I've recently decided to take advantage of the new wifi-qcom-ac package and upgrade my home network (consisting of two hAP ac^2s and one Audience) from RouterOS 6.49.10 to RouterOS 7.13, since they're all ARM devices. I was running CAPsMAN before, and after some fumblings with new configuration options, I seem to have all but restored my old CAPsMAN configuration in the new CAPsMAN configuration menu. However, there are two things that are still unclear to me, and I can't seem to find documentation, or any sort of reliable information on these issues.
1. What is going on with the bands? First of all, when you open the WiFi > Channel menu and go to add a channel, there's a 'band' option, which lists not frequency bands, but wifi standards, such as 2GHz G, 2GHz N, 5GHz AC, etc., but that, I suppose, is a carry-over from RouterOS 6.
What is not a carry-over from RouterOS 6, however, is how limited those options seem to be. There is no '2GHz B/G/N' option. Not even a G/N one. You can choose only G, N or AX for 2GHz. And it wouldn't be confusing at all if you could select multiple. But you can't.
Some little experimenting shows that: (1) if you select AX and assign the channel to a non-AX-capable interface, it will not start, saying "no supported channels", (2) if you select, say, 2GHz N and assign it to a 2GHz interface, it will start and say "Channel: 24..../n" in the Status tab and (3) if you instead select 2GHz G, it will start and say "Channel: 24..../g". There's also such a "band" as '5GHz A/N'. If you select it while also setting channel width to either '20MHz' or '20/40MHz', the Status tab will show "Channel: 5....../n[/....]". Furthermore, if you log into a different router running 6.49.10 for a minute, you'll see that an active 2GHz interface with the band set to '2GHz-B/G/N' and channel width set to 20MHz will show "Channel: 24..../20/gn(....dBm)" in the Status tab. A 5GHz interface will then show "Channel: 5....../20/ac(....dBm)" in the Status tab in A/N/AC mode and "Channel: 5....../20/an(....dBm)" in A/N mode.
So, my question is, does wifi-qcom-ac support 2GHz G/N operation mode, and how can I set it to operate in it, and be sure that it is really operating it? Similarly, does it support A/N/AC? I want my WiFi network to be backwards-compatible with all this stuff. And how do bands work in RouterOS 7, anyway?
2. Where is the rate configuration? In RouterOS 6.49, there was an option in CAPsMAN to configure basic and supported rates, so that the AP wouldn't be trying to send a beacon and 802.11b 1Mbps basic rate. This is obviously a non-issue if ROS 7 doesn't even support 802.11b in the first place, but if it somehow does (again, I'm not sure what the bands mean nowadays), how can I make sure that the AP doesn't decide to use 802.11b basic rates?
(on the screenshot are rate configuration options from CAPsMAN on RouterOS 6.49.10)
P.S. On the subject of deep 802.11 configuration options, props to MikroTik for finally adding DTIM and beacon interval configuration options.
P.P.S. I'm asking all of this because neither the absence of 2GHz-B/G/N, 2GHz-G/N and 5GHz-A/N/AC modes nor the absence of rate configuration, which, from my point of view, are pretty important features, aren't mentioned in the 'Cons' section of wifi-qcom-ac package in the docs. Could it be that my package is just somehow borked?
1. What is going on with the bands? First of all, when you open the WiFi > Channel menu and go to add a channel, there's a 'band' option, which lists not frequency bands, but wifi standards, such as 2GHz G, 2GHz N, 5GHz AC, etc., but that, I suppose, is a carry-over from RouterOS 6.
What is not a carry-over from RouterOS 6, however, is how limited those options seem to be. There is no '2GHz B/G/N' option. Not even a G/N one. You can choose only G, N or AX for 2GHz. And it wouldn't be confusing at all if you could select multiple. But you can't.
Some little experimenting shows that: (1) if you select AX and assign the channel to a non-AX-capable interface, it will not start, saying "no supported channels", (2) if you select, say, 2GHz N and assign it to a 2GHz interface, it will start and say "Channel: 24..../n" in the Status tab and (3) if you instead select 2GHz G, it will start and say "Channel: 24..../g". There's also such a "band" as '5GHz A/N'. If you select it while also setting channel width to either '20MHz' or '20/40MHz', the Status tab will show "Channel: 5....../n[/....]". Furthermore, if you log into a different router running 6.49.10 for a minute, you'll see that an active 2GHz interface with the band set to '2GHz-B/G/N' and channel width set to 20MHz will show "Channel: 24..../20/gn(....dBm)" in the Status tab. A 5GHz interface will then show "Channel: 5....../20/ac(....dBm)" in the Status tab in A/N/AC mode and "Channel: 5....../20/an(....dBm)" in A/N mode.
So, my question is, does wifi-qcom-ac support 2GHz G/N operation mode, and how can I set it to operate in it, and be sure that it is really operating it? Similarly, does it support A/N/AC? I want my WiFi network to be backwards-compatible with all this stuff. And how do bands work in RouterOS 7, anyway?
2. Where is the rate configuration? In RouterOS 6.49, there was an option in CAPsMAN to configure basic and supported rates, so that the AP wouldn't be trying to send a beacon and 802.11b 1Mbps basic rate. This is obviously a non-issue if ROS 7 doesn't even support 802.11b in the first place, but if it somehow does (again, I'm not sure what the bands mean nowadays), how can I make sure that the AP doesn't decide to use 802.11b basic rates?
(on the screenshot are rate configuration options from CAPsMAN on RouterOS 6.49.10)
P.S. On the subject of deep 802.11 configuration options, props to MikroTik for finally adding DTIM and beacon interval configuration options.
P.P.S. I'm asking all of this because neither the absence of 2GHz-B/G/N, 2GHz-G/N and 5GHz-A/N/AC modes nor the absence of rate configuration, which, from my point of view, are pretty important features, aren't mentioned in the 'Cons' section of wifi-qcom-ac package in the docs. Could it be that my package is just somehow borked?
Statistics: Posted by Nullcaller — Sat Jan 06, 2024 5:21 pm