Question Wireless Access Point - is Huawei's AP7060DN Wi-Fi 6 the best for around US$1000?

Mar 25, 2020
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At just over USD1000 this is expensive, but is it good? I need something super stable that can handle lots of family devices and has a good range. Wi-Fi 6 sounds good to me, but is it?
 
Buy it and come back and tell us. :) This must be a commercial AP you can get wifi6 stuff for less money.

Key though is unless you have wifi6 end devices it will just drop back to 802.11ac.

The main advantages Wifi 6 is suppose to have is it is faster because it uses twice the radio bandwidth and it does a better job of sharing the bandwidth between devices.

This stuff is so new there is not a lot of feedback from end consumers. You see reviews but some of this is suspect because these sites tend to hype up any new tech. They likely don't get product to review if they are too negative.

I suspect it will be a lot faster but nowhere near actually getting gigabit speed on wifi. How well it shares will likely be affected by having a mix of devices. Part of the feature is in the client from what I have seen so until all the clients are wifi6 we may not know.

Since the largest issue is interference from neighbors now days and that can't really be fixed it will interesting to see where this goes.

For range it can't go any farther since it is still limited power by the government limits that were set back in 802.11b. This assume you do use the standard DB signal levels. When you start mixing speed and signal levels as a rating you are comparing apples and oranges.
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
At just over USD1000 this is expensive, but is it good? I need something super stable that can handle lots of family devices and has a good range. Wi-Fi 6 sounds good to me, but is it?
For $1000 you can buy many high quality "regular" APs. That will provide far more connectivity and coverage than any single "super" WIFI source.
If you want capacity buy several quality access points and geographically distribute them. Use a single SSID/password. Carefully tailor the power output from each AP to not overlap too much and to bias devices to the 5Ghz band. Manually choose the channels to minimize interference among your APs. That is what provides quality stable WIFI.
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
I already had top of the range Amped and Asus 5 years ago. I need about 5 APs and prepared to spend around US$1000 per router. Are there other good choices?
I have no idea. That is out of my price range. If you haven't looked at it, I would recommend looking at Ubiquiti UniFI. APs are about $200 each. I wouldn't recommend more than 30 devices per AP in most situations.
Do you have 10GE wired infrastructure for these APs?
 
If you actually have that kind of money to spend call up a cisco partner and have them come out and design something for you. Many of their 802.11ax device are well under $1000 and these prices include the cost of having the sales guys commission so you might as use it since you pay for even if you buy in the grey market.
 
Mar 25, 2020
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If you actually have that kind of money to spend call up a cisco partner and have them come out and design something for you. Many of their 802.11ax device are well under $1000 and these prices include the cost of having the sales guys commission so you might as use it since you pay for even if you buy in the grey market.
Can't do this as I live overseas. My CISCO small business router and 24 port switch have been good as gold and these are the two things I want to keep. Will take a look at their AP range.
 
Mar 25, 2020
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Plus having thought more on this I really want an AP than also has some Ethernet out sockets (i.e. they have a built in switch). Can't seem to find a list of good ones online. Thanks for any suggestions.
 
Plus having thought more on this I really want an AP than also has some Ethernet out sockets (i.e. they have a built in switch). Can't seem to find a list of good ones online. Thanks for any suggestions.
If you were to go down the Ruckus route the R500 APs have a secondary ethernet port on the rear, these can be vlan tagged> The ZD will allow full roaming between APs, Band steering and load balancing (between APs). I believe the ZD1100 or 1200 are still quite cheap to pick up and come bundles with a minimum 6 AP license.
 
Mar 25, 2020
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If you were to go down the Ruckus route the R500 APs have a secondary ethernet port on the rear, these can be vlan tagged> The ZD will allow full roaming between APs, Band steering and load balancing (between APs). I believe the ZD1100 or 1200 are still quite cheap to pick up and come bundles with a minimum 6 AP license.

Nigel it sounds like my once adequate knowledge of home networking is hopelessly out of date and this is extremely helpful info for me. Thank you very much.

A really stupid question if I may - if I go the Ruckus Zone director and Ruckus APs, can I still keep my existing Cisco small business router? And can the zone director be connected to any of the ethernet ports on my 24 port Ethernet switch? Many thanks, Peter
 
Nigel it sounds like my once adequate knowledge of home networking is hopelessly out of date and this is extremely helpful info for me. Thank you very much.

A really stupid question if I may - if I go the Ruckus Zone director and Ruckus APs, can I still keep my existing Cisco small business router? And can the zone director be connected to any of the ethernet ports on my 24 port Ethernet switch? Many thanks, Peter
Yes to the router, The ZD just requires a connection on your LAN (Switch port), it has a default IP for the config pages, once up and running just connect the APs (PoE from a switch is easier) and adopt them on the control, they will automatically update their own firmware.
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
If you were to go down the Ruckus route the R500 APs have a secondary ethernet port on the rear, these can be vlan tagged> The ZD will allow full roaming between APs, Band steering and load balancing (between APs). I believe the ZD1100 or 1200 are still quite cheap to pick up and come bundles with a minimum 6 AP license.
Maybe buying used end-of-life equipment is acceptable. But you can't usually buy the subscription required to update the ZD1100. You have to have a Ruckus login just to SEE the EOL notice. I dislike a company that requires a login to see basic info like EOL dates.
 
Mar 25, 2020
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Yes to the router, The ZD just requires a connection on your LAN (Switch port), it has a default IP for the config pages, once up and running just connect the APs (PoE from a switch is easier) and adopt them on the control, they will automatically update their own firmware.
Thanks again - all very helpful. I have a 24 port Cisco small business switch in my basement with long Cat 6 cabling runs to Ethernet sockets around my 3 level house, plus a Cat 6 running to an external building. This won't support POE. I don't want to bother with PoE injectors and so will all of this set up work without PoE? Not an expert on PoE but I don't think I can just replace my switch with a PoE switch in this situation.
 
Thanks again - all very helpful. I have a 24 port Cisco small business switch in my basement with long Cat 6 cabling runs to Ethernet sockets around my 3 level house, plus a Cat 6 running to an external building. This won't support POE. I don't want to bother with PoE injectors and so will all of this set up work without PoE? Not an expert on PoE but I don't think I can just replace my switch with a PoE switch in this situation.
You will require either PoE ports on your switch, PoE injectors or AC adapters for each AP, they will need power from somewhere!! How many Aps do you think you need?
 
Maybe buying used end-of-life equipment is acceptable. But you can't usually buy the subscription required to update the ZD1100. You have to have a Ruckus login just to SEE the EOL notice. I dislike a company that requires a login to see basic info like EOL dates.
The login required for the firmware is just a case of signing up. The only reason these are considered EOL is because they want you to move to their managed smart zone cloud director instead of stand alone local appliance.
 
Mar 25, 2020
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You will require either PoE ports on your switch, PoE injectors or AC adapters for each AP, they will need power from somewhere!! How many Aps do you think you need?
AC adapter is no problem and this is what I use now. All my APs currently have regular ethernet plus AC power. Probably around 5 APs with possibly 1 or 2 outdoors repeaters (I like the Orbi ones) so I can reach faraway IP cams.
 
Mar 25, 2020
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Hi there. Have been further researching Ruckus and have decided to get the ZD 1200 which comes with 5AP licences For around USD500. The issue that concerns me is that my network has a Router feeding into a 24 way switch which feeds into 24 Ethernet ports Scattered around the house, connected to internet TV, Sonos, various PCs and Macs, network printers, etc. Only 4 or 5 of these Ethernet ports will connect through to APs. Will the ZD still be able to balance my network as I will have 4 To 5 APs plus a bunch of other wired devices effectively wired direct from my router? I only intend to get the 5 licence version of this as I don’t want annual fees. Also, if one of the APs connects through to a repeater, would this be a problem for the ZD? Sorry if basic questions but I have not used a ZD before. Really appreciating all of this help.

After installing the ZD I will switch out all of my APs one by one to Ruckus ones.

Thanks, Peter