R7800 for transitioning to a better, "future proofed" setup?

[Nerva]

We have a house with 5 people and their associated devices. In a room upstairs there is a server connected to 4 HDHomeruns via an 8-port gigabit switch, which in turn is connected to a TRENDnet TEW-812DRU v1.0R AC1750 router, which in turn is connected to the cable modem, a MagicJack, a Sonos, and a HDTV. Downstairs is our office, which has two desktop PC's and a printer connected to an Edimax BR-6478AC AC1200 router being used in range-extender mode (only 5GHz). In the family room is our main HDTV, a Sonos, and a HTPC that has an Alfa AWUS036AC AC1200 USB adapter -- which unreliably (due to a problem with the device, not the signal strength) connects at 5GHz at high speed or falls back to 2.4GHz at low speed. I try to mostly use the 2.4GHz band for our mobile devices -- 5 laptops, 5 cellphones, and several tablets.

My ultimate long-term plan is to have a tri-band router upstairs that bridges to 5GHz routers (one on each band) in the office and family room, with the 2.4GHz band reserved for mobile devices only.

What I'm thinking of doing as a short-term transition towards that is to buy a new, better router for upstairs, and then move the AC1750 router to the office and the AC1200 router to the family room, where it will be connected to the HTPC, the HDTV, and the Sonos (freeing three devices from using 2.4GHz). The R7800 seems like the ideal choice, as it is the fastest non-proprietary AC with working MU-MIMO and 160MHz capability. Then down the road I could buy another R7800 and a yet-to-be-made tri-band router with working MU-MIMO and 160MHz, and put the tri-band upstairs and the R7800's in the office and family room.

 

[thiggins]

My advice:
1) Don't try to outguess the Wi-Fi market. Changes and new technologies are still coming. "Future proofing" is a fool's errand.

2) Move as much of your high-bandwidth traffic to Ethernet as possible, especially connections between routers and APs.

3) If you can't connect APs via Ethernet try powerline. Wireless bridging fights for the same airtime as client devices. Remember that 11ac's 80 MHz bandwidth eats up four channels, leaving you with two effective 5 GHz channels. Use wireless bridging as a last resort to interconnect APs.

4) MU-MIMO and 160MHz do nothing without devices that also support them. With MU-MIMO you need at least two devices with strong to medium signal levels to see any benefit. It may be years before you see devices supporting 160MHz.

5) Put as much streaming as you can on 5 GHz with AC devices. Use 2.4 GHz for data traffic (web, email, IM, chat).

Best bang for the buck continues to be AC1900. Build your network with them as APs. If you want to go to 4x4, stick with AC2600 (QCA based) and don't count on MU-MIMO to provide much help.

 

[pete y testing]

yup , spend your money on ethernet and use routers in AP mode or bypass mode , as tim suggests its best to stick with 1900ac gear and just have more of them and spread the load and clients between them , a few well placed AP's connected via ethernet is a far better solution any day of the week

 

[Nerva]

Unfortunately, ethernet is not viable in our house. We rent, for starters, and the owner is leery of changing anything.

 

[System Error Message]

powerline is a viable option if you consider the AV1200 and AV2000. You will get around 40% of rated bandwidth with powerline just like with wifi.

What you have is good already, only get something new if what you have isnt good enough or lacking something you need.

 

[Nerva]

Do powerline adapters need a grounded (3-pin) plug? Our house is somewhat old and around half the outlets are ungrounded, so it will limit our options. There's also the possibility that what grounded plugs we have don't even share the same ground -- I have little confidence it was done properly.

Are there any particular AV2000 products I should buy or avoid?

 

[System Error Message]

The powerline adapters may be grounded but they do not use ground to communicate. Reason is that they have a socket so you can plug stuff into them.

I use tp-link av2000, they've been rock solid for me but they are pricey here.

 

[sfx2000]

The powerline adapters may be grounded but they do not use ground to communicate. Reason is that they have a socket so you can plug stuff into them.

HomePlugAV MIMO uses the ground path, as well as the hot and neutral to do MIMO and beamforming....

See their white paper on this...

http://www.homeplug.org/media/filer...98534c24dc/homeplug_av2_whitepaper_130909.pdf

 

[sfx2000]

Do powerline adapters need a grounded (3-pin) plug? Our house is somewhat old and around half the outlets are ungrounded, so it will limit our options

It won't limit your options, but it will eventually limit performance for the HPAV link... HPAV does leverage into the three wire config (hot/neutral/ground) for MIMO and beamforming...

Can't say for other countries, but in North America, primarily US/Canada, electrical codes have been pretty consistent here with wiring in general - if the home is less than 35 years old, should be good to go...

 

[System Error Message]

HomePlugAV MIMO uses the ground path, as well as the hot and neutral to do MIMO and beamforming....

See their white paper on this...

http://www.homeplug.org/media/filer...98534c24dc/homeplug_av2_whitepaper_130909.pdf

lol no wonder my oscilloscope is seeing high frequency modulated noises with a negative voltage.

 

[thiggins]

Do powerline adapters need a grounded (3-pin) plug? Our house is somewhat old and around half the outlets are ungrounded, so it will limit our options. There's also the possibility that what grounded plugs we have don't even share the same ground -- I have little confidence it was done properly.

Homeplug AV2 MIMO adapters allegedly use the ground line. I have not done testing to see if breaking the ground connection affects throughput.

Check our ranking of powerline adapters.

 

[Nerva]

Can't say for other countries, but in North America, primarily US/Canada, electrical codes have been pretty consistent here with wiring in general - if the home is less than 35 years old, should be good to go...

The house was built in 1962, so nothing is guaranteed.

Should I even bother with AV2-based options if there's no ground connection between upstairs/downstairs?

 

[thiggins]

Should I even bother with AV2-based options if there's no ground connection between upstairs/downstairs?

Hell yes! AV2 is much better than previous AV, plus AV2 is a standard. AV500, AV600 are non-standard.

There are AV2-SISO and AV2-MIMO products. Only AV2-MIMO have the ground connection.

 

[sfx2000]

Homeplug AV2 MIMO adapters allegedly use the ground line. I have not done testing to see if breaking the ground connection affects throughput.

From my reading of the specs, it would still connect with the AV2 Physical layer, but one would lose the benefit of MIMO and Beamforming for that node...

 

[Nerva]

OK, I went ahead and ordered a TP-Link AV1200 from Costco -- I figure that will give me a feel for the potential speeds I can get in this house -- if it works terrible, I'll return it and stick to wifi -- if it works great, I'll return it and get an AV2000.

 

[Nerva]

Well, the TP-Link AV1200 turned out to only give me about 6MB/s speed both up and down (running file transfer tests), so I returned it and will be sticking to a Wifi strategy.

After doing some more tests, it looks like the real problem I am having is uplink speed -- particularly from my office -- when my desktop wants to back up to the server each morning, it creates a traffic jam that interferes with all the computers in the office and with other devices that try to use the 5GHz band. I am betting about 20MB/s down but only about 8MB/s up.

So, I would like to upgrade my hardware to improve uplink speed from my office -- but would that require replacing both the main router and the router acting as a wifi bridge/extender? If I just buy a R7800 for the main router, and move my AC1750 to the office and my AC1200 to the family room, will the AC1750's 3x3 5GHz speed give me better uplink speed from the office, or do I need to buy dual R7800's to handle the upload speeds for backing up my desktop to the server?