So where is AC87's MU-MIMO that we were promised?

[funkahdafi]

Asus sells the AC87 as a "Wave 2" device with MU-MIMO support. Yet, that feature is not available. Asus promised to enable this with a later firmware release. What's up with that? When will I get the MU-MIMO I paid for?

 

[drabisan]

Do you have a MU-MIMO client? I would say you are the first one on the planet to own such product! By far!
Asus and others can market their product as future proof, and it may be accurate. Or not. Time will tell!

If you bought the router for this feature...your call! You may gain or not! I can't tell

As of today, March 2015, it's tough to have a good 3x3 client! To get a MU-MIMO client is impossible.

It's up to you how much to you believe in marketing. They may sell you what you are willing to buy! MU-MIMO is few quarters away, as a real-life solution. And even far away as certified products!

I'm sorry for you if you bought something that will be available in the future and you thought is available today! Some people buy trips to Mars...seems legit to me

 

[funkahdafi]

That's not the point. The point is that they actively advertise the product as a MU-MIMO product. Whether I can use the feature *now* or not is irrelevant.

But anyway, I am going to use the feature now if it were enabled. I will deploy 2 more AC87 routers in bridge mode, and if they all had MU-MIMO enabled, the connection in-between all three routers could make use of it.

 

[L&LD]

No, they wouldn't.

MU-MIMO is not full duplex. Works only in download mode with MU-MIMO enabled clients.

Even with 3 RT-AC87U's, the performance increase will be minimal, at best, for most of your network usage over a 24hour time period.

Even more important, when you were promised this feature would be available in a future update, that can still happen.

So, nothing to cry over.

I have learned long ago to read ad copy for my benefit.

Buy today for what benefit / performance the device actually gives you. Not for what is superficially promised.

 

[funkahdafi]

No, they wouldn't.

They certainly would.

MU-MIMO is not full duplex. Works only in download mode with MU-MIMO enabled clients.

The bridges are clients and the download speed is all I am interested in. As I side-note, I know quite well what MU-MIMO is and how it works, thank you.

Even with 3 RT-AC87U's, the performance increase will be minimal, at best, for most of your network usage over a 24hour time period.

So now you even know my network and my network usage patterns? Impressive.

Even more important, when you were promised this feature would be available in a future update, that can still happen.
So, nothing to cry over.

Not crying. And how long has the AC87 on the market? More than half a year. The point is, if you don't enable MU-MIMO, don't advertise it. I have a hard time understanding how someone can even remotely approve of this false advertising like you do. Fanboy?

1.) It doesn't matter whether MU-MIMO clients are available now or not. I don't buy routers and replace them 6 months after with the newest half-baked toy they release. I buy a router and expect it to live at least 2-3 years. Enough time for MU-MIMO clients to appear. This is about being future proof.

2.) I intend to use multiple AC87s in a bridged setup, in which case I could already benefit from MU-MIMO today, if they would have enabled it.

 

[L&LD]

Happy to see you're a savvy user and seem to be knowledgeable in this area.

The main point was that nothing is amiss here. It is your lack of understanding during the transaction phase of what was offered in exchange for your money that is creating this confusion for you.

I'll stand corrected on the points you make (mostly because I don't feel like arguing).

But you'll have to take responsibility for the core issue here, and yes; you're still crying about it.

 

[L&LD]

Where do they state that the RT-AC87U is MU-MIMO enabled?

How long you've waited for a future feature has nothing to do with when Asus will release it.

It is nobody's fault that MU-MIMO is not enabled yet. I'm sure the issues are deep and many. In any event they never promised it for a specific time period. Only that it will be enabled in the future.

If Asus has actually stated that MU-MIMO is a feature of the currently shipping hardware, that is false advertising, I agree.

But I don't believe for a second that they would make that mistake.

 

[funkahdafi]

Taken right from their website, front page for the product:

They have it somewhere in a footnote, in the small-print that this will only be enabled later.

Anyway, I am not interested in battling with you over this. My point was and is that this is still not enabled. Your response was that I don't need the feature, so you missed the point. Let's stop this here.

 

[jegesq]

Sheesh. The RT-AC87U is a "4x4 MU-MIMO" design. Nothing untrue about that.

Also nothing untrue about the fact that there currently exist no 4x4 MU-MIMO clients as of March 7, 2015.

Funk, you assume that because you don't have any 4x4 MU-MIMO clients, that Asus hasn't "enabled" MU-MIMO in the firmware?

Don't be mad. There just aren't any 4x4 MU-MIMO clients available yet. Your router has what it needs to use 4x4 MU-MIMO when there's a client that has it. Right now though, that client device doesn't yet exist, at least not for purchase by end-users.

 

[L&LD]

Actually, he is right that he can't use other RT-AC87U's in bridge mode either with MU-MIMO support.

 

[jegesq]

The Galaxy S5 and the other devices you mention are only two-stream, not three-stream. Again there are no three-stream clients yet., let alone 4x4. The 801 and 805 Snapdragons are capable of supporting three-streams but not at this time with the existing firmware. And the S6 isn't even available yet.

 

[funkahdafi]

The Galaxy S5 and the other devices you mention are only two-stream, not three-stream. Again there are no three-stream clients yet., let alone 4x4. The 801 and 805 Snapdragons are capable of supporting three-streams but not at this time with the existing firmware. And the S6 isn't even available yet.

Isn't the number of streams irrelevant? The key is the MU in the MIMO. If the router has 4*4 MU-MIMO, it can serve up to 4 MU-MIMO radio clients at the same time. The client does not need to have the same number of spatial streams. All it takes is one.

But again, I don't care about the clients, all I care is router to router connectivity. People telling me I don't need MU-MIMO because there are no clients don't get my point, obviously.

 

[thiggins]

None of the Quantenna based 4x4 routers have MU-MIMO enabled and there is no timetable I am aware of for enabling it.

All makers have used MU-MIMO as a marketing point to sell 4x4 routers. Some have been better than others in making it clear that the feature does not currently work by stating "MU-MIMO ready" or something similar in marketing fine-print.

As has been noted, MU-MIMO's benefit is to improve total bandwidth use with multiple lower-order (1x1 or 2x2) clients. I can see no benefit in a multi-point 4x4 bridge configuration. If you can provide a reference to information that says there is a benefit, that would be helpful.

Funkahdafi: keep it civil and respectful going forward. I have little tolerance for pissing contests like this. The rest of you should know better. The offending posts have been removed.

 

[funkahdafi]

I think there would be a benefit between bridges if you also have clients on your network. I have lot's of clients, Wifi as well as wired (connected to switches behind the AC87 bridges). MU-MIMO is not about speed, it's about efficiency. I would expect that if my routers would use MU-MIMO in-between them, then the traffic flowing through them would not be affected by other wifi clients as much as it would be if there was no MU-MIMO. There is a lot of traffic from my wired clients that needs to go through the bridges to reach other subnets of the network that are not directly connected by wire. Now if I wouldn't have MU-MIMO, the router that serves the wifi clients AND the bridges would have less timeslots available to serve the bridge traffic.

But actually, I really don't want to explain myself why I would want MU-MIMO. Again, all I wanted to know is where the feature is and when it will be enabled. Whether there is a benefit or not is not the question. I have no idea why this had to turn into such a storm.

 

[funkahdafi]

And since you were asking for a reference, here is one:
http://www.networkworld.com/article...from-11ac-s-next-big-deal-multiuser-mimo.html

 

[thiggins]

Fine that you want what you want, although it will not help between wireless bridges as you think it will.

Topic closed.