Nullcaller

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Maybe people think AdBlcok is networking or something... Which... Wait, is it technically Layer 7.5 filtering?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

If my understanding is correct, Wi-Fi 6 is pretty much Wi-Fi 5 but only very slightly better in terms of speed. It still works in the same spectrum, i.e. 2.4/5 GHz.

Wi-Fi 6E, on the other hand, works in 6 GHz spectrum, which is, like, 2-10 times the width of 5 GHz spectrum, depending on the situation, meaning less congestion. But to take advantage of Wi-Fi 6E, your client devices have to explicitly support it, because they have to have hardware that realizes 6 GHz spectrum support.

So if you have such devices, and you believe that you can take advantage of increased speeds in a meaningful way, the go for Wi-Fi 6E. The experience may be slightly rough in unexpected ways, however, because the tech hasn't been perfected yet, and probably won't be for another 1-3 years. And it'll probably reach the current cost of good 5GHz equipment in another 1-3 years.

Another thing to look out for, devices that don't explicitly support Wi-Fi 6E just won't see the 6GHz network at all. So you'll want to double check that the router you're buying comes with at least three radios: one for 2.4 GHz, one for 5 GHz, and one for 6 GHz.

If you don't think that Wi-Fi 6E is worth it at this point (that's because it isn't: very little deivces support it), then let's consider Wi-Fi 6.

Download an app called 'WiFi Analyzer', preferably from F-Droid Store. If you have an Android 12 or 13 device, you'll have to grant it a special permission to let it scan Wi-Fi networks around it with a reasonable time interval. Google how to do it, because I don't remember.

Using Wi-Fi Analyzer, walk around your house slowly and observe the graphs for the 5 GHz spectrum. Asses how congested it is. You'll want to pay attention to channels 36-48, 52-64, 132-144, 149-161. Out of these four channels, only 36-48 and 149-161 are always available. 52-64 and 132-144 are so-called 'dfs' channels, which become unavailable if your router detects a radar attempting to work on these channels. They're practically always available, as far as I know, but you might want to check.

Now, if you don't have many neighbors, and out of the four channels two or three are just empty, or at, like, -90 dB, then you probably don't even need Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 6 is only better than Wi-Fi 5 when there's enough congestion. If you can just choose a free channel and be done with it, there will be next to no difference between a Wi-Fi 5 and a Wi-Fi 6 router. Otherwise, look into Wi-Fi 6.

Personally, I wouldn't buy routers from non-networking companies, and would instead buy from the likes of MirkroTik and Ubiquity, maybe even TP-Link, though I've had shite experiences with TP-Link, but you do you. It seems that MikroTik's hAP ax³ is being scalped into a price that's comparable with the Asus router you're mentioning, so idk. Don't buy MikroTik if you don't know what you're doing though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

More like one or six, by the looks of it. If you look at the screenshot really carefully, there are many SSIDs that are duplicated for some reason, and a lot of hidden SSIDs. It might also be a bug of the software in the screenshot, idk.