Are there any plans to support 802.11N in 10mhz wide channels? I’d like to do this in a purely Mikrotik-to-Mikrotik Nstreme PTMP application.
This question was asked a while back in the BETA forums, I am just copying my response from there.
Small channel sizes (5 MHz & 10 MHz), and large channels (40 MHz Turbo) were all features specific to Atheros radio cards. Mikrotik implemented support for these features as users demanded it.
However, Atheros has not produced a new radio chip that features the small channel ability and 802.11n features, until they do this there is nothing Mikrotik can do.
I have emailed Atheros, and Ubiquiti on the matter to find out if Atheros is even going to continue pursuing small channel. I have yet to hear back but considering that this feature is pretty much solely used in special cases (WISPS, PtP equip, etc.), my feeling is they will be abandoning it.
802.11n should have incorporated the ability to use small channels in its design, IMHO this is a huge design flaw that will rear its ugly effects as more people start using wireless in high population density areas.
Cheers
Thanks MyThoughts.
Just curious if anyone knows how Ubiquity is doing 10mhz channels in N? Are they not using atheros chips?
MyThoughts: Your assumption is incorrect.
We had 10mhz channels running fine in 4.4 on R52N for months, but they broke when we upgraded to 4.9.
I don’t think it’s a R52N problem, it’s a RouterOS problem.
We just downgraded back to 4.4 and our customers came back up.
Let’s get this fixed!
10 MHz is a radio technology, it is possible that small channel support is present on the Atheros chips but needs to be implemented.
My only assumtion was that the AR9220 and AR9160 did not actually have Atheros small channel capability, I assumed this as I can find no docmentation from Atheros to say otherwise. I sure hope I am wrong and that the only hold up is a new driver as I would sure like 802.11n-10MHz.
Since Ubiquiti designs their wireless drivers in-house, it is possible that the hardware is capable of 10MHz and as you suggest it can be enabled in RouterOS with a software update. All attempts I have made attempting to use 10 MHz channels with SR71-15 and SR71A have not worked at all when attempting to make then connect to a XR5 using 802.11a-10MHz). I have not attempted a SR71-15 to SR71-15 in 10 MHz mode.
Sure hope I am wrong…
5.0b3 should be out in the next few weeks and will have significant changes to the wireless stack. I would wait until then and see if it has 10Mhz support, if not then email support about it.
Regards,
Andrew
Changelog lists fixs in the small channel support on 11n cards.
Going to be testing it over the next few weeks, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier about being wrong…
Cheers
Any word on this has anyone tried the betas to see if 10mhz N is working ?
Just tested on a link that is running 5.0b6, Nv2. Looks like it all works fine. You can choose A, A/N or Only N, then you choose the width separately. 5, 10, 20, 40 are the options.
The reported connect speed is the actual connect speed, ie. 37.5M instead of 65M/2 in a 10mhz channel.
Good job Mikrotik!
Further tests show only ~19M UDP thruput on the 10mhz channel, while I was getting ~43 on 20mhz. Is the 10mhz channel really running N, or is it A?
check the data rates what they are using and check if you have N mode enabled.
Band: 5Ghz-only-N
Channel width: 10Mhz
Data rates tab: default
HT tab: chain 0 checked.
HT Guard Interval: any
HT Extension Channel: disabled
HT AMPDU Priorities: 0 is checked.
HT Supported MCS: all checked
HT Basic MCS: 0-7 are checked.
TX / RX rate shows 32.5Mbps
On a pair of RB433AH’s with R52hn’s