802.11ax. Is it coming this year with Meraki?

wey2go
Getting noticed

802.11ax. Is it coming this year with Meraki?

Wondering if there are any plans of Meraki 802.11ax access points this year?

9 REPLIES 9
Uberseehandel
Kind of a big deal

How many client devices are 802.11ax capable?

Robin St.Clair | Principal, Caithness Analytics | @uberseehandel

EGG FOUND
CMNO, CCNA R+S
wey2go
Getting noticed

https://meraki.cisco.com/blog/2019/04/evolving-the-wireless-experience-again/

 

To learn more about our new Wi-Fi 6 APs please follow this link to our on-demand webinar, and to share your thoughts on the future of wireless there’s no better place than the Meraki Community. See you online!

 

https://meraki.cisco.com/products/wireless#models

 

MRCUR
Kind of a big deal

Meraki almost never discusses their roadmap publicly. 

MRCUR | CMNO #12
PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal
PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

ps. The standard is expected to be ratified till late 2019 - so don't rush too quickly into it. Anything before then will be "non-standard".


@PhilipDAth wrote:

ps. The standard is expected to be ratified till late 2019 - so don't rush too quickly into it. Anything before then will be "non-standard".


There is a very good case to be made that IEEE 802.11ax is a case of manufacturers ignoring the reality that demand for use of the 5 GHz spectrum is growing and conventional WiFi is not the most likely application to dominate this space. WiFi will see the emergence of virtual channels made up of discontinuous portions of the spectrum, APs and other 5 GHz spectrum devices that autonomously set channels in order to maximise overall spectrum use (think about that). In reality .11ax is a step on the way to very messy 5 GHz WiFi future. I would not chose to spend money on developing this tech, I'd jump straight to .11ad Where there is a great deal of uncontested spectrum and there will be a slightly different deployment model as, at least initially, ranges are likely to be short, mesh topologies will dominate, many small, hopefully unobtrusive, APs will be deployed, speed however will be great and there is sufficient spectrum to ensure that there need be no contention between uplinks and client links.

 

As far as .11ad range goes, there are exciting developments under way.

Robin St.Clair | Principal, Caithness Analytics | @uberseehandel

802.11ax is relevant if you are planning to roll out new APs. The 802.11ax is backward compatible with older devices.

 

For sites with existing APs, especially those with 802.11ac already, probably worthwhile to skip past this standard.

 

Key driver for 802.11ax is efficient spectrum utilization.


@wey2go wrote:

 

 

Key driver for 802.11ax is efficient spectrum utilization.


In reality .11ax is all about efficient spectrum utilisation of the spectrum by all the different classes of user of the 5 GHz spectrum, of which stationary WiFi is only one. There are whole new classes of spectrum user that have to be accommodated, traditional use classes that existed prior to WiFi's wholesale adoption of the 5 GHz band have asserted their rights to better, interference free, access.

 

You might be looking at .11ax purely from the point of view of Wi-Fi, the people responsible for managing the spectrum for the overall benefit of all users see it as a way for improving overall efficient use of the spectrum by all classes of user. The arrival of mobile WiFi and the burgeoning demands of some IoT communications protocols will have the same end result as the delivery of a cuckoo's egg in a bird's nest.

 

WiFi marketing is dysfunctional. For example, throughput values are quoted on the basis of aggregating half-duplex signals across different radios some of which are operating in different parts of the radio spectrum, under entirely unrealistic ideal laboratory conditions, as if WiFi were some kind stereophonic broadcast system. You may not have noticed that wired Ethernet is Full Duplex. Wi-Fi only functions if both client device and AP form a link, the system does not handle concurrent sending and receiving, unlike, say, mobile telephones.

 

There is no point in chasing after a standard that is not yet ratified, that is not the best available solution for WiFi users, but suits WIFi manufacturers to offer because it requires new kit that punters will queue up to buy. Most of the "manufacturers" buy in the components from the handful of businesses around the world that actually design and manufacture the subsystems and components required to make WiFi access points and client devices such as phone and laptops inter-operate to form viable wireless links.

 

There is a whole separate area of the spectrum that is virtually ignored that has been set aside for traditional WiFi use. The manufacturers are not presently adopting it for their own reasons. What reasons, well generally speaking - "two bites of the cherry is better than one . . ."

 

Nobody would be that foolish would they?

Robin St.Clair | Principal, Caithness Analytics | @uberseehandel
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