying to be superior edgy. We live in an old duplex and no, my landlord won't let me run networking through the walls and ceiling. I tried cabled network over electricity sockets and it's worse than a good wireless connection.
Well since the ruler’s out, 133 here. It’s hell.
Explanation: mostly younger roommates. Majority of bandwidth goes to just 21 personal machines, 4 MLO devices in particular, 1 of which uploads a fuck ton of cam stuff.
That said, most connections are idle. In particular there’s a chunky subnet of energy monitors with a low hum of usage.
I say “hell” because it takes 7 mesh nodes to reach everyone (while playing nice re: antenna strength in a congested building), maintaining security and privacy for everyone requires planning, and the second anything goes wrong everyone loses their minds.
Woof, yeah, now you're talking.
I mean, once you factor in a phone, a computer, probably some gaming device running updates in the background, you're thinking at least three devices per person, plus whatever tablets, smart TVs, printers and IoT garbage you have lying around the house. And if you live on an apartment you're trying to service all of that alongside a bunch of other people trying to do the same.
Honestly, I struggled a lot to get a solid, cost effective mesh to solve the issue. I ended up going back to brute forcing it with a chonker of a router. No idea if that impacts my neighbours and, frankly, at this point it's every bubble of electromagnetic real estate for themselves.
It's honestly crazy how much networking you have to do at home these days, particularly if you work from home or throw in a NAS into the mix. I have no idea how the normies manage. Maybe they pay somebody to set it up?
I’ve wondered the same. Pretty sure they just lean on the ISP equipment offerings and outsource the rest to the cloud. Critically, I envision plug and play users who don’t give a shit about security or privacy, and that simplifies a lot.
Honestly if you take that setup from the ISP (which I think is often free and now usually includes a docsis 3.x with at least one repeater, installed) then just bump the default encryption and add a VPN, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad way to go at all, mainly because when there’s any issue it’s on the ISP to fix it.
It won’t be bleeding edge and you won’t be able to do any directed networking fanciness without your own gear, but the not my problem perk is nothing to sneeze at.
And yeah mesh is a headache. It’s all wired backhaul (sfp+ and copper) but nodes regularly fall out of sync and the mesh doesn’t heal properly. Main reason I kept coming back was the benefit of co-channel stacking, which makes your signal footprint small but really deep so neighboring routers move over.
I guess? My local ISP did offer to set up a mesh, which I did briefly try. Interestingly, they hijack your router settings and after that you had to call them to make config changes, which I never understood but may have been a "save you from yourself" thing for normal users.
The hardware was so bad that it didn't solve the issue, though, and the inability to change anything on the setup was crippling. I don't get the feeling that too many people bought that service in the first place.
But if you don't get good enough wifi you don't get good enough wifi. Normies will notice that. My frustration ended up being that all the cheapo, built-in solutions without fancy features were noticeably flaky or slow. Security wasn't even in that picture.
It's not all about the WAN speed. Having fast LAN speeds is always worth it.
This will help hugely with stuff like PC game streaming (from your PC to a tablet or TV for example), screen sharing to TV, file transfers over LAN, media servers, etc.
What do you define as a "decent" WAN connection?
Great answer. Thank you
And that's where the fat controller says you are wrong. I have 1000 Mbps down. I've yet to actually hit that speed with WiFi 6.
Also newer WiFi standards significantly improve latency. That's nothing to do with having more antennas though you would be correct there.
With current technology you would be correct. But as for the always part: Ethernet is an electrical signal, so it's actually slower than microwave signals used by WiFi, and the WiFi signals can also take a more direct path. So in the future WiFi or LiFi could in fact be faster. It's the processing delay, and scheduling that makes WiFi have higher latency. Not the physical medium.
Before you say this is all academic because of the small distances involved I would remind you that propagation delay is actually a large issue in current microelectronics and computers. Sometimes parts of the same chip are far enough apart to create problems for the engineers due to the high clockspeeds of modern devices.