I have a question, I noticed that amped wireless with their wireless AC range extenders claims output power of up to 800mW/12,000 sq ft coverage on the RE1750A AC1750 range extender or up 800mW/14,000 sq ft coverage on the RE1900A Titan-EX. What are the actual output power and coverage of say the Netgear R7000 and ASUS RT68U/R Wireless AC routers since it seems like the wireless extenders sound powerful, not so sure how it performs in reality. I just noticed routers can act as a router, access point, or even a wireless extender so it seems like the router has more functionality as from what I can tell, the access point is basically extending the original WiFi network using wired cable while the wireless extender mode uses wifi to extend the signal from the original router. In both scenarios, can you still use the original routers SSID's?
Output power of Amped Wireless AC Range Extender vs Wireless AC Routers in general
- Thread starter Almighty1
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Thanks for the reply. I thought it was either Engenius or Amped that was supposed to have more powerful amplifiers than the regular mainstream router brands like Netgear, Linksys, DLink, ASUS... How do shopping malls, etc do it where they use the same SSID and have coverage in a wide area?
WiFi is two-way.
A high power WiFi router or access point has a to-client coverage circle radius that is much larger than the from-client. Due to the clients' low power.
These 100's of mW devices are an utter waste of money and serve only to generate more interference to neighbors in this shared-use band.
Like Citizen's Band radios of way back... people had 500W transmitters and they jammed out the channel for large percentages of the US. You all hear me; no way I can hear you!.
WiFi is NOT a broadcast, like an AM radio station.
A high power WiFi router or access point has a to-client coverage circle radius that is much larger than the from-client. Due to the clients' low power.
These 100's of mW devices are an utter waste of money and serve only to generate more interference to neighbors in this shared-use band.
Like Citizen's Band radios of way back... people had 500W transmitters and they jammed out the channel for large percentages of the US. You all hear me; no way I can hear you!.
WiFi is NOT a broadcast, like an AM radio station.
I was at Best Buy earlier today and I noticed even Netgear's own Range Extenders claim 700mW high powered amplifiers. I mean is there a reason the same router companies don't tell you what the power output is which seems to be 50mW or 100mW, yet their range extenders are 700mw or 800mw? like this one for example...
http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-range-extenders/EX7000.aspx
It's just funny the routers are very low in power output and then they sell range extenders with high output.
http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-range-extenders/EX7000.aspx
It's just funny the routers are very low in power output and then they sell range extenders with high output.
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There is a rule to this in law about maximum output power depending on usage. a lot of non consumer routers advertise 1500mW output but thats because they are expected to be used in bridging with other similar APs or outdoors where there would be a lot of expected interference. The law for maximum power output for omni and directional are very different.
Routers are sold in low power output because they are often placed in environments with lots of routers around. Imagine if every home router were outputting 1500mW, they would interfere with each other and your wifi list would be massive if you're trying to find your own AP. Home wifi routers are made with lower power output so this doesnt happen otherwise traffic from such high output with omni antennas all densed in a small area is going to make wifi traffic just grind to a halt. There would not be enough channels available and the throughput you would get could end up in the dial up range.
Another important thing to know is 100mW is a common limit of wifi clients, having a 1500mW router and trying to connect from further away isnt going to work. Range extenders are used to form bridges so they connect to other wifi APs with similar transmit power. I remember a long time ago trying to connect to a wifi AP with a 1W amp that was further away and it just couldnt connect despite seeing the AP.
Routers are sold in low power output because they are often placed in environments with lots of routers around. Imagine if every home router were outputting 1500mW, they would interfere with each other and your wifi list would be massive if you're trying to find your own AP. Home wifi routers are made with lower power output so this doesnt happen otherwise traffic from such high output with omni antennas all densed in a small area is going to make wifi traffic just grind to a halt. There would not be enough channels available and the throughput you would get could end up in the dial up range.
Another important thing to know is 100mW is a common limit of wifi clients, having a 1500mW router and trying to connect from further away isnt going to work. Range extenders are used to form bridges so they connect to other wifi APs with similar transmit power. I remember a long time ago trying to connect to a wifi AP with a 1W amp that was further away and it just couldnt connect despite seeing the AP.
If routers and access points and client devices, the transmitter power is largest with the lowest WiFi frame bit rate.
The lowest common bit rate does not use "OFDM" modulation methods and for too-technical-for-discussion-here reasons, the low speed allows highest power.
Even 100mW at the higher speeds is costly to achieve. The power amplifier in a WiFi device is a very costly item.
Most WiFi devices operate at 30mW in the typical bit rates of OFDM. To operate at 700mW in the higher bit rates would make the products' cost too non-competitive for consumers.
The advertising of 700mW is unethically misleading. The infamous "up to" is missing.
The proof would be in the FCC Part 15 compliance filing, and also the WiFi "Rho" (waveform accuracy) tests to show a reasonable compliance with the WiFi alliance's requirements.
see also post #4 here.
The lowest common bit rate does not use "OFDM" modulation methods and for too-technical-for-discussion-here reasons, the low speed allows highest power.
Even 100mW at the higher speeds is costly to achieve. The power amplifier in a WiFi device is a very costly item.
Most WiFi devices operate at 30mW in the typical bit rates of OFDM. To operate at 700mW in the higher bit rates would make the products' cost too non-competitive for consumers.
The advertising of 700mW is unethically misleading. The infamous "up to" is missing.
The proof would be in the FCC Part 15 compliance filing, and also the WiFi "Rho" (waveform accuracy) tests to show a reasonable compliance with the WiFi alliance's requirements.
see also post #4 here.
Interesting and thanks to the both of you for the good explanations... The WiFi extender advertising would make it seem like all routers are inferior or something since on the Amped Wireless extender boxes, it actually shows standard WiFi devices at 50mW as far as the amplifiers go and the Antenna is <1dBi for standard devices while theirs is "up to" 5dBi. What is the dBi for the Netgear R7000 antennas for example and couldn't one get better coverage simply by using better antennas on the router? I noticed that with DD-WRT, Kong says to set the transmit power at 71% while with XWRT, XVortex says to set the transmit power at 50%. For whatever reason, on the same R7000 router, the 50% actually has better coverage.
Most stock WiFi antennas about 8 inches or so are 2dBi or so. That's essentially 0dBi.
An 18 inch or so antenna can get to 6-9dBi. That's still small in comparison to the 20dB shortfall that many people have.
Don't judge coverage only by the to-client signal strength. From-client is equally important. And that's not displayed by most routers.
I like the on-stage rock band with a 1000 watt audience speaker system.
Even when not playing, can they hear the audience beyond about 10 rows of seats?
An 18 inch or so antenna can get to 6-9dBi. That's still small in comparison to the 20dB shortfall that many people have.
Don't judge coverage only by the to-client signal strength. From-client is equally important. And that's not displayed by most routers.
I like the on-stage rock band with a 1000 watt audience speaker system.
Even when not playing, can they hear the audience beyond about 10 rows of seats?
I was looking on the XWRT firmware thread for the Netgear R7000 which is basically ASUS-Merlin RT68U/R ported. It says the default transmit power is set to 50% in the firmware. Each 1%=5mW so 100% is 500mW so even at the default setting, it's 250mW. Never realized the R7000 had that much transmission power. I probably just need to relocate my WiFi router with a longer cable since it's basically at the front wall of the house which is 43 ft long so only covers about 1/2 of the way. If I move 15 ft against the living room wall which is the middle of the house, then it would probably have better coverage as that way, it would have to only cover 10 feet for the width and 28 ft for the length of the house, now just need to buy or make my own cable. Just wanted to keep all the networking related equipment in the same stack.
I found also something else misleading. I was at Best Buy a few days ago and was looking at the Wireless AC USB adapters, the Netgear AC1200 is really 867Mbps 5Ghz as it basically adds in the 300Mbps for Wireless-N on 2.4Ghz. I don't think you can technically have a 1200Mbps connection since wouldn't it connect at 867Mbps maximum or can you really do two connections, one at 867Mbps on the 5G and another 300Mbps on the 2.4Ghz?
As for the wattage thing, wattage is misleading too when it comes to audio amplifiers since it's all about the current. Kind of like Sony can advertise 100 watts per channel but then you have high-current amps from Harman-Kardon, Denon, Pioneer Elite, Onkyo, Yamaha that is 25 watts per channel that is a lot louder than the Sony as I remember people were saying that 1 Watt on the other brands is the same as 10 watts on Sony.
I found also something else misleading. I was at Best Buy a few days ago and was looking at the Wireless AC USB adapters, the Netgear AC1200 is really 867Mbps 5Ghz as it basically adds in the 300Mbps for Wireless-N on 2.4Ghz. I don't think you can technically have a 1200Mbps connection since wouldn't it connect at 867Mbps maximum or can you really do two connections, one at 867Mbps on the 5G and another 300Mbps on the 2.4Ghz?
As for the wattage thing, wattage is misleading too when it comes to audio amplifiers since it's all about the current. Kind of like Sony can advertise 100 watts per channel but then you have high-current amps from Harman-Kardon, Denon, Pioneer Elite, Onkyo, Yamaha that is 25 watts per channel that is a lot louder than the Sony as I remember people were saying that 1 Watt on the other brands is the same as 10 watts on Sony.
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