Range of R300 vs R500?

[patrick_kelecy]

I have an R300 AP (which has worked well) but would like a little more range.  Would an R500 provide that?  Thanks!

[john_d]

I agree that in theory, it shouldn't be a big improvement, but anecdotally I've noticed a pretty big difference even at far distances when I've replaced N equipment with AC. I recently replaced an 802.11n 7782 with a T300. At far distances, the 7782 was delivering 70-80mbit to a 2-stream device, which is well below 802.11n's capabilities. I thought replacing that with a T300 wouldn't do much good since T300's main advantages were 256QAM and 80MHz channels, and neither of those should make a big difference.... But now I'm seeing 130-140mbit at the same distance.


BTW, note that Ruckus AP's are pretty smart about picking AP -> client TX rates. All rates and widths are considered. At far distances you'll see the AP automatically pick a 40MHz or 20MHz MCS rate over the 80MHz one. If you dump the support data and look at the Beamflex debug data, you can see that MCS/width candidates in addition to beamflex antenna pattern candidates are all ranked together.

[tuananh_nguyen_]

I saw the same impreovement when we installed a T301 vs the older N model. I was getting 250mbit at about 300ft on my Surface Pro3, pretty impressive. Oddly, I could never see more than 3/5 bars of signal no matter how close I was.

[tuananh_nguyen_]

Ipad Air 2 is dual beam AC capable of 866, a perfect match for R310/R500 and up.