With 802.11ax around the corner, is it pointless for me to spend money converging my network from N to Wave 2 AC?

[wrainwater]

Im about to invest in 2800 cisco AP's along with a 5520 wireless controller. I've been reading articles about 802.11ax coming around the corner and it's making me wonder if I should just wait for that tech to come out? I try to upgrade my AP's and controller once every 5-10 years. What do yall think?

[Flavio Miranda]

Hi @wrainwater

I think you're totally right. I'd do the same.

 Wave 2 is about more speed but we know that they never deliver what they promise. After all, there are so many "if" to get max speed.

 802.11ax is not only evolutionary like ac but it looks revolutionary like 802.11n or even better. With independent uplink and downlink just like mobile network, high speed, great coverage area, I'm really excited about ax.

[Leo Laohoo]

AX AP won't be coming out in the next 18 (maybe 24-) months. 

Besides, I don't think a lot of enterprise will look too kindly of the notion of bundling 2.4 Ghz and 5.0 Ghz.

I know I wouldn't.

[wrainwater]

Im curious to know why you said this. Is having 2.4 and 5 ax a bad thing? In the same way AC wave 2 doesnt deliver what they promised its making me wonder if AX will be the same

[Leo Laohoo · Accepted solution]

2.4 Ghz is very, very congested.  It has three non-overlapping channels.  And I've seen a lot of home-grade manufacturers claiming "802.11 b/g/n"and I just chuckle.  In an office space environment, whether it is vertical or horizontal, 2.4 Ghz is useless.  The number of devices that are 2.4 Ghz ONLY is slowly diminishing.  Modern WiFi clients are dual-radios and load them up with the right wireless drivers and the wireless clients will prioritize 802.11a/n first over 802.11b/g.  The only place where I can see a large use for 802.11b/g would be in the Medical/Health and Manufacturing silo.  

So what would happen with a bundled over-congested 2.4 Ghz with 5.0 Ghz and the location has very high co-channel interference and/or very high floor noise?   It may not work well.  It may not work at all. 

Next, factor in CPU and battery life.  How big should your smartphone be if it can support 802.11ax?  How hot is it going to be?  I may have an iPhone 15 and it may support 802.11ax but it won't make any difference it the model can't even push over, say, 900 Mbps or the fact that it only has two spatial stream antennas.

Right now, I'm already having difficulties justifying enabling 160 Mhz channel width over 40 Mhz.  

[wrainwater]

Sorry, Im just getting back to you. But you sound like a wireless guru. I figured 2.4 would be useless in our situation (college campus) since that band stretches but isn't as powerful as 5. thanks for your input

[Leo Laohoo]

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@wrainwater wrote:

Sorry, Im just getting back to you. But you sound like a wireless guru. I figured 2.4 would be useless in our situation (college campus) since that band stretches but isn't as powerful as 5. thanks for your input

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It's actually the opposite.  2.4 Ghz, with all data rates enabled, can go further (than 5.0 Ghz) has better penetrating values (through walls).  The only downside with 2.4 Ghz is that it's a very congested channel with only three non-overlapping channels vs 5.0 Ghz.

In the past, I used to say that 2.4 Ghz is only useful in a home deployment scenario and nowadays it's no longer true because everyone in the neighborhood have deployed 2.4 Ghz without checking or tweaking the channels and the Tx power.