802.11ac questions

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

I just had a couple quick questions about 802.11ac and Mikrotik.

  1. It looks like Mikrotik is using the Qualcomm QCA9882 chips for 802.11ac support. Over here → https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Qualcomm_Atheros they are said to support 802.11a/b/g/n as well. Is this true? The routerboard.com site makes no mention of a/b/g/n support.

  2. Theoretically, if I were to use a RB922UAGS-5HPacD board with a R11e-5HacD card, would I be able to do a 4 chain 802.11ac? Does routeros support this?

Thanks!

2

Yes, 802.11ac chips are mandatory to also support their previous standards such as ‘a’ and ‘n’. ‘a’ was a 5Ghz standard such as ‘ac’ is also, but ‘n’ could be 2.4Ghz or 5.0Ghz but does not have to support both. In summary, any 802.11ac chipsit will support ‘a’ and ‘n’ also. But most often ‘n’ only on 5Ghz (It depends on the chip and the integrated radios).

  1. Theoretically, if I were to use a RB922UAGS-5HPacD board with a R11e-5HacD card, would I be able to do a 4 chain 802.11ac? Does routeros support this?

No, one wireless chip/radio has to provide all the chains you can use together as a single link. So a 2 chain chip can only do 1 or 2 chains. A 3 chain chip can do either 1, 2 or 3. You cannot combine several chips/radios to form a link of more chains. At least not that I know of and for certain not with Mikrotik products.

Thanks!

No problem, it’s what the forums are for. And these where good questions. :smiley:

3

Hey, thanks for the reply!

What about the B and G bands then? If you say they need to support both but may not. Those bands run on the 2.4ghz spectrum.

Thanks again!

4

802.11ac is a 5GHz technology. So what he meant is 802.11a/n/ac

5

Correct, depending on chip/radio module it will support either

802.11a/n/ac on 5Ghz
or
802.11/b/g/n on 2.4Ghz

Please note that even if a chip can run on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz it can never do so simultaneously. You will have to choose a band for the radio/chip. This is also why most newer ‘ac’ chips don’t have 2.4Ghz radios onboard, it’s kind of a waste of the chip to use them for 2.4Ghz. Just add another radio/chip to do the 2.4Ghz.

This is also what it means to either have dual-band (one chip dat can do both) or dual-radio (2 seperate radio’s each on 1 spectrum).