Tag Archives: 802.11ax

10 Gig SpeedTest server Intel Nuc

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Recently a client testing their 5G solution came to me asking for a solution to testing speed from their CBRS/5G/802.11ax clients.  One of the requirements was it had to support greater than 1 gig speedtests as close to the devices as possible. This particular client has a small cell device which has room for a small form factor PC. The challenge was finding a small PC that could handle a 10 gig port.

In steps my buddy John from Columbus.  John is up on hardware more than I am.  After some talks, we settled on the following two pieces of hardware.

https://www.amazon.com/NUC8i7BEH-Quad-Core-i7-8559U-Bluetooth-Thunderbolt/dp/B07JJPF8MV/

https://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Technologies-Thunderbolt-10GBASE-T-SOLO10G-TB3/dp/B07BZRK8R8/

Intel Nuc, Sonnet 10 Gig adaptor, Mikrotik HexS

Once we assembled this we need a router for the Internet and DHCP. We chose a RouterBoard hexS
https://www.ispsupplies.com/MikroTik-RouterBOARD-RB760iGS

As a not both of these will run off DC power.  The Nuc comes with a 19Volt power supply so if you are running Pure DC you may want to drop from, say a 24volt battery bank to 19 volt with a Meanwell converter.

The Software
Proxmox was installed on the Nuc.  Nothing crazy about this. Just make sure the thunderbolt adaptor is plugged in during install.  For our purposes, we are just using the 10 gig adaptor.  Proxmox recognizes the adaptor without a hiccup.

In some earlier blog posts I wrote about the self-hosted speedtests.
https://blog.j2sw.com/networking/self-hosted-speed-test/
https://blog.j2sw.com/xisp/self-hosted-speedtest/ (Patreon Subscription Required)

I installed the self-hosted speedtest under a Centos Minimal Install. Everything was put on a 172.16.x.x network.  This was done in order to prevent any conflicts with various types of Internet the Mikrotik may be plugged into.  By default, port 1 is set up to be a DHCP client.  In our setup, the Internet is the bottleneck, but we are not testing the Internet.  We are testing clients on the 5g/CBRS/802.11ax network. Our 10 gig port on the nuc will be plugged into a 10 gig switch at the small cell, and not into our routerboard.  The routerboard is just there to hand out DHCP and allow Internet access, if available.

 

 

 

 

What is wifi6?

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Many of you may have been hearing about “Wifi6”.  Well what is it exactly? Wifi6 is a standard based on the support of 802.11ax.  So what is 802.11ax?

802.11ax is designed to operate from 1 to 7GHZ.  This means it can be used in 3GHZ as well as the possible upcoming rule changes to the 6ghz space. 802.11ax supports 1024-QAM modulation, which means higher throughput is achievable. As with many new standards, other new protocols come along with this.  WPA3’s biggest selling point is what is called forward secrecy.  We will talk about that in an upcoming post.

Look for 2.4GHZ to make a small comeback. Over the past few years 2.4ghz has become congested and many router manufacturers have pushed 5GHZ as the primary access method on home routers.  Devices like Apple iPhones will prefer 5GHZ over 2.4 due to the higher data rates with 802.11ac which operates in the 5GHZ band. With AX we will see the 2.4GHZ band being utilized in various ways. Chip makers such as Qualcomm have chips which can offer multiple streams across multiple bands at the same time.

Some other features which AX will be superior to AC in are:
–Spatial Frequency Reuse.  A term called “coloring” is introduced.  Coloring allows the network to identify internal vs external transmissions. This allows neighboring devices to decide if they can transmit and if they need to adjust power to reliably do it.

–Network Allocation Vector (NAV) – This is a WIMAX mechanism being applied to ax.  It is a carrier sensing mechanism designed to avoid collisions with both external and internal networks.

–Target Wake Time – This allows better use of beaconing and allows the stations to utilize air time better.

These are just a few of the new things upcoming in wifi6.  If you want to read a vendor-neutral paper on this here is a good link: http://www.ni.com/en-us/innovations/white-papers/16/introduction-to-802-11ax-high-efficiency-wireless.html

As we see more and more manufacturers introduce wifi6 devices we will see devices referred to in 3 categories

  • Wi-Fi 6 to identify devices that support 802.11ax technology
  • Wi-Fi 5 to identify devices that support 802.11ac technology
  • Wi-Fi 4 to identify devices that support 802.11n technology

Look for some more upcoming posts on the new features of wifi6.