topic Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750 in SmartZone and Virtual SmartZone

Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

john_d — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 22:49:22 GMT

The SZ 5.2 Release Notes seem to indicate that there is now a significant feature gap between R730 and R750. Is this temporary or will R730 never support OFDMA, DL/UL-MU MIMO, And TxBf?

This has started getting a bit confusing since the R730 data sheet has listed those features for over a year now but to date no AP firmware has been made available supporting it.

Thanks in advance -- I'm just a bit worried as a user who decided to go for the R730 assuming it was the more capable AP.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

hayward_kong — Wed, 29 Jan 2020 20:51:40 GMT

I don’t know, but since the development of the r700 and how they left out unleashed support for it and how they based the r700 antenna design on the 7982. The r600 out performs the r700 with the newer antenna design. In fact, they did not enough put ram or maybe flash to support unleashed on the r700 because they did not anticipate needing it for future projects which is very short sighted on the engineer design team. Therefore, I felt very leery in buying the r730 until they announced unleashed for it. So I never bought the r730. Seems ruckus is more committed to the r750 and r650 since it has finalized chipsets that are WiFi 6. R730 is a draft one. At least it seems to me the r730 was a development that was marketed to say ruckus has a 802.11ax ap too when Cisco has one out too based on draft specs. More like bragging rights. Or at least that’s how I feel. I know there are other r730 owners out there who are using it in standalone mode who felt abandon by ruckus for not supporting unleashed on it.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

alex_shalima — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 16:23:12 GMT

Hi John,

We just deployed R730s at a hotel.

I strongly encourage you to signal test with a WAP in the field in the EXACT setting the WAPs will be deployed. We ran into huge issues with this model of WAP under-performing in crowded setting like hotel rooms. It does not in any way compare to previous models of this series (R700 and R710).

Long and short of it, this WAP is designed for open space type deployments ONLY - ballrooms, convention space venues, open floor offices, stadiums.

We do have a client that uses the same WAP in open floor office and it has been working great for over 6 months now.

Another piece of advice, mount it on the ceiling and don't let anyone to talk you into anything else.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Alex

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

timothy_kamps — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 15:18:36 GMT

I have an education customer that replaced R700s and R710s with the R730 and have had all sorts of performance and rebooting issues compared to the previous R710s.

Other sites with the R720 have been fine.

Think I will stick with and recommending the R650 and R750 going forward.

Tim

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

hayward_kong — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 21:55:38 GMT

Hey John,

It really doesn’t look good for the r730 certification. Meraki just released the MR46/56 and there’s this discussion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/meraki/comments/f5j3km/meraki_have_released_new_mr36mr46_and_mr56_whats/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

john_d — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 22:04:51 GMT

I agree. It really looks like you need IPQ8074v2 to be OFDMA capable, and maybe Qualcomm is the one who screwed over early adopters here but it's not looking good for IPQ8074v1 to get more than 1024QAM.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

david_black_594 — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 22:19:52 GMT

We've been a Ruckus partner for 12 years and we still say that with the exception of the R730, Ruckus APs always have been and still are the absolute best that money can buy. We were on the beta eval team in early 2018 and knew by the summer that the R730 would never have WFA certification because of the Qualcomm chipset. We've never sold it and never will. If you want 11ax, the R750 or R650 is the way to go.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

hayward_kong — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 22:35:18 GMT

Yeah I agree ruckus is the way to go ... eventually will get a r650

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

hayward_kong — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 22:36:58 GMT

I just brought up meraki since they used the same chipsets as ruckus...

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

john_d — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 22:38:25 GMT

I hope Ruckus won’t take this the wrong way. I am a huge fan of Ruckus and have bought $10k+ of Ruckus hardware for my personal home alone.

I think the most unfortunate thing about the R730 is that even today the data sheet for it talks about OFDMA, TWT, MU-MIMO, TxBf, 160MHz and other features that are still not available over a year after its release date. There’s no asterisk or coming soon, etc. it talks about these features as if they exist.

I find this to be borderline misleading to customers. Competitors using this Qualcomm chipset correctly messaged from initial launch that it will never do UL-OFDMA or BSS coloring or 160MHz.

The silence is not a good thing here. I would rather have known what will and will not be supported. That might have changed my decision to get two R730s vs say waiting for a R750 or T750.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

john_d — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 22:39:25 GMT

Ditto. I love Ruckus but there's a lot of similarity with the MR55 vs MR56 situation.

To be clear, the MR56 has 12 metal flaps as antennae. The Ruckus antenna array is absolutely superior.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

hyosang_choi — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 06:51:28 GMT

That's seriously.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

michael_mogren — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 17:15:20 GMT

Extremely disappointed to learn this. Attended a Ruckus webinar about WiFi 6 just yesterday where they said OFDMA was the most important feature of WiFi 6. R730 is extremely expensive, what are we paying for, exactly?

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

michael_mogren — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 03:28:23 GMT

Will this ever be remedied? If not, we should be able to swap R730 for R750 free of charge, and the R730 should stop being sold.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

john_d — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 16:49:19 GMT

Not looking good. The R850 is now out as a replacement to the R730. In SmartZone 5.2.1 and ZD 10.4.1 that just came out, R730 is still behind the R750 and R850 I’m supported features.

Re: Missing 802.11ax features on R730 compared to R750

ronald_zia — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 06:38:10 GMT

Ruckus has abandoned R730. They knew R730 is going to be a flop when they decided not to release unleash firmware for it.