Mesh WIFI 6 or WIFI 5

Mark Hodson

Mark Hodson

Mark Hodson

Associate
Joined
19 Jan 2022
Posts
14
Location
Gloucestershire
Hi,

I am looking to replace my Apple Airport Extremes, as they are driving me mad. Regular dropouts, and not reconnecting. Appear to be causing congestion on the network... they need to go!

I have an ASUS RT-AC88U router and 3 Apple airport extremes, which cover the house nicely, when they work! Large (ish) 4-bed house of around 3,000 sqft, with solid internal walls. The router is in the study, which is at one corner of the house, so I need multiple access points. Three of us living in the house - son who games a lot, but that is wired. The usual plethora of home gadgets, phones, tablets, smart plugs, wifi cameras etc. The max Broadband speed is 75Mbps, and is unlikely to change anytime soon.

As the max broadband speed is 75Mbps is Wifi 6 a waste of money? I would invest if there was a real benefit, but it is quite a bit more money than Wifi 5.

Also, does anyone care to recommend a good mesh system, Linksys, Asus, Netgear, TP-Link etc..?

Thanks,
Mark
 
For casual home users WiFi 5 is fine. I run a TP-Link mesh system (Archer AC60 router [IIRC] and some AC1900 access points). It is super simple to establish and works great.

The fact your son is wired in for gaming is the key thing.
 
Thanks for the reply.

Another question - I ran ethernet to each of the Airport Extremes, so they are all wired. I assume I can use the same setup with a mesh system?
 
If you're going to run all the 'mesh' points wired to each other then I wouldn't spend the extra on Wi-Fi 6. At that point it's also of no benefit to get the "tri-band" mesh systems with dedicated backhaul radios as they won't be used.

A pack of the TP Link Deco units should do you fine, just avoid the ones that only have 100Mbps ports, which they still make for some reason.
 
Caged said:
If you're going to run all the 'mesh' points wired to each other then I wouldn't spend the extra on Wi-Fi 6. At that point it's also of no benefit to get the "tri-band" mesh systems with dedicated backhaul radios as they won't be used.

A pack of the TP Link Deco units should do you fine, just avoid the ones that only have 100Mbps ports, which they still make for some reason.
Click to expand...

Makes sense, thanks.

Also currently, if I am using wifi calling on my iPhone, and when I move around the house from the airport extreme (AE) to the study, the call is dropped as it switches from AE to the router - all have the same SSID. So, I am thinking maybe I need 4 pack mesh system, so as to replace the wifi on the router. That way I should get no wifi dropout when using wifi calling - does that make sense?
 
The tp link one as suggested will replace the Asus router..
Asus also have a mesh system called aimesh.
Which might work with your router model.
Then you can replace the apple stuff with Asus stuff.
I have a tplink mesh setup as dlockers and I can't fault it really, I did flirt with an Asus aimesh wifi6 set up but the actual router had a broken wan port so returned it.
Both are very acceptable for my use.
I'm not 100% sure but I don't think you can mix and match manufacturers on mesh so pick one based on your price limits and go for it.
You can spend silly money on it.
 
Agree, you can easily get caught up in spending silly money, looking for wifi 6 or even 6e with tri-band.

I did read somewhere that the best wifi network is a wired one, and as all my APs will be wired do I need a "mesh" wifi system?

Has anyone come across Ubiquiti, specifically the UAP-AC-PRO? Ubiquiti seems to be more in the pro-level market for the same money, and hopefully more reliable....?
 
There is a thread on their kit.
A few guys with a lot of cash.
The Netgear orbiWiFi6 and other 4 AP setups already cost in excess of 1000 quid here...
I looked at ubiquiti too but just couldn't justify it.
 
The Deco S4 3-pack is £100 so I'd start there, with the advantage that you can just send it back if it doesn't work. Can't seem to find the single units for sale but you could just buy two packs and then sell the spare nodes.

You will need to turn off the Wi-Fi on your existing router though if you want to be able to roam around without your calls dropping.
 
Caged said:
The Deco S4 3-pack is £100 so I'd start there, with the advantage that you can just send it back if it doesn't work. Can't seem to find the single units for sale but you could just buy two packs and then sell the spare nodes.

You will need to turn off the Wi-Fi on your existing router though if you want to be able to roam around without your calls dropping.
Click to expand...

That's a good price, and probably does everything I need!
Thanks, Mark
 
Would it be worth going for a better model, to future proof, just in case my broadband improved? Or is it just a waste of money?

I keep looking at the Deco X50 :rolleyes:
 
You do need a mesh system to avoid the call drop out of non-mesh systems (in my experience).

My previous setup was a TP Link range extender and it was garbage for WFH and garbage for devices 'in the middle' as they randomly disconnected/rejoined other APs.

Get the best you are willing to pay for. Odds are, like all tech, it'll break/be ancient in 3 years anyway. No point over spending for future proofing as it is often a false economy.

Looks like Deco X50 can be had for £200 which doesn't seem bonkers.
 
dLockers said:
You do need a mesh system to avoid the call drop out of non-mesh systems (in my experience).

My previous setup was a TP Link range extender and it was garbage for WFH and garbage for devices 'in the middle' as they randomly disconnected/rejoined other APs.

Get the best you are willing to pay for. Odds are, like all tech, it'll break/be ancient in 3 years anyway. No point over spending for future proofing as it is often a false economy.

Looks like Deco X50 can be had for £200 which doesn't seem bonkers.
Click to expand...

£200 - is that for 3 pack? If so, where did you see that?

The best price I have seen for the X50 3-pack is on Amazon as a pre-order for £290.

However, I have found the X60 3-pack for £249 which is very similar.
 
Last edited:
Mark Hodson said:
As the max broadband speed is 75Mbps is Wifi 6 a waste of money? I would invest if there was a real benefit, but it is quite a bit more money than Wifi 5.
Click to expand...

WiFi 6 isn't a waste of money compared to WiFi 5. You'd be getting a theoretical 40% higher speeds to start with thanks as well to 1024QAM modulation. But importantly you're getting the other advantages that WiFi 6 brings. Target Wake Time to improve battery life on devices with batteries. Phones, Tablets, Laptops, Doorbells, Cameras, etc. You're getting OFDMA (basically your WiFi 6 Router can talk to more devices at once, carry more data to more devices). MU-MIMO means devices can all reply at once back and with 8 streams I believe on WiFi 6. BSS Colour which improves performance in congested areas and so forth. Personally I wouldn't see why you'd want to stay with WiFi 5, a technology released like nearly 10 years ago now. If you have the opportunity to upgrade / change - I would. Especially if you have a plethora of devices as mentioned. :)
 
Firegod said:
WiFi 6 isn't a waste of money compared to WiFi 5. You'd be getting a theoretical 40% higher speeds to start with thanks as well to 1024QAM modulation. But importantly you're getting the other advantages that WiFi 6 brings. Target Wake Time to improve battery life on devices with batteries. Phones, Tablets, Laptops, Doorbells, Cameras, etc. You're getting OFDMA (basically your WiFi 6 Router can talk to more devices at once, carry more data to more devices). MU-MIMO means devices can all reply at once back and with 8 streams I believe on WiFi 6. BSS Colour which improves performance in congested areas and so forth. Personally I wouldn't see why you'd want to stay with WiFi 5, a technology released like nearly 10 years ago now. If you have the opportunity to upgrade / change - I would. Especially if you have a plethora of devices as mentioned. :)
Click to expand...

This.

Very few people take the time to get even a superficial understanding of Wireless LAN and as a result they spend LOADS of money on spidery-looking boxes that are generally junk and they have miserable online experiences as a result.

The first thing you need to be aware of is streams. Access points are generally described by how many send and receive streams they can handle. 2x2 and 4x4 are very popular. The UAP-AC-Pro the OP mentioned is somewhat unusual that it’s a 3x3.

You rarely see how many streams a client can handle but generally cheap or old devices (and most IoT devices) are 1x1. Most phones, laptops and tablets are 2x2 and some newer and better ones are 4x4. Almost nothing is 3x3 in clients.

So when the client and the access point talk to each other they negotiate how many streams they will use. A new iPhone will use 4x4 and if you have a 4x4 access point then you get really fast transfer speeds. If the access point is 2x2 then the phone will only use 2x2 as well. If the client is an IoT 1x1 device then the access point also talks at 1x1. This is called Multiple Input-Multiple Output (MiMo). With early MiMo WiFi5 the access point generally could only run at the speed of the slowest client so a super-fast 4x4 access point would only run at 1x1 when an IoT client attached to it. Then came Multi-user MiMo (MuMiMo) and with that the access point could divide up the available streams between clients so a 2x2 access point could connect to two 1x1 clients or a single 2x2 client. A 4x4 client could talk 4x4 to a 4x4 access point or that same 4x4 access point could handle 2 2x2 clients or 4 1x1 clients or 2 1x1 clients and a 2x2 at the same time. More clients reverted to time-slicing but you still had the effect that slower devices connecting dragged the speed down. WiFi6 solved that with OFDMA so slow clients can connect at the same time as fast clients and the slower ones don’t slow the whole network down. And that same OFDMA makes WiFi6 meshing very much faster.

Efour said:
There is a thread on their kit.
A few guys with a lot of cash.
The Netgear orbiWiFi6 and other 4 AP setups already cost in excess of 1000 quid here...
I looked at ubiquiti too but just couldn't justify it.
Click to expand...

That’s a very odd statement. The cheapest 2x2 MuMiMo Ubiquiti access point is £55+VAT. You can spend £1500 on a dual 4x4 UAP-XG unit but the cheapest WiFi6 access point (U6-Lite) is £80+VAT. A pair of 4x4/4x2 U6-Pro access points would be about £250+VAT and that would cover most UK homes. A pair of 4x4/4x4 U6-LR units would definitely cover a UK home but then you’re up to £330+VAT for the pair.

So Ubiquiti are actually quite cheap. You really don’t need to chuck a load of cash at this. And most of us started off with used access points.
 
Efour said:
Sweden is an expensive place, is that what you find odd?

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/s...rbi-rbk852-ax6000-tri-band-mesh-wifi-6-2-pack

It's a bloody rip off tbh
Click to expand...

That’s how much they are in the UK. £950? But why would you buy those? A rip-off is correct.

We charge roughly £250 for a double network drop run back to an existing patch panel. So for £1000 you could have 4 network drops, two of which could be ceiling mounted WLAN access points.

And, as someone pointed out, the fastest WLAN is a cable.
 
Last edited:
I recently got amazon eero pro 6 (3 PACK).

Doubt I will ever take advantage of wifi6, but I thought I might as well get the newer specs if Im replacing my router. Anyway 3 weeks later and so far so good, stable and wifi coverage all over the house.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom