Apple Expected to Adopt 802.11ac 5G Gigabit Wi-Fi This Year

[wlevin]

I was at the Grand Central Apple Store on 1/18/2012 and there were plenty of Time Capsule 3TB boxes on the shelves. When I returned to buy one on 1/23/2012, they were all gone. Not only that, but I called the other four Apple Retail Stores in Manhattan, and they also had no Time Capsules, 2TB or 3TB, in stock. The White Plains Apple Store was also out of stock of all Time Capsules. COINCIDENCE?

[mitup]

Originally Posted by wlevin

I was at the Grand Central Apple Store on 1/18/2012 and there were plenty of Time Capsule 3TB boxes on the shelves. When I returned to buy one on 1/23/2012, they were all gone. Not only that, but I called the other four Apple Retail Stores in Manhattan, and they also had no Time Capsules, 2TB or 3TB, in stock. The White Plains Apple Store was also out of stock of all Time Capsules. COINCIDENCE?

As long as the AEBS wasn't sold out as well I'd wager it was more due to the HDD shortage.

[Woodcrest64]

Originally Posted by OriginalMacRat

Waiting for 10Gbs ethernet myself.

1Gbs ethernet is getting a little slow for moving media over a LAN.

I was thinking the same thing! As much as I like the convenience of Wi-Fi I do prefer Ethernet for reliability and speed. I would like to see 10Gbit Ethernet at the consumer level but I don't think we will ever see it.

[xtacyboy]

Originally Posted by iEric

Perfect! Can't wait -- My TC broke 4 months ago!

Can I have it?

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by potatis

OffTopic: Is 10 gigabit ethernet as fast as Thunderbolt? If so, why is it not more common for file transfers?

Thunderbolt is not a networking or storage protocol - it's the PCIe bus extended outside the box. It cannot be used for file transfers unless you add networking or storage adaptors to your T-Bolt chain.

In particular, T-Bolt is part of a master-slave internal bus relationship, so you can't "transfer" to another system - only one CPU can connect to T-Bolt in normal operation. (Of course, "target disk mode" is not "normal operation" - it involves the BIOS running in a special mode to allow the target system to be a slave in the PCIe chain. Apple OSX is not running on the target.)

You could put a 10 GbE card in the T-Bolt expansion chassis - and for much more than the price of a MiniMac you'd have 10 GbE performance.

And as to "why is it not more common for file transfers?" - when you add up the price of 10 GbE cards and switches - the cost per port is about the same as the cheapest MacBook. Few people can see the return on investment for buying a $1000 network adaptor for their $1000 system.

[twoodcc]

now this would be great for my home network, as i stream video all the time. but will i have to replace my tc and airport extreme?

[Concorde Rules]

Originally Posted by OriginalMacRat

Waiting for 10Gbs ethernet myself.

1Gbs ethernet is getting a little slow for moving media over a LAN.

I've written to a disk over LAN at around 115MB/sec.

10 Gigabit won't really help push that much faster.

Plus the fact once your past a certain point of a disks capacity your below 115MB/sec so is gigabit *really* slowing you down?

The WD30EZRS max transfer rate is 120MB/sec!

I doubt it...

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by Concorde Rules

I've written to a disk over LAN at around 115MB/sec.

Typo Fix: 10 Gigabit won't really help push that much faster.

Plus the fact once your past a certain point of a disks capacity your below 115MB/sec so is gigabit *really* slowing you down?

The WD30EZRS max transfer rate is 120MB/sec!

I doubt it...

That sounds about right for peak performance from GbE with a good switch (some cheap switches can't run GbE at full throughput, and some not-so-cheap switches with internal firewalls and security (IPS, for example) also run more slowly).

Note that one needs to be careful to understand whether your tools are correctly reporting MB/sec or incorrectly reporting MiB/sec labeled as MB/sec.

Your tool sounds correct, since 115 MiB/sec would be 121 MB/sec which is really too close to the wire speed to be sustained.

[Concorde Rules]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

That sounds about right for peak performance from GbE with a good switch (some cheap switches can't run GbE at full throughput, and some not-so-cheap switches with internal firewalls and security (IPS, for example) also run more slowly).

Note that one needs to be careful to understand whether your tools are correctly reporting MB/sec or incorrectly reporting MiB/sec labeled as MB/sec.

Your tool sounds correct, since 115 MiB/sec would be 121 MB/sec which is really too close to the wire speed to be sustained.

Indeed, thanks. Corrected my post.

110-115 MB/sec, peak of 118MB/sec, if I remember correctly, reported by Activity Monitor so whatever that unit is in.

I will test again when I have an empty drive, but I need to find a 2TB WD Black for cheap from somewhere...

[Augure]

What about energy?

Wifi takes up lots of battery on laptops and smartphones.

What about 802.11ac compared to 802.11n ?

[iEric]

Originally Posted by xtacyboy

Can I have it?

Are you going to come get it?

[PeteyV]

I figured this would be a good thread to post my question about a TC. It still seems to be on backorder everywhere. I bought one on Amazon.com on January 27th and it has yet to ship.

Now this is a hypothetical question but if any of you guys were me would you cancel your amazon.com order (still possible) and wait for a possible refresh since it seems that TC's aren't available anywhere?

Theres one on eBay thats unopened but I've had a bad track record when buying on eBay and Im not sure if I want to take the plunge. Now me being a seller on eBay, thats a different story my customers must love me.

[BobbyLight]

Now that the new Apple TV and iPad have been introduced, is it safe to say that they only have 802.11n capability? In order to support 802.11ac they would need to have new hardware? This leads me to believe that it will still be a while before the new TC will support 802.11ac. I'm looking into buying one, but i'm not sure how long I want to wait for the upgrade.

[JAT]

Specs are already up to peruse easily. N is the best they have.

[bringel]

I for one, am extremely disappointed that APPLE did not incorporate the new 802.11 ac in ANY product they announced yesterday. Apple used to be a pioneer in this area but it appears they are shifting their focus away from computers and more toward the mobile side. Apple's only WiFi upgrade was a pathetic dual channel upgrade to the AEX. I usually migrate to newer technologies one piece at a time. I have absolutely no incentive to upgrade to their new MBP or the existing Airport Extreme/Time Capsule as neither of them support that newer 802.11 hardware. Yes, I realize that is not a formalized standard yet but that never stopped Apple in the past and there are at least two other manufacturers that have shipping routers today.

[nlr]

Hope it isn't early 2013 but late 2012

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by nlr

Hope it isn't early 2013 but late 2012

There is good chance that it will be 2013. I don't think Apple is going to bite on the version 1.0 "ac" chipsets. They'll likely wait for "1.1" or "2.0" something where the initial implementers take the arrows in the back and Apple can roll out something that is extremely solid.

The Airport routers have a very good reputation of "just working, no drama". Typically that comes from actually testing the product in a variety of environments and send/reciever pairings before deploying it.

Beside the Extreme was just updated in 2011. Updates have been along the lines of :

2007 (two: early and late )
2009 (two: early and late)
2011 (didn't have to come back with a tweak this time.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort...mparison_Chart

Looks like a two year primary design cycle. So likely 2013 (which makes sense. 'ac' should have somewhat matured at that point. )

Express

2004
2008
2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Express

Four year design cycle.

Time Capsule has been a bit of the odd-ball compared to the other two

2008
2009
2010
2011

I suspect though that Apple has managed to synchronized with the Extreme so that they will come in pairs ( new Extreme comes with new Time Capsule) since the same core platform in different cases. Or that the intermediate Time Capsule deltas only track changes in the HDD components; not the networking. Given the disruption in HDD supplies I doubt there is incentive to increment sizes this year. So 2013 is likely for it too.

Until Apple starts shipping Macs and iOS devices with "ac" in any quantity there isn't a big demand for the networking devices to follow. I'm sure there is one in the "lab" being worked on. Just doesn't seem likely it will appear in 2012.

Similarly, I'm not so sure that 'ac' is going to be highly effective in "home" deployments. There were several questions asked in the thread on whether 'ac' would decrease interference. It doesn't. In fact it cobbles even more of the spectrum than 'n' does. That's nice if there is plenty of "excess" spectrum to share (neighbors are many yards away) . It is not so nice if in a dense "hot spot" location ( the list of available networks on your client devices is relatively long)

How to place 4-7 of these in relatively close proximity of each other is actually a harder problem if going to interact with a range of 'g' , 'n', and 'ac' devices. Or even just 'n' and 'ac' devices. If the airports are going to try to "automagically" do that for you it is going take Apple time and testing to work through the permutations.

[SilianRail]

D-Link’s Cloud Router 5700 (DIR-865L) is Its First 802.11ac Device
By Maximum PC on July 21, 2012 in Wi-Fi

D-Link just dove into 802.11ac territory with the introduction of its new Cloud Router 5700 (DIR-865L). This dual-band device takes advantage of the upcoming 802.11ac standard currently under development, which makes this a draft 802.11ac router. D-Link advertises up to 1750Mbps of throughput, though that’s spread across two bands as 1300Mbps (Wireless-AC) and 450Mbps (Wireless-N).

http://www.technobuffalo.com/interne...2-11ac-device/

[swamyg1]

Does anybody think the rMBP will be upgradeable to 802.11ac?

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by swamyg1

Does anybody think the rMBP will be upgradeable to 802.11ac?

This is the wireless board from the rMBP :


The chip is a Broadcom BCM4331

The BCM4331 single-chip 802.11n dual-band 3x3 wireless solution enables Wi-Fi products to support 450 Mbps data rates and achieves over 600Mbps (TCP/IP) throughput in simultaneous AP/router configurations.

So no. It's a 450 Mbps capable 802.11n chip.

[Sgtarky]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

This is the wireless board from the rMBP :


The chip is a Broadcom BCM4331



So no. It's a 450 Mbps capable 802.11n chip.

why didnt they solder that in too? after all since they wouldnt leave the choice of replacing/upgrading ram or harddrive, even less people upgrade their wireless cards.

[joeshmoe2000]

skip this

[joeshmoe2000]

The specs on a Netgear A6200 router:

Standards
IEEE®
802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz
IEEE 802.11 a/n/ac 5.0 GH
System Requirements
Intel® Pentium® class PC
Available USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 slot
Microsoft® Windows® 7, XP, Vista® : (32/64-bit)

"So I see that my 802.11n will still be in the 5Ghz band. Nice because I was worried that my 802.11n would only be on the noisier 2.4Ghz band."
Sorry for the posting. -JoeShmoe2000

[Hyper-X]

Apple networking products... providing you mediocre performance with non-standard interfaces at nearly double the price.

It mentions Broadcom but I'm willing to bet they're only making the radio chips and not the CPU, which will likely be the same Marvell rubbish they currently use in their Airport Extreme and TC devices. At those WiFi speeds and knowing how Apple won't likely have any ext ant support, you'll be sacrificing a ton of range for speeds you won't likely get unless you're sitting right next to the device.

I'm also anticipating issues with its inability to switch or run multiple bands at the same time.

[spaceballl]

This didn't happen.