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[meritez]

https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-be550/

[Alex Atkin UK]

They hid a little secret right at the bottom of the page.  Due it being a "pre-ratification" product:

**This router may not support all the mandatory features as ratified in the IEEE 802.11be specification.

Rumours were WiFi 7 was coming 2024, this seems to have been pulled back to early 2023 but I take anything with a pinch of salt as WiFi 6E seemed to take WAY longer than planned.  In fact, I can't find confirmation of when WiFi 6e was ratified.  Too many sites confusing FCC certification, WiFi CERTIFIED, or the proposal for what WiFi 6e specifications with ratification, when they are completely different things.  Ratification is when they confirm the FINAL specs, set in stone, so that compatibility and functionality between vendors can be guaranteed.

Its good to see routers moving to all 2.5Gbit ports though.

[meritez]

Heard most manufacturers are skipping 6e and going straight to 7.

[Chrysalis]

Which client devices are keeping up?

Now I have gigabit internet I looked into upgrading my Archer C7 which is cpu bottlenecked on wifi,  However even moderately improved AP's are a considerable price bump which explains why C7 still gets recommended.  My only wifi client that supports WPA3 and AX is my phone.

I might overclock my C7 as is instructions for it on openwrt and also revert to the non ct driver which itself adds about 50mbit throughput.

[meritez]

The BE550 is $699.99

[Chrysalis]

Steam deck, another client device that isnt even wifi 6.  Its faster than other AC devices at least though.

[Alex Atkin UK]

The Archer C7 was hugely bottlenecked when I was using it (not overclocked).  Its what pushed me to get the Unifi nanoHD (which honestly wasn't much better) then move on to the Zyxel NWA210AX which has been the most reliable my WiFi has ever been.

Apart from Steam Deck being really slow to reconnect when waking up, or sometimes fails to entirely, I've been impressed with it.

Seeing a download coming off to a portable over WiFi at 80MB/s is not something I ever imagined, especially as I've had WiFi since 802.11b which barely worked.

I will be waiting for enterprise APs to come out for WiFi 7, possibly not Zyxel as I'm kinda annoyed they don't expose the client link rates over SNMP and fobbed me off when I complained about it.  Though it might be a problem with them all as they're pushing so hard to get a cloud-management subscription for that juicy monthly fee for doing nothing, its utterly moronic.

[Chrysalis]

What client devices you got for wifi 7 Alex?

Xbox Series no support for WPA3, Wifi 5.
Steam Deck works with WPA3 and Wifi 5, but is much faster than Xbox Series S, maxed seen 700mbps but seems to mostly hit about 500mbps.
PS5 works with WPA3 and Wifi 6, have seen this hit around 800mbps, and is usually at least 700.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Most of my devices are wired, WiFi 7 is definitely not something I will need any time soon, but a nice to have at some point.