I have a working setup at home: RB3011UiAS-RM with 2x CAP AC, 1x CAP AC XL. CAPs work on version 7.20.4, router on 6.49.19. I’d like to improve my current setup to achieve a better results on 5ghz network - everything is managed by Capsman, but in RouterOS v6 is possible to use at max 40mHz and upgrading to RouterOS v7 is not recommended, that’s what I heard at least. I wanted to change the router to something with v7, I bought L009UiGS-RM, but it looks like this one uses Wifiwave2, all my access points use legacy and it’s not going to work. What’s the best choice for me? Is RB4011iGS+RM a possible solution? Or should I invest in other access points? Please recommend me how to improve this setup.
I have L009UiGS-RM and CAP AC here, running 7.19.4 The L009 uses the wifi-qcom package and the CAP AC uses the wifi-qcom-AC package, which is cut down to fit available memory. I believe your CAP AC XL can take the wifi-qcom package. This gives a setup with the new CAPsMAN, which works well.
Can you provide me your config from CAP AC and from router (Capsman part)? I’d like to give it a try once again before returning the router.
And why wifi-qcom-ac on CAP AC and wifi-qcom for CAP AC XL?
No, it doesn't.
It's an ARM-AC device so you need to use wifi-qcom-ac package on it as well IF you want to move to wave2 drivers.
@OP
You can use V7 on RB3011 as well. Why wouldn't it be recommended ?
What I DO want to point out is that the complete 7.20.x chain is buggy, depending on what features you use. I would recommend to downgrade to 7.19.4 and stay there until all 7.20-wrinkles have been ironed out.
You can use legacy wireless on L009 so you do not HAVE to change wifi drivers on your APs but it will still be the same wireless as with ROS6.
The APs you mention have the capability to use wifi-qcom-ac drivers. But since those APs are also the ones with restricted storage space, you can not do much more then simply use them as AP. Nothing else.
If that fits your requirements, you can consider to move ahead.
Question: do you use VLAN or not in your capsman setup ? Because especially for wifi-qcom-ac driver it gets a bit more tricky (not impossible but there is more config work to be done).
@holvoetn Thank you for your response. No, I don’t use any VLAN. This is my home setup, I guess is quite simple, WAN on ether1, all other ports as bridge. Then CAPSMAN to manage few access points, 2.4ghz and 5ghz included. Regarding v7 on RB3011 - I read some comments about worse performance v7 vs v6 so I decided to keep v6, also my internet bandwidth was so tragic that I wasn’t able to use 5ghz advantages. After getting fiber connection, I’d like to use it properly.
I updated all CAP ACs and CAP AC XL to version 7.20.4 keeping RB3011 on 6.49.19 - it work as expected. Then I bought the L009, copied the configuration from RB3011, adjusted to v7 and connected WAN and CAPs. The intenret connection works fine, all ethernet connected devices work, but any of CAP was able to retrieve capsman configuration from router. I did a reset on CAP AC XL using “Reset configuration” with selected “Keep users” and “CAP mode” but it also didn’t help
OK, since you already bought that L009, better use it.
But ... performance-wise you took a small step back. Just saying.
Compare test results for both devices: look at routing, 25-filter rules and 512byte column, that's considered around here the real-life (or as close as possible) comparison standard.
And keep in mind for RB3011 those are ROS6 results, for L009 they are ROS7.
It is true that especially for RB3011 ROS7 can be a performance hit (mainly because of odd way this device is designed compared to others) but you have to see/test for yourself if it is major enough in your setup to warrant replacement.
I am not yet discarding RB3011 in your case...
As for compatibility:
default ROS7 has wave2 drivers and capsman features embedded.
If you want to use legacy capsman, you need to add wireless package to that ROS7 device (L009 or upgraded RB3011).
You have 2 options:
-
stay on legacy wireless
-- no changes needed on caps devices
-- wireless driver needs to be installed on ROS7 device (RB3011 or L009, whatever ...)
-- no changes needed on RB3011 if it stays on ROS6
-- no added features on wireless behavior ! (which was your first reason for buying that L009 to start with ?) -
move to wave2 drivers
-- no change needed on ROS7 controller
-- installation needed of wifi-qcom-ac drivers on AC-APs
-- benefit from improved wireless performance (like seamless roaming ... works just SWEET on wave2)
-- added throughput and wifi-stability on those "old" ac devices (last time I tested with wave2 on AC AP, I was able to get close to 500Mbps-ish when testing with internal iperf server)
I can return L009, to be honest I already did it, but before sending this out, I’ll give it a try once again this week having your comments.
Why is it a step back? I wanted to run smoothly RouterOS 7 and use all advantages comparing to v6, I decided between L009 and RB4011, finally my outcome is that RB4011 is not necessary and L009 will be enough for home setup.
I have not removed the configuration from L009, it’s under 7.20.4, should I change the version to 7.19.x ? Then I’ll take one CAP AC, install wifi-qcom-ac driver and see if it’s able to get CAPSMAN config.
Acting as a pure router, L009 is slightly less performant then RB3011.
But again, it depends on setup, config, use case, ... you will have to see for yourself.
See test results on resp. product pages:
323Mbps for L009 (ROS7) vs 452Mpbs for RB3011 (ROS6).
How did you decide ? What is your current ISP connection like and what could it possible be 3 or 5 years from now ?
As for capsman setup:
keep in mind on legacy (old) wireless setup is to be done under other menu location then wifi wave2 setup.
The screens and concepts are similar but different places.
But since you did not load wireless package on that L009, you didn't notice yet 
As for cap ac running wifi-qcom-ac ...
I decided only on ROS7 setups to use in Capsman 20/40/80mhz on 5ghz channel. My current ISP connection is 1gbps and is not going to change i next 5-10 years I guess. On L009 I loaded all possible packages I think, it displayed in terminal yesterday a list with 10+ items, wireless also was there 100%.
Why did you do that ?
You only need ROS base package and MAYBE wireless if you want to keep using legacy wireless.
Uninstall all not needed packages. It can cause conflicts.
I did not selected them, I did some update and probably it picked them up somehow. Will change it once I come home.
You will never be able to use that full potential with L009.
RB3011 neither.
RB5009 would have been a better choice. More expensive, I know, but suited for the job and more future safe.
Or even AX3, if you don't need the added ethernet ports. Added plus, it can act as AP on itself as well.
Added packages do not get installed out of the blue.
You must have selected them somehow.
Using cable connection, I get the expected 1gbps and that’s what I wanted. On Capsman I don’t expect these numbers, but currently my 5ghz is like 80-100mbps, I’d like to increase it with 80mhz.
Then you have a real simple setup 
Sorry, my bad, I confused this with the CAP AX. The discriminating factor as to which driver is, AFAICS, the size of Storage on the device. 128MB devices can take wifi-qcom. Smaller devices can only take wifi-qcom-ac.
Not really, the discriminating factor actually is the used chipset, ARM based.
IPQ-4018-devices can use wifi-qcom-ac.
That's for cap AC, cap AC XL, AC2, wap AC (arm version, not mipsbe version), ...
And yes, all of those have 16Mb storage as limit.
It's explained in more detail here:
True. But there are historical reasons for that: when wifiwave2 came out, it was huge ... and thus could be used only on two (or three) AC device models: Audience and hAP ac3 (both provide enough storage space) ... and theoretically on RB4011 (but that would drop support for 2.4GHz radio).
Then MT decided to split the package to wifi-qcom and wifi-qcom-ac [*] ... the later containing only drivers for AC chipsets which made it small enough to fit on devices with mere 16MB storage. In theory they could include AC drivers in the "large" wifi-qcom package as well, but they don't. And probably with another reason now: they can pretend as if wifi-qcom-ac doesn't exist when thinking about introducing new and improved functions (e.g. VLAN handling, etc.) to wifi-class drivers ... if they'd include AC drivers in the "grand" wifi-qcom package, then it would be pretty awkward if those functions would not be available on certain hardware (which is pretty obscure to ordinary users ... proved by the fact some still have hard time figuring which wifi-qcom package needs to be installed).
[*] this split makes it possible to remove any/all wireless/wifi package at will ... making e.g. hAP ac2 a great wired router (I love this fact).
