Wifi bridge between two floors

[AxSD]

I’m looking to connect a top floor to a bottom floor. One router will be placed on the floor of the top story, and the other router will be placed on the ceiling of the bottom floor, separated by about 2 feet of concrete.

I’m thinking about using either two Asus RT-AC87U (AC2400), or two Netgear Nighthawk X6 (AC3200), but given my situation, please let me know which is the better option.


Facts for consideration:

• Asus AC87U - single 5ghz band, 4x4
• Netgear X6 - two 5ghz band, each 3x3

Now according to this awesome review/comparison, two Asus AC87U blows everything out of the water, however near the end of the review, two bridge Netgear X6 came out on top, possible due to two separate 5ghz band, even though each operates at 3x3.

For my situation, would I be able to take advantage of the two 5ghz band simultaneously as a bridge using Netgear X6, or would I be better off with the faster single 4x4 from the AC87U?

 

[smitbret]

I would guess the single, faster band would be better for bridging. Can the NetGear actually combine the 2 slower streams into a larger, usable pool or would you have to divide the bandwidth up between devices? One advantage of the NetGear might be that if you are connecting wirelessly on the transmitting device with another device, it won't eat all of the available bandwidth and bring the bridge to a crawl since one stream should be completely unused.

How much speed do you need? I bridged 2 TP-Link Archer C7s between floors a couple of years ago with great success. Check my review on Amazon and see if you might not be able to live with 1/2 a Gigabit for less than $200 total investment.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1OD0A...&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=541966&store=pc

 

[AxSD]

smitbret, thanks for the reply, and great review on Amazon.

That TP-Link C7 looks like a great and popular router, but it's a 3x3 stream on the 5ghz band. At that point, I'd rather go with the Nighthawk X6 which also uses 3x3 but has two 5ghz band. Although, I'm not 100% if both 5ghz band would actually be used when the routers are in bridge mode, hence one of the reason of this thread (to ask if the two 5ghz band can be used simultaneously).

I'd also like to point out that this router setup will ONLY be used as a bridge, and it won't be broadcasting any signals out. So if two 5ghz bands won't be beneficial, then I would go with the single 4x4 5ghz from the Asus RT-AC87U.

On other reason I'm leaning towards the Asus AC87U is that I can flash it with dd-wrt firmware, which will enable me to increase antenna gain.

 

[smitbret]

smitbret

I'd also like to point out that this router setup will ONLY be used as a bridge, and it won't be broadcasting any signals out. So if two 5ghz bands won't be beneficial, then I would go with the single 4x4 5ghz from the Asus RT-AC87U.

If neither device is going to be acting as an Access Point then raw speed between the two is all that would matter, regardless of whether it's a multiple-band link or a larger single band. It's really not much different than hoses or pipes where Gallons/minute from point A to point B can come from 1 large hose or 2 smaller hoses. The only difference would be that with a 2 hose setup I can still pull one hose out of Point B and fill up point C at the same time without completely stopping the flow to Point B.

 

[azazel1024]

If only as a bridge, get the Asus AC87 then. If concurrent bridge/access point duties, get the X6. If you are looking for the cheapest option that will still work really, really well, get the Archer C7. It'll be as fast as the X6, maybe faster (3:3 still and the C7 is just about the FASTEST 3:3 router out there).

The AC87 is the one that is most likely to give you the closest to actual 1Gbps speeds on the wireless link, but I'd expect that the C7 or X6 are probably going to be fairly close.

Depends HEAVILY on how far you are talking.

You cannot bridge both 5GHz bands to the same routers at the same time. You'll only be able to bridge a single band.

How top floor and how bottom floor are you talking? Also likely you'll get better performance if the router is not physically sitting on the floor, but play with it. When antennas are close to a physical object it can setup destructive reflections and feedback. You generally want antennas about half a wave length away or more, if you can help it. That means around 1.5" for 5GHz and around 3" for 2.4GHz. Position it so that the antennas are perpendicular to the location of the other router.

So if they are sitting DIRECTLY over each other, you'd lay the antennas straight out flat. If one was on the other side of the house and above the other one, you'd cant them back at an angle.

If you are only talking going from a basement to a 2nd floor and can locate the routers more or less over each other (each router is within the room that is over the other one, preferably without any walls in the rooms below in the way) 5GHz will likely work out really well.

If you are talking more than 2 floors of difference, or you are talking about a fair amount of horizontal difference too, 5GHz is going to give you very diminishing returns.

A 3:3 5GHz bridge for my 11ac bridge to my 11ac router can manage just about 900mbps if they are both in the same room. 1 floor up and around 35ft away (3 walls) that performance drops to around 380-400Mbps. By comparison 2.4GHz 40MHz I can squeeze about 250Mbps through the link at that distance. One room further away and 5GHz is down to 140Mbps and 2.4GHz 40MHz can manage 156Mbps. One room further than that (only about 18ft further away than the 380-400Mbps 5GHz performance spot) 5GHz is down to 0-30Mbps, it is a very unstable link. 2.4GHz is running along at about 50Mbps and rock solid.

This is with 5dBi antennas on both the bridge and the router.