Are Chinese ASUS Routers have the same Hardware and Features as WW models?

[KGB7]

What I care about if its going to work or not, forget about other issues, we have a new law that allows to import up to 3 routers at once for personal non commercial use, without getting a permit for wireless signals, before we had to ask for permits from the ministry of communications.
I just want to be sure that its going to work for me.
Im sure its going to work with my Imported products, like mobiles phones, but i might by something locally, you never know lol

On Alibaba, at the bottom of the page of a product, you can send a message. Ask the seller for which region the router is made for?
In the description of the product, it should state Place of Origin or region.

 

[Hexenhammer]

On Alibaba, at the bottom of the page of a product, you can send a message. Ask the seller for which region the router is made for?
In the description of the product, it should state Place of Origin or region.

I managed to order ASUS RT-AX89X on newegg yesterday I was lucky and it was in stock for like 1-2 hours

 

[KGB7]

We're all aware of the information in that Wikipedia entry. That doesn't negate the points people have been making. It also doesn't include any power output information.

So as people have tried to point out if you run your US router on channels (>= 100) or power output not allowed in Israel don't be too surprised if you get a visit from the authorities.

Ehh. Highly unlikely, as long as he doesn’t interfere with Airplanes, Police, Military, etc etc.
Out in the suburbs, no efs are given. Unless he sends secret messages to ISIS.
Many people brake FCC rules and regulations in US and no one is fined, as long as a person is not being malicious to interfere with Airplanes, Police, etc etc.

 

[jsz]

Sometimes routers are also made in different factories for different regions. For example... the AX-58U in the USA is made in Taiwan for Best Buy exclusively. The AX-3000 USA variant of the AX58U is made in Vietnam. For Europe, the same "AX-58U" model is made in mainland china.

The US variations are certainly to offset taxes imposed by the government, but I'm not exactly sure why they have the same model being produced in both Taiwan and Vietnam instead of just "Vietnam"... unless they value a specific factory for reasons I'm not aware of. (Taiwan having better build quality for Best Buy retail?)

All the newer high end ROG motherboards shipped to the USA are exclusively made in Vietnam for example, where Europe's boards still come from china.

My GT-AC2900 (a "premium" 86U rebrand) also comes from Taiwan (USA market) for example and there are differences from the china packaged models such as the china variant coming with a metal reinforced CAT6 cable, while the US variant has a basic 5E cable.

To answer the question, the hardware is mostly identical unless there's certain capacitors or different supplier parts that can be interchanged such as RJ45 connectors. Same thing happens for motherboards.. Most brands use Lotes and Foxconn sockets interchangeably as an example and theres obviously different suppliers for stuff like SATA port connectors etc.. but this is more a less a factor of all factories involved.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Ehh. Highly unlikely, as long as he doesn’t interfere with Airplanes, Police, Military, etc etc.

That's exactly the point. He's not in the US, he's in Israel and he's not dealing with the FCC. If 36 channels out of the US's 49 are not allowed there you'd have to assume they're being used for something.

 

[toaruScar]

I purchased some ZenWiFi XT8 on Taobao, and it's the version that is meant to be sold in mainland China.

The webGUI has two localizations: English and Simplified Chinese.
There's a country setting for wireless, among the options is the US. I believe this will have the router broadcast Wi-Fi signals that conform to the US regulations.

 

[L&LD]

What firmware version is it running in the pictures?

 

[toaruScar]

What firmware version is it running in the pictures?

I just did a firmware update couple days ago. And it's now running 3.0.0.4.386_25524.

 

[Hexenhammer]

I just did a firmware update couple days ago. And it's now running 3.0.0.4.386_25524.

How much this set costs? Are you happy with its performance? Each device has 2.5G port right?

 

[toaruScar]

How much this set costs? Are you happy with its performance? Each device has 2.5G port right?

The price I paid for a set (2 units) is 3699 CNY. This price includes 13% VAT (refundable if you own a company in China).
I'm very happy with the performance, though stability wise Apple's AEBS which XT8 replaces is superior.
Each unit has one 2.5G WAN port.

 

[KGB7]

Specs are some what impressive. But ZenWiFi XT8 is an over kill for what you get at a high price for home use. Unless you have a +Gigabit WAN and +20 family members in your house.

My Asus RT-AC 1200, handled 8 wifi users at the same time with no issues, and I paid $50 for the router. No Merlin firmware, no Fork firmware. 8 People streaming media (YouTube, Netflix, Websurfing, etc) to their devices over wifi.... zero issues in a 2,000 sqft one floor building.

But its your money. In my opinion, +$500 is too much for 2 routers.

P.S.

Keep us updated on the performance of the XT8 routers. Im genuinely curious of their capabilities.

 

[KGB7]

That's exactly the point. He's not in the US, he's in Israel and he's not dealing with the FCC. If 36 channels out of the US's 49 are not allowed there you'd have to assume they're being used for something.

To my best knowledge, every consumer wifi routers on the market, can be used and sold in any country.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a global agreement, to make and sell consumer based wifi routers, that will not interfere and will not use, specific bands. Hence the reason, any person from any where on the planet, can buy and import any wifi router from another country.

 

[ColinTaylor]

To my best knowledge, every consumer wifi routers on the market, can be used and sold in any country.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a global agreement, to make and sell consumer based wifi routers, that will not interfere and will not use, specific bands. Hence the reason, any person from any where on the planet, can buy and import any wifi router from another country.

That is not the case. It is true that "grey imports" of any product (at least in the UK) are not illegal. It's also true that a WiFi client device like a laptop can be operated anywhere in the world and is designed not to create interference.

What you can't do is operate a WiFi access point or router (which has a much higher power output than a client) that a) hasn't been certified by your local authority (e.g. the FCC in the US), and b) isn't restricted in some way (actual implementation varies by country) to operate within your local laws. It is the WiFi router that dictates what channels the client will be using.

So for example, if you are in the US you aren't allowed to operate a WiFi router that hasn't been certified by the FCC or isn't restricted from using channels/power not allowed in the US. In the past it was permissible for the channel/power restriction to be done in software. There were complaints that consumers were abusing this option so the FCC changed the regulations so that all devices (operated in the US) had to have the country limits hard-coded and unchangeable by the consumer.

Anyway, this is all academic now as the OP has already bought his device and made it clear that he has no interest in whether he is conforming to any of his local regulations.

 

[kapekohicafe]

Regarding performace, is there any difference between made in china routers and made in vietnam routers?

I hve RT-AX86U that was made in china.

 

[terrywang]

I've bought Australian retail version of RT-AC68U and Chinese version (grabbed one while it was on sale, only 110 AUD).

TL;DR if the price diff is small, I'd buy international or region specific version.

The Chinese version comes with Chinese package and instructions, router UI is only English and Chinese (Simplified) - not a big issue.

WLAN - Region can be changed to your region in Professional Settings for WiFi section.

However, RT-AC86U (S/N in form of <LCI CHN 123456> indicates it is intended to be sold and used in China (to meet local legislation). So it has some sort of label / annotation at the hardware level which cannot be changed (like a fingerprint) - this caused a Chinese specific Netease game accelerator to show up in the router management Admin UI which cannot be removed.
^ Upgraded RT-AC86U to latest official firmware and then flushed to Asuswrt-Merlin.

NOTE: this makes me think, if Asus can do this with Netease, what else can they do for RT-AC86U sold in China?

Other hardware should pretty much be the same I reckon, I didn't find any performance difference (iper3) between CHN vs AUS (I borrowed a RT-AC86U AU version).


BTW: AiMesh works fine if initial setup was via Wired network (ethernet), I had trouble adding RT-AC68U (running Asuswrt-merlin) to RT-AC86U (running merlin as well).

 

[m0rF1uS]

That shouldn't happen because USA has all the channels all others have + more.

BTW, a year ago, we had ban on Router import, it had to be router with local firmware, but last year they introduced bunch of populist laws to for people to spent less on stuff and one of them was that they allowed Private people to import Wireless equipment without permit, up to 3 devices, per quarter.
Big companies that sell in shops still have to create local firmware.

Just out of curiosity… what country do you live in?!?
I can hardly understand the logic behind the whole “local firmware” needed.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Just out of curiosity… what country do you live in?!?
I can hardly understand the logic behind the whole “local firmware” needed.

He is in Israel.

 

[hikerstep]

Chinese Asus router is of region code CN which makes the selection of region possible. You may buy it and change to US. Actually to have the best performance of Wifi, you can change the region to Australia which may increase the wifi signal performance.

if buying a router with region code US , you are not able to select the region sometimes. therefore you have to modify the CFe to change the region code to all or to CN. For old type router ac68/r7000 this is easy to do. But for new AX type, I’m looking for a way to change it.

see my post.

modify bootloader (cfe)

I want to modify the CFE configuration to add Wifi area selection. On normal old type r7000, I just need to export CFE/boot section. cat /dev/mtd0 >/tmp/cfe.bin then i can easily change the configuration by decompressing this cfe.bin. However for new types e.g. AX86U or AX58U, there’s no more...

www.snbforums.com

 

[RMerlin]

Do NOT use a region different than the country you are in. It may cause issues with some of your client devices, it may cause unwanted, if not dangerous interference with other devices, and in some countries it may be downright illegal.