Netgear Announces Orbi Mesh WI-FI System Using Wi-Fi 6

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Netgear Announces Orbi Mesh WI-FI System Using Wi-Fi 6 - What Devices Support Wi-Fi 6?

Jiriteach

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#243914 8-Jan-2019 17:10

Oo - Announced at CES 2019 - The new Netgear Orbi's to support the gigabit home. Will be interesting to see what pricing point these come out at. I would think that they are going to be pricey!

Also what devices support Wi-Fi 6?

The award-winning Orbi Whole Home Wi-Fi System, which utilizes patented Fastlane3 technology, will soon be available using 6th generation Wi-Fi, 802.11ax, or Wi-Fi 6. This powerful combination will set new performance benchmarks for Mesh Wi-Fi Systems and deliver sustained gigabit internet speeds via Wi-Fi across homes and estates.

Performance of the industry leading Orbi Mesh Wi-Fi Systems is improved by adding 1024 QAM with a 4x4 Wi-Fi 6 backhaul, increasing the speeds, coverage and capacity of this dedicated wireless link between the Orbi router and satellites.

With an advanced Wi-Fi 6 networking SoC from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Orbi with Wi-Fi 6 will support even higher performance simultaneous Wi-Fi streams, making it possible to deliver gigabit internet to far more devices and enable these gigabit internet homes to take advantage of new Wi-Fi 6 performance, which will be designed into the next generation of mobile and smart home devices.

This next generation Orbi Wi-Fi system is ideal for households with a multitude of connected devices running high-bandwidth internet for HD/4K video streaming, always-on smart home devices and video monitoring security systems, which stream HD/4K to mobile devices. With an Orbi Mesh Wi-Fi system using Wi-Fi 6, your network will now be ready to effortlessly support these ultra-high-speed bandwidth-hungry applications, as well as others such as interactive VR games, 4K live sports broadcasts while also continuing to support all legacy Wi-Fi devices.

https://www.netgear.com/about/press-releases/2019/NETGEAR-ANNOUNCES-ORBI-MESH-WI-FI-SYSTEM.aspx

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#2156609 8-Jan-2019 18:26

None.

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#2156610 8-Jan-2019 18:27

It's also worth mentioning there are no real benefits to ax over ac if you don't have ax devices.

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#2156619 8-Jan-2019 18:40

I think there are devices supporting wifi6 (802.11 ax) but in the consumer space I think new machines/equipment are not intended to start appearing until later this year.

I think the other standard one might see more of as well is cat6e (10 GbE) on the desktop. I have not really been paying attention, but I think is is also in the Thunderbolt 3/USB-C space.

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blakamin

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#2156621 8-Jan-2019 18:45

I suppose its backhaul is the only thing... meh... I just wired my Deco mesh backhaul because each satellite has 2 x gigabit ports. I use one for backhaul and the other for switches etc.

Nothing faster is needed, on NBN anyway. :D

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#2156623 8-Jan-2019 18:46

TwoSeven:
I think the other standard one might see more of as well is cat6e (10 GbE) on the desktop.

You mean 802.3an-2006.

Jiriteach

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#2156628 8-Jan-2019 18:52

blakamin:

I suppose its backhaul is the only thing... meh... I just wired Deco mesh backhaul because each satellite has 2 x gigabit ports. I use one for backhaul and the other for switches etc.

Nothing faster is needed, on NBN anyway. :D

I'm using gig eth backhaul with an Orbi setup at the moment. 1 router and 4 satellites and it screams. Would be nice if it supported something faster than 400/866 Mpbs on each channel. Even with the higher model having 1733 Mbps - its unusable as its reserved for backhaul.

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blakamin

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#2156630 8-Jan-2019 18:56

Jiriteach:

Even with the higher model having 1733 Mbps - its unusable as its reserved for backhaul.

That's bloody annoying if you're not using it!

Like I said, I'm over here in Oz on NBN, so even wireless backhaul is faster than my interwebs can handle :D

Inside the property tho, love it.

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#2156670 8-Jan-2019 19:41

Sorry, I forgot to mention - Intel IceLake is the platform, not sure if there is an equiv on other platforms

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#2156680 8-Jan-2019 20:15

sbiddle: It's also worth mentioning there are no real benefits to ax over ac if you don't have ax devices.

This is not correct. The Aruba and Cisco 802.11ax deep dives clearly demonstrated 802.11ax airtime efficiency improvements over 802.11ac when 802.11ac and, to a lesser degree, 802.11n clients were associated. When 802.11ax clients are associated the airtime efficiency improvements will be greater.

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#2156696 8-Jan-2019 21:45

Crowdie:

sbiddle: It's also worth mentioning there are no real benefits to ax over ac if you don't have ax devices.

This is not correct. The Aruba and Cisco 802.11ax deep dives clearly demonstrated 802.11ax airtime efficiency improvements over 802.11ac when 802.11ac and, to a lesser degree, 802.11n clients were associated. When 802.11ax clients are associated the airtime efficiency improvements will be greater.

In theory maybe, but real world is probably not so much. Certainly much of the discussion at WiFi Trek last year and a pretty interesting discussion I had at the pub with an Aerohive guys was around that very topic until there is significant adoption of ax devices and a base of clients.

ax is exciting and has some cool stuff in it with ax client devices, but we do have to remember it's not yet fully ratified and absolutely zero guarantee that any ax hardware purchased now will be 100% compliant with the final standard.. Of course if you're going to wait for that then you may as well then wait for ax wave2 (assuming that appears) and there is talk it may happen before the new 6GHz band is ready.

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#2156697 8-Jan-2019 21:47

blakamin:

Jiriteach:

Even with the higher model having 1733 Mbps - its unusable as its reserved for backhaul.

That's bloody annoying if you're not using it!

Like I said, I'm over here in Oz on NBN, so even wireless backhaul is faster than my interwebs can handle :D

Inside the property tho, love it.

I couldn't imagine wanting to rely on a 160MHz channel for a mesh setup. In reality you're unlikely to get a reliable 160MHz mesh channel unless devices are in the same room!

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#2156707 8-Jan-2019 22:21

sbiddle:

Crowdie:

sbiddle: It's also worth mentioning there are no real benefits to ax over ac if you don't have ax devices.

This is not correct. The Aruba and Cisco 802.11ax deep dives clearly demonstrated 802.11ax airtime efficiency improvements over 802.11ac when 802.11ac and, to a lesser degree, 802.11n clients were associated. When 802.11ax clients are associated the airtime efficiency improvements will be greater.

In theory maybe, but real world is probably not so much. Certainly much of the discussion at WiFi Trek last year and a pretty interesting discussion I had at the pub with an Aerohive guys was around that very topic until there is significant adoption of ax devices and a base of clients.

ax is exciting and has some cool stuff in it with ax client devices, but we do have to remember it's not yet fully ratified and absolutely zero guarantee that any ax hardware purchased now will be 100% compliant with the final standard.. Of course if you're going to wait for that then you may as well then wait for ax wave2 (assuming that appears) and there is talk it may happen before the new 6GHz band is ready.

Geoff Mason (Aerohive ANZ SE) is a heavy, heavy pusher of 802.11ax as he has seen the 600 series (802.11ax) access point performance improvement over the 500 series (802.11ac Wave 2). Who were you speaking to in the pub? Matthew Gast?

If you are a home user then yes I agree with you as the inefficiencies of consumer grade clients will severely affect any 802.11ax performance gains. For enterprise deployments 802.11ax is a no-brainer once we have ratification.

I believe that Apple may be one of the biggest influencers of whether 802.11ax flies or not. When Apple advised they were not supporting 802.11ac MU-MIMO it just died.