EnGenius ESR750H review

[icerabbit]

Will there be a review of the ESR750H?

How would this compare to the ECB3500? or the ESR9850.

I saw the announcement a while back and have been hoping SmallNetBuilder would get to put one through its paces


As I've moved into a bigger house, we could do with better wifi range to cover several floors, than for instance a standard DIR-655 offers. Likely still will end up with one router and two access points. Haven't quite been impressed with many new routers because they often lack gigabit ports (I'm hard wiring the house with Cat6) I've had Engenius on my radar for a while now. They caught my eye one day with their "smoke detector" wifi access points and generally seem to have better range and versatility (different modes, easy bridging, ...)

So, I'm hoping to see a positive review.

I don't like to the be the guinea pig on a new product; deal with stability issues and firmware glitches ...

 

[thiggins]

More likely to review the ESR600H.

Higher transmit power doesn't improve range. See
Why High Power Routers Don't Improve Range

You are on the right track with multiple APs connected via Ethernet.

 

[icerabbit]

Thank you, Tim.

I read up on that article, thanks.

I understand what you mean that higher power doesn't inherently mean longer range, and that there are a multitude of factors in the two way communication that affect the quality of the signal for the wireless user.

My hope with Engenius products is that - since they do seem to have a range focus with both their phone & networking products and are also business oriented - their product cover a bit farther & stronger with antennas supporting that capability and thus giving better than average compared to other brands which have seemed somewhat stagnant and have lost some coverage flexibility by omitting their little omni antennas in favor of internal antennas only.

I'm not looking at it as a magic pill, where one product can cure it all. But, I am considering Engenius for a two prong approach to get coverage from two wifi points inside the house and possibly a third going outside into the garden, and a workshop or such down the road.

I just don't like to be the guinea pig and try something without some independent review or confirmations whether it is a good thing, or not.

And, looking at the 600H, I see it also has a full complements of gigabit ports, so that may suffice for my needs

Looking forward to that review.

 

[icerabbit]

On a related note (first review I see on this new series) Cnet did not think favorably of the 300H model.

CNET ESR300H

 

[stevech]

Thank you, Tim.

I read up on that article, thanks.

I understand what you mean that higher power doesn't inherently mean longer range, and that there are a multitude of factors in the two way communication that affect the quality of the signal for the wireless user.

Important concept: The signal from the client device TO the WiFi router is the "weakest link". That signal strength isn't often displayed in products.

 

[icerabbit]

Very true.

( I've been used to working with two-way handheld and vehicle mounted radios on a daily basis )

 

[stevech]

Very true.

( I've been used to working with two-way handheld and vehicle mounted radios on a daily basis )

yes... police/fire systems have the infamous unbalanced link problem: 5 Watt handheld radio and 200Watt base station/repeater. The cure in many systems is to put receive-only devices throughout the area and connect that receiver's audio back to the base station via a leased phone line. The base station gear "votes" on which remote receiver, or the base station itself, has the best signal, and that's what goes to the repeater.

Same happens in WiFi if you get carried away with high power WiFi access points/routers. You may see 4 bars on the laptop, but if you could see it, the access point/router would show, for the typical consumer device, 1 or 2 bars.

Antenna gain at the router is the best - this gain works both ways.

(some WiFi "amp'd" APs/routers have a receive-side amplifier. But, to be affordable, these add too much noise while amplifying. These Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) are very costly if they are actually low noise.

 

[icerabbit]

You know your stuff, Steve

You can hear (mostly), but you can't talk ... meteorological issues, technological limitations, budget limitations, fall back on cellphones.

I will start a new topic on practical need for my house, as far as router and additional hardware goes, rather than continue in this topic; as I need the bulk of my coverage to happen with one wifi router, in order to be able to have one large wifi network, without the 50% bandwidth hit from an expanded network.

I had really high hopes for the new Engenius models, but that has been dampened by the CNET review.

I did reach out to Engenius and they sent me a note back offering me a 60 day money back satisfaction warranty.

 

[stevech]

I've used Engenious outdoor bridges. Worked well. But I knew what expectations to have for their purpose.

 

[sfx2000]

yes... police/fire systems have the infamous unbalanced link problem: 5 Watt handheld radio and 200Watt base station/repeater.

Not a problem...

We do it all the time in WWAN... you think that Cell BTS is transmitting 200mw? Many times, at least for CDMA, the handsets/devices are power limited to 200mw or less due to SAR...

Trust me, at the BTS, it's many, many times more than 200mw

In CDMA Cellular 850MHz, the turn-around constant is 73 dB, in 1.9 GHz (PCS), it's 3 dB more.

It's all about link budget at the BS (AP) and MS (STA)... WiFi assumes a balanced link with little turn-around constant. That's why big antennas and high power base stations generally don't work for WiFi...

One designs a solution around those constants for WWAN...

 

[stevech]

I beg to differ... CDMA ceullular (Verizon, Sprint, et al) - on the cell phone (handset) - there is fast transmit power control. It's a principle of CDMA.. The handset's power is kept as low as possible at all times by commands from the base station. In IS95B for CDMA, power management is done hundreds of times per second.

The reason: CDMA principles (orthogonal spreading codes) require power management... so as to keep the calls per channel high, typ. 30-40. If the power isn't well managed to keep it low on each handset, the concurrent calls per channel falls and the carrier gets less revenue.

The average transmit power on a CDMA phone is much less than...

With GSM/TDMA (AT&T prior to LTE, and T-Mobile, et al) - there is less need for power control but the calls per MHz (channel) is lower meaning the carrier has to get more spectrum to carry the same traffic as CDMA in calls per MHz if you will. This also means the transmit power of these kinds of handsets is much higher - a SAR (health) issue the media hasn't discovered. The worst on power management was iDEN (Nextel and others).

 

[sfx2000]

I beg to differ... CDMA ceullular (Verizon, Sprint, et al) - on the cell phone (handset) - there is fast transmit power control. It's a principle of CDMA.. The handset's power is kept as low as possible at all times by commands from the base station. In IS95B for CDMA, power management is done hundreds of times per second.

Steve - Please - don't try to debate me on standards I helped to write and implement... I know and acknowledge what you posted, anybody can find that info, but do you understand the basis of why? Actually, don't go there.. it's not productive, and it likely won't end well for you in a public forum - sorry to get all IETF/IEEE/3GPP2 on you

getting back onto track, for wifi, big antennae and high power are of little use, that much we can agree.

The use case you presented for public safety radio, it's fairly off... the high power base station and low power mobile station, it's all about link budget.

Anybody with a decent RF background knows that.

sfx

 

[icerabbit]

Either way ... you both know a ton of stuff

Back onto the subject at hand

Engenius told me SmallNetBuilder will be receiving a review unit, so I'm looking forward to the review