@BabakR , lets look at your TP-Link AC3200 first. That is a tri-band router, meaning that you can run one wifi network in the 2.4 Ghz band, and two separate and distinct networks in the 5 Ghz band. Unless that router is Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) capable, that probably means that you can run one low 5 Ghz band wifi network in the channel 36 region, and one other high 5 Ghz band wifi network in the channel 149 region and upwards.
Let me draw you attention to the following Modulation and Coding Index:
That index shows all of the various combinations of modulation type, channel bandwidth and guard channel interval (timing) between successive broadcasts within that channel.
From your quoted TP-Link AC3200 specs:
- 5GHz Band1: Up to 1300Mbps: look down the left hand column of that chart to line 23 and then drop down two lines into the bottom 802.11ac line in blue. Go right until you reach 1300 Mb/s. That column indicates that the router will broadcast at 1300 Mb/s using 802.11ac with an 80 Mhz wide channel and a minimum broadcast interval of 400 nano-seconds between each broadcast from the router. Three antenna are used for this broadcast rate
- 5GHz Band2: Up to 1300Mbps: The same spec. So, you can run two wifi independent wifi networks each broadcasting 1300 Mb/s each, for a total of 2600 Mb/s.
- 2.4GHz: Up to 600Mbps: Go left on the same 802.11ac line until you reach 600 Mb/s. This indicates that the router will broadcast 600 Mb/s using 802.11ac, using 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, running 5 data bits out of every 6 bits. This is done via three antenna using a 40 Mhz wide channel with a minimum 400 nano-second interval spacing between each broadcast. The big problem with this claim is that you need a wifi client in a mobile device that will actually accept 802.11ac modulation in a 2.4 Ghz broadcast. That’s pretty new and I suspect that you would have to look far and wide for a device that has a wifi adapter built to that spec. I might be wrong on how common it is, but I don’t think I’m too far off on that one.
So the router will run three distinct wifi networks. You probably won’t be able to run two high channel or two low channel 5 Ghz networks due to the bleed over from one antenna set to another. That all depends on the filtering that’s built into the 5 Ghz receivers and the bandwidth in use. You might be able to get away with it if you were only using 20 Mhz wide channels, but then your gross data rate per network drops to 260 Mb/s with a practical data rate of 216.6 Mb/s.
Now for the Hitron modem. That modem is a dual channel modem, so, it will run one 2.4 Ghz network and one 5 Ghz network. There is a difference here in that the modem has three 2.4 Ghz antenna and four 5 Ghz antenna.
From your quoted data sheet specs:
802.11n dual band concurrent with 450Mbps+1733Mbps PHY data rate
- From the same modulation and coding index, go to line 23 and slide right to 450 Mb/s. That shows that the modem will broadcast 450 Mb/s using three antenna, using a 40 Mhz wide channel with a minimum guard spacing between broadcasts of 400 nano-seconds. Practically speaking, unless you own very very new equipment, and even then you would have to do your homework to confirm the capability, backed up with 2.4 Ghz speedtests, this 450 Mb/s gross data rate is the same that you will probably see with your router. It all depends on the mobile device wifi adapter as to whether or not you will see faster data rates over 2.4 Ghz networks. Throw in local competition for the same channels, and that 450 Mb/s would be very hard to achieve.
- 5 Ghz. Drop down to line 31 and go two lines down into the second blue 802.11 ac line. Go right until you hit 1733.3 Mb/s. That shows that the modem will broadcast a gross data rate of 1733.3 Mb/s using four antenna on an 80 Mhz wide channel with a minimum of 400 nano-seconds between broadcasts. That is the same gross data rate that your router will broadcast per antenna. The difference here is that the modem runs four 5 Ghz antenna instead of three antenna used by the router. So the modem runs one more data stream with the additional antenna. To really take advantage of that you would need another router with four antenna to act as a wifi bridge, or you would need a mobile wifi client with 4 antenna running. As far as I’m aware, there is only one laptop on the market with four wifi antenna, which is a gaming laptop. The vast majority of laptops have one or two antenna, the MacBook Pro has three from what I understand. There is a gain in performance when you run more antenna, as the wifi adapters can take advantage of broadcast diversity, but, that gain might be very small and not even noticeable when between three or four broadcast antenna, and one or two antenna on the receiving mobile device.
So, the difference is that the router can run a higher data rate when you combine all of the wifi networks. Practically speaking you would only see that high 5 Ghz data transfer rate by using two wifi networks simultaneously, one of which connects to an internal server. The router's WAN port is only a 1 Gb/s port, so the higher wifi speeds are a moot point when it comes to internet access.
The modem allows you to run a faster 5 Ghz network using four antenna. Only caveat is that you need a wifi client that also runs 4 antenna. Without that, you’re not going to see much of a gain due to the 4 antenna on the modem. As far as the 2.4 Ghz speeds are concerned, I’d say that you’re going to see the same data rate, but, again that all depends on the age of your mobile devices. Since manufacturers typically install the minimum spec adapters, I don’t see 256 QAM becoming common over 2.4 Ghz networks.
Hope this helps.
Here’s a link for a 4x8x manual from Midco, which is a U.S. based ISP. Seems that they’re the only ones who ever make a pdf manual available. Note that this covers more than one model of 4x8x modem, so there will be items there that might not apply to the 4582 modem that Rogers uses. Its been a while since I’ve perused the manual, so, I don’t remember what’s different between the manual and the 4582 modem.
https://www.midco.com/contentassets/a8faa9563b6b49e5b244ef7418c1b314/hitron-coda-4582.pdf
Note that all of the gross data rates are theoretical. You would need perfect conditions to be able to meet all of those specs simultaneously. The high wifi speeds are rather interesting. You're not going to see those speeds via 1 Gb/s WAN port, so, you're dependant on internal data transfers to meet those speeds. Can the modem or router really do that? I have my doubts, despite what the specs say.
Edit: A couple of other items to look at is the fact that Beamforming is not enabled for the CODA-4582, which potentially will result in one or two step increase in data rates when you look at the Modulation and Coding Index. That should be user enabled in the router. Broadcast power levels should also be considered. That can be see by looking at the FCC database for submitted approvals or by perusing the Government of Canada Radio Equipment Search site for submitted equipment approval data
https://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/equipmentSearch/searchRadioEquipments?execution=e1s1&lang=en
There is also the issue that the router will give you access to a far greater amount of user controlled settings which can improve wired and wifi network performance.
@BabakR in terms of a simplification, and practically speaking, you probably won’t see much difference in data rates for straightforward run of the mill networks if you're operating close to the modem or router. Now, if you happen to be streaming, gaming, running VPNs, in that case I would expect the TP-Link router to perform much better than the modem, part of which is due to advanced settings which are usually accessible in router controls.
So, yup, the router is dual band 5 Ghz and the modem is single band 5 Ghz.
Beamforming is not enabled in the modem and there is no user controls to enable it. Rogers Engineering staff has decided to leave beamforming disabled so that the modem doesn’t breach the Industry Canada power output limits. There are arguments for and against beamforming. On 2.4 and 5 Ghz b,g,n networks, Beamforming can actually work against you and cause issues with mobile devices that are not compatible with Beamforming. You really need to run your own experiments with those devices to determine if Beamforming is causing more trouble than its worth. For 802.11ac networks, Beamforming should work without issue, the operative word here is “should”.
For the power levels, this is where it gets interesting. Here’s your link for the Hitron modem:
https://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/equipmentSearch/searchRadioEquipments?execution=e1s3&index=18
Here’s the link for the TP-Link C3200 router:
https://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/equipmentSearch/searchRadioEquipments?execution=e1s7&index=24
For examples sake here are the bottom three power levels for the Hitron modem, and the bottom four power levels for the TP-Link C3200. These are the same frequency ranges and channel numbers. The TP-Link submission has two power levels for the 20 Mhz channels in that upper 5 Ghz channel range. Don’t know why that is at the moment. I’d have to track down the FCC submission to see if there are any notes as to why there are two entries. The power measurements shown in the emission designation are probably the -3db power points. That’s an educated guess without tracking down the test standards, so, for example the first Hitron emission designation for a 20 Mhz wide channel is 17M9D1D— which equates to:
Bandwidth: 17.9 MHz
Modulation Type: [D] Carrier is amplitude and angle modulated
Modulation Nature: [1] Digital, on-off or quantized, no modulation
Information Type: [D] Data, telemetry, telecommand
The Emission Designator decode can be found here: https://fccid.io/Emissions-Designator/
Without further ado, here’s the comparison between the Hitron modem and the TP-Link router for the upper 5 Ghz channels. The data is taken from the Industry Canada submissions for approval, as found in the above links.
Hitron CODA-4582U modem
Certification Number: 10778A-CODA4582
Channel Channel Width Emission Min Power Max Power
149 - 165 20 Mhz 17M9D1D-- 240.0 mW 340.0 mW
151 & 159 40 Mhz 36M6D1D-- 270.0 mW 400.0 mW
155 80 Mhz 76M2D1D-- 260.0 mW 370.0 mW
TP-Link C3200 router
Certification Number: 8853A-C3200
Channel Channel Width Emission Min Power Max Power
149 - 165 20 Mhz 17M7D1D-- 832.0 mW 905.0 mW
149 - 165 20 Mhz 16M4D1D-- 896.0 mW 919.0 mW
151 & 159 40 Mhz 36M5D1D-- 523.0 mW 946.0 mW
155 80 Mhz 76M3D1D-- 438.0 mW 438.0 mW
This is where the major difference lies, in addition to the advanced settings that are available in the router and not in the modem. The TP-Link router has more than twice the power output for the upper 5 Ghz channels. The exception is the 80 Mhz wide channel, where the power level is chopped back. That might be due to power level restrictions imposed by Industry Canada. So, thinking practically, the router will give you much better range for both 20 and 40 Mhz wide channels. The 80 Mhz wide channel, not so much. The 80 Mhz channel power output is still higher than the modem’s output, but not to the extent that you see with the 20 and 40 Mhz wide channels. So, depending on how you use the modem or router, at close distances you probably won’t see that much of a difference in throughput if you compare the modem and router. At long distances and thru walls, I’d expect you to see much better performance with the router, simply due to the maximum power levels that the router operates at. At much longer distances, you might be better off setting the router to run a 40 Mhz wide channel instead of Auto (20/40/80 ??) that the router might allow you to use. The router might select 80 Mhz on its own, but 40 Mhz might give you a much better throughput at a max range from the router when you consider the power output difference.
If you look at the other frequencies and their corresponding channels you can see the same basic pattern. The TP-Link router has a higher output power level, compared to the modem. Same idea applies here, you would see an increased operating range from the router.
That’s the result that I see with my Asus RT-AC86U. At the range that the mobile devices are typically used (at the other end of the house), yes, the modem works, but, simply put, the RT-AC86U out performs the modem. That’s a result of output power and beamforming at work. The output power in the upper 5 Ghz channel group is in the 957 to 995 milli-watt range compared to the 240 to 370 mw output for the modem.
Here's a chart for Frequency to channel conversion if you're interested in looking at the other channels as well;
https://www.semfionetworks.com/blog/5ghz-band-channel-availability-in-canada
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have further questions.
Edit: The 4582U modem in an unbranded 4582 modem, that is to say, without any Rogers branding externally or within the firmware. Although the firmware is fairly common across ISPs that use the 4582, each ISP will usually decide which functions will be user accessible and which functions will be inaccessible for the users.
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