What's the status of 802.11AC support?

[Pontus Karlsson]

On 5 Aug 2014 at 20:39:55, Hauke Mehrtens (hauke at hauke-m.de) wrote:

On 08/05/2014 03:09 PM, Pontus Karlsson wrote:  
>  
>  
>  
> On 5 Aug 2014 at 14:37:15, Arend van Spriel (arend at broadcom.com  
> <mailto:arend at broadcom.com>) wrote:  
>  
>> On 08/05/14 10:56, Pontus Karlsson wrote:  
>> > Hi Arend, and thanks a bunch for the configuration!  
>> >  
>> > As far as I understand it, the higher speeds of 11ac is dependent on  
>> > both modes operating simultaneously  
>> > and in cooperation. Is this correct?  
>>  
>> Not sure what you mean by modes, but I tend to say no here.  
>  
> It appears this was a misinterpretation from my part, as I said I am  
> very fresh with wireless networking  
> and the details that it revolves around.  
>  
> When I read about the specifications for several different adapters I  
> was under the impression that  
> for example adapters advertising themselves as 1750Mbps max rate in  
> their specifications meant  
> that they would work under 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz simultaneously to combine a  
> maximumd rate of  
> 1750Mbps. Now however after I?ve read a bit further I realize that the  
> max rate is merely the max rate  
> of their 2.4Ghz mode and 5Ghz, but not at the same time. So for 1750  
> that means a max of 1.3Gbps for  
> the 5Ghz and 450Mbps for the 2.4Ghz mode.  
>  
>>  
>>  
>> > You?re saying that all my STAs needs to be 11ac compatible, but one of  
>> > the main reasons I?m switching to 11ac is due to  
>> > the vary of different clients that connects to our network, there?s even  
>> > a few 802.11g clients (cellphones mainly).  
>> > According to different sources and specifications 11ac is supposed to be  
>> > compatible with both a/b/g/n/ac,  
>> > I suppose this is due to it?s operation on both modes as well?  
>>  
>> For the higher speeds your STAs should be 11ac compatible. Upon  
>> connecting the capbilities are negotiated.  
>>  
>> > I?m curious, what speeds do you measure with that setup, and with what  
>> > chipset / NIC?  
>>  
>> Not a question to ask me. I am biased as my employer is a wireless  
>> vendor :-p  
>  
> Ah I see that now. But then perhaps you could answer me this;  
>  
> The ASUS PCE-AC68 features the Broadcom BCM4709 chipset. One of the  
> features they brag with is the  
> Broadcom TurboQAM feature, which supposedly would combine the 2.4Ghz  
> data rate with the 5Ghz data rate  
> providing an ?AC1900?-adapter. Does this mean that there?s two separate  
> radios? I know it?s dual band, but doesn?t  
> say whether i can use them simultaneously or not.  

The ASUS PCE-AC68 uses a BCM4360 [0] which is only supported by the  
proprietary Broadcom driver, which probably does not support AP mode and  
will probably cause some other problems. The BCM4709 is a ARM SoC  
without wireless. When you want to do something more than normal station  
mode with ieee80211ac in Linux I would suggest to buy something  
supported by ath10k. TurboQAM is the marketing name for using 256QAM in  
the 2.4 GHz band.  

[0]: https://wikidevi.com/wiki/ASUS_PCE-AC68  

Hauke  


Yeah, I found that out as well. Apparently there were some mixup with the TurboQAM enabled router
that ASUS marketed about the same time, which utilizes both BCM4709 and BCM4360.

I?ve also read two sources;?http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2219385?and?https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=181240?confirming that the Broadcom drivers that is required to be used does not support the 11ac mode anyway, leaving their cards acting as ?really expensive 11g? cards.

You?re recommending any chipset using the ath10k drivers, do you by chance happen to know any adapters that
has a chipset that is supported by this? Only one I can find to buy here in Sweden is the?Compex WLE900VX, but on the wikidevi it says that some 9880 chipsets are unsupported by ath10k.


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