Does anyone know the rating of the XB7?

[ichadwick]

I have been trying to get the starting code for the XB7 to determine if it has better overall bandwidth than my wifi router but NO ONE in Rogers can answer it and everyone I've conversed with seems not to know what a rating is!

I'm using an AX3000 router to manage 12 devices because my Hitron modem was inadequate for the demand (I believe it's rated around 900). I'm moving up to an XB7 and want to know if I still need the external router.

When I asked several supposed tech reps from Rogers what the XB7 was rated at, I got various answers like: 802.11a, 1.5GBps, Dual band function, and  5 Gbps.  I am astounded at how little technical knowledge Rogers reps have about the products they are supposed to support.

Can anyone here provide an answer? Every commercially-available router and modem I've seen or bought has had the rating code on its box. Rogers' XB7 doesn't. And no one who works there appears to even know what this code represents. I suspect because it's so low that Rogers doesn't want it advertised. 

Here's some background:
https://www.howtogeek.com/795976/heres-how-to-decode-the-numbers-in-wi-fi-router-names/

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@ichadwick wrote:

Can anyone here provide an answer? Every commercially-available router and modem I've seen or bought has had the rating code on its box. Rogers' XB7 doesn't. And no one who works there appears to even know what this code represents. I suspect because it's so low that Rogers doesn't want it advertised. 

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Yeah, but the problem is that those figures that you see on the box are "marketing numbers", and usually VERY optimistic.  They are there so that when you compare boxes on a store shelf, you will pick the "best one".  The real-world performance is often radically different from test results that were performed in an  anechoic chamber in the laboratory.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/802-eleventy-what-a-deep-dive-into-why-wi-fi-...

The XB7 gateway supports Wi-Fi 6 / 802.11ax.  However, when Rogers provisions the gateway, they also lock you out from being able to manually-select Wi-Fi channels and the channel width, so you are stuck running in 2x2/80 MHz mode and with whatever channel that the gateway selects.  You will get a TxRate of 866 Mbps on Wi-Fi 5 and 1200 Mbps over Wi-Fi 6 and, under ideal conditions, you can attain 75-80% of that... but, again, there any of a number of factors that can cause Wi-Fi performance to be less than that in real-world conditions.  The XB7 also does not support WPA3 security.

Rogers is (obviously) reluctant to provide hard Wi-Fi performance numbers.  You can expect decent Wi-Fi performance with the XB7, comparable to what you would get with other consumer-grade routers, but not as good as what you will get with a business-grade Wi-Fi AP.

If you upgrade to the Ignite 1.5 Gigabit service, the only way that you will be able to attain that throughput is with a device that is directly-connected to the XB7 gateway with a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet adapter, one that is also actually capable achieving that data rate.  It also provides 1.5 Gbps of bandwidth to your home, so two devices (say, one connected by Wi-Fi and another connected by Gigabit Ethernet) can also make use of all of that available bandwidth.

However, if you use an external router with a Gigabit Ethernet WAN port, its data transfer rate will max out at 940 Mbps.  To make use of the 1.5 Gbps connection in Bridge Mode, you will need a high-end router with a 2.5 GigE LAN and WAN ports.