How to determine client 802.11ac max speed?

[Special K]

I am in the market for a new router and was reading this article that talks about max wifi speed:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/wireless-basics/32175-how-fast-can-your-wi-fi-go

The charts near the bottom allow you to determine the maximum link rate given a router class and client class.

Determining the router class is easy, but determining the client class seems to be more difficult. For example, the Galaxy S7 specs only say "VHT80 MU-MIMO" (http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/galaxy-s7-features-and-specs/). What AC class does that correspond to?

 

[sm00thpapa]

Just means it can run at 80MHz. You would have to connect to a router and check link speed to see if it has a single, dual or tri AC stream chip in it.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[Special K]

Right, but right now I don't own either the phone or the router. Realistically the device that will be pulling the most bandwidth from the router will be my phone, so I want to make sure the router I buy can support the max speed of either the GS7 or next year's GS8 but I also don't want to buy a more expensive router than I need and pay for bandwidth capacity I can't use.

Is it not possible to determine the GS7's max wifi speed from its specs? How does 80 MHz relate to an AC speed class?

 

[sm00thpapa]

80MHz AC MU-MIMO is all we know. Try to find someone with the phone to see what the link rate is. To take benefit any AC router with MU-MIMO will do. An AC 2600 router would be your best bet at this time.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[RMerlin]

Murata KM5D18098 controller. That's 2x2, which means a max link rate of 866 Mbps.

(For the record: never heard of them before)

 

[sfx2000]

Murata KM5D18098 controller. That's 2x2, which means a max link rate of 866 Mbps.

(For the record: never heard of them before)

Murata is the system in package that the WiFi chipset (MAC/Baseband/RF Front End Module) is contained in - they've been pretty tight with Broadcom, so it's safe to assume it's a Broadcom wifi/bt/fm chipset inside the Murata package.

 

[Special K]

Murata KM5D18098 controller. That's 2x2, which means a max link rate of 866 Mbps.

(For the record: never heard of them before)

Is 866 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band? I'm guessing 5 only?

 

[thiggins]

As others have pointed out, you need to know at least the number of transmit / receive chains in the WiFi radio to determine its class.

Smartphone and tablet manufacturers treat this information like it was a State secret. It's a puzzle to me why they don't provide better Wi-Fi specifications. People are always looking for more speed from their devices and device class is a primary contributor that performance.

Is 866 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band? I'm guessing 5 only?

Go back and look at the table in that article you linked in your first post.

 

[RMerlin]

Smartphone and tablet manufacturers treat this information like it was a State secret. It's a puzzle to me why they don't provide better Wi-Fi specifications.

Most of the time, I have to look at a teardown/fix-it-yourself website to figure out the facts. And even then they get confusing. Some manufacturers like to use different hardware for different regions (Samsung loves to use a different CPU in Europe vs America). Or some other times, the teardown itself is confusing. My Nexus 5X's teardown for instance indicated it used a different, older wifi SoC than the Snapdragon built-in one, yet when MU-MIMO appeared on my router, the 5X was reported as being capable of it, which would indicate it DOES use the Qualcomm wifi block.