450 SM modulation

Yes Nathan, I will agree with Rylan... that's about the healthiest link you can have.

Unfortunately, the way the modulation breakdown is reported is a bit confusing. When a fragment is received in 256-QAM modulation, it is also counted in the lower modulations. This has to do with how OFDM technology works, and the constellation diagram of the OFDM signal.

To give a few examples, a perfect 8x link (i.e. a link that is able to achieve and maintain 256-QAM modulation) will report:

256-QAM: 25%

64-QAM: 25%

16-QAM: 25%

QPSK: 25% 

just as you describe.

A link that cannot achieve 8x, but is a solid 6x link will show:

256-QAM: <1%

64-QAM: 33%

16-QAM: 33%

QPSK: 33%

In real world deployments, it would be common to see something like:

256-QAM: <1%

64-QAM: 14%

16-QAM: 42%

QPSK: 44%

which would indicate that the majority of the time, this link transmits at 4X (16-QAM), but sometimes is able to maintain 6X modulation... hope this explanation helps.

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