XV2-2 Two Radio Dual Band Indoor Wi-Fi 6 AP Unboxing and Test!

Hello folks, today I had the opportunity to play around with Cambium’s new XV2-2 dual radio/dual band indoor Wi-Fi 6 (aka 802.11ax) access point. I had an E600 on hand that I compared it with, along with two high end WiFi cards, the Intel Wireless-AC 1550 Wireless Network Adapter (9260NGW), and the Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW). The newest firmware was used for both the Cambium AP’s and the Intel network cards.

So let’s get started, first check out the unboxing video:

I do have to mention again, I am really impressed with the build quality of this unit. It’s SOLID, looks good, is unobtrusive, and can be placed to blend in anywhere. While it doesn’t come with a PoE, I think most operators that will be deploying this will be using it in concert with an enterprise PoE switch.

Next up, I ran some simple tests using iperf. To make things as even as possible, I used the same locations for both the AP and client. I used the same channel and settings on the AP’s and on the client. Each test was performed one at a time (both AP’s were NOT on at the same time).

First up we have Cambuim’s E600, which is a 4x4 802.11ac wave2 AP, tested with an Intel AC 1550 network adapter.

As you can see we have an OTA rate of 866.7mbps and a net data rate of 366mbps.

Next up we have Cambium’s XV2-2 being tested with an Intel AC 1550 network adapter.

Even though testing is with an AC adapter, there’s an approx. 15% increase in performance by just upgrading to the XV2-2 WiFi 6 AP.

Now let see what happens when we upgrade our client WiFi adapter to an WiFi 6/AX model. The Intel AX1650x. Let’s put the E600 back in place and see if we have any performance gains.

As you can see, the E600 paired with the Intel WiFi 6/AX card shows a very small, but still noticeable and reproducible increase in performance.

Lastly, lets take a look at the ideal combo… the XV2-2 WiFI 6/AX AP paired with the Intel WiFi 6/AX network card.

First off, we notice that unlike the other 3 prior tests, the OTA data rate is higher, fluctuating between 1 and 1.2gbps. This shows us that this combo is achieving higher spectral efficiency using the same 80MHz channel as the prior tests. We also notice that the net throughput is higher, and for the first time regularly hitting over 500mbps. This shows an approx. 22% increase in performance over the strictly AC AP/client combo.

This concludes my basic testing but a few things are clear:

  • Operators that upgrade legacy AP’s to WiFi 6/AX will see appreciable gains in performance, even with legacy clients.

  • The highest gains are to be found when using both WiFi 6/AX AP’s and clients.

  • In my basic tests I barely touched on the full potential that the XV2-2 has to offer.

Now that I am using the XV2-2 full time and I have upgraded 1 of my clients, I’m eager to work towards upgrading more clients and also testing mobile performance to really push the dual radio design.

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Hi Eric - Thanks for taking the time to test the XV2 and sharing your experience - it great to see validation of the test results we have seen internally

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Hello Eric, thank you for the detailed test commentary and unboxing video!

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I wanted to add some additional follow up tests that I ran. After discussing the iperf testing methodology, I was informed that better performance can be had by using multiple streams. In these follow up tests, I add the “-P 5” flag to add 5 more streams. This results in more accurate utilization of the connection, typically around 30% increase.

I also got a chance to test out an iPhone 11 Pro, which also supports WiFi 6/802.11ax. I was able to find a free iperf app that supports multiple streams. As you can see the iPhone 11 Pro and our desktop with the Intel AX card perform similarly when using 5 streams.

While the max OTA rate is 1.2gbps, I found that during testing my OTA rate would often fluctuate between 1gbps and as low as 800mbps. I would imagine that if I could consistently get 1.2gbps OTA, that my net data rates would be around 950mbps. It’s impressive to see a wireless connection achieving over 70% actual net throughput from the OTA rate and the possibility achieving near wire-line gigabit ethernet data rate. What a time to be alive!

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Hi Eric. Good tests, nice to see. The specs say these are 2x2 radios… do you know if that means no MU-MIMO? I thought MORE MU was part of the whole point of AX?

Good question… and the answer is… I’m not sure :thinking: The spec sheet located HERE mentions that it supports MU-MIMO in the WiFi protocols section.

Aside from that mention it doesn’t talk about MU-MIMO anywhere else in the document or on the product web page. I’m also not entirely certain what the benefits of the ‘dual radio’ design are. I did notice there is a big disclaimer at the top of almost every page that says “Note: Some features will be included on subsequent firmware releases.”

More users will be served by dividing the channel into RU (resource units) instead of MU-MIMO. MU-MIMO has a lot of limitations to happen, that’s why ax is using different technology to achieve higher efficiency.

Mu-MIMO on a 2x2 can support two clients simultaneously with one stream each so not as significant as a 4x4 or 8x8 AP (such as our XV3-8). 802.11ax adds this capability to the 2.4G band which is an advance over 802.11ac and OFDMA is added in 802.11ax which allows for groups of sub-carriers to be allocated to each client. This is powerful in that it can expand the number of simultaneously supported clients from 2 to 8(DL, 4 UL) for each band.

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Right - thanks Stawiar, I forgot about the ‘Resource Units’ thing. Yes, I remember now - AX can do RU or MU… not both simultaneously, but can dynamically decide which is more efficent.

Thanks Jim - I’m primarily interested in watching Cambium’s AX in regards to how that works out for the ePMP 4000, and seeing how development of an outdoor WISP product based on AX goes. Hopefully, with having a suite of AX products, hopefully Cambium’s ePMP line won’t be several years behind everyone else this generation. I’m crossing my fingers!

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Just to update what I said in August about the ePMP AX lineup of gear, we have been testing pre-release ‘engineering samples’ of the Force 400 radios, using AX technology, and… THEY. ARE. AMAZING.

I mean, the ePMP3000 and Force300’s were already awesome, but the 4000 / 400 series looks to be tremendously impressive.

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Hi.

For how many users is XV2-2 recommended? I know what is says on specifications, but we all know what are realistcs numbers.

Option 1:
All users are watching Youtube video on 1080p. How many of them is still ok for the AP?
Mixed users, 2,4GHz, 5GHz, b/g/n/ac/ax…

Option 2:
All users are with random usage, nothing special, phones, some printers, some computers with occasional downloading from internet.
Also mixed users, 2,4GHz, 5GHz, b/g/n/ac/ax…

I need just rough estimate.

Kind regards

I personally have not run into a situation where I’ve overloaded it, but I’m dealing with much smaller client counts (10-15) in a home usage setting. I’d suggest that you reach out to your RSM to get some internal or external studies on AP load capabilities.

Yeah exactly same here, I would need to know for how many users we can advise our customer to use them. I know e410 was working with 30 clients easy (case with Youtube 1080p all at the same time all on one radio).
If a translate this to XV2-2 I would guess somewhere the same, but with possibility for more clients on 5GHz radio due to ax standard.

Before I promise to our clients I need to know for sure and not guess by my own :slight_smile:
I just reached out to out RSM, we will see.

Kind regards

Are you sure we’re talking about same products? :smiley:

The correct answer is: it depends.

Usually, 20 Mhz channel can support 30 to 40 active devices for average use, such as web browsing and checking email. However, this number can vary greatly based on the capabilities of the client’s devices (such as 1x1:1 or 2x2:2) and applications that are being used.

Based on the device capabilities and Application you can determine the airtime consumption of the device. Once you have airtime consumption you can determine the active device the AP can support.

An 802.11 Access point is considered to be fully burdened at about 80 percent airtime utilization.

To estimate the number of devices supported on a single AP radio, divide the individual airtime required per device into 80 percent.

80/ single device airtime consumption = device per AP radio.

For reference, a free predictive wlan capacity planning spreadsheet is available for download at www.revolutionwifi.net.

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Thanks!

Although, cou you please check the link, it is not working for me.