While I understand first to market, at $500 for a router market adoption will be extraordinarily slow. This looks like an awesome product that is priced way too "aspirationally".
I think this is more about promoting the brand name than market adoption. That's the purpose of almost any flagship on the market in most fields, especially consumer ones.
lol...the TP-Link 7200 competitor is going for $325 on Egg/Amazon and has everything except the 10g port. Been using mine for about a month now and am very happy with it. Obviously haven't tried the 802.11ad band though.
They are not even in the same league despite both being AD7200-class.
The R9000 has 6 GbE ports vs. 4 in the Talon for the LAN The R9000 supports link aggregation on two of the 6 ports vs. none in the Talon The R9000 supports Plex with transcoding natively vs. no Plex support in the Talon The R9000 has the 10G SFP+ port vs. no 10G in the Talon (you have already mentioned this).
All things considered, the $500 price point seems acceptable for the R9000. In fact, when I was discussing the feature set with the other editors without disclosing the price, $500 was the consensus. I might complain about lots of things in the R9000, but the price, despite being high for this market, is not unreasonable.
If DOCSIS 3.1 modems start supporting 10G SFP+ I would probably pick one of these up along with the modem. Comcast's current D3.1 solution is stuck on Gigabit ethernet, so you only end up getting 940-950 mbit/sec instead of the 1200 mbit/sec the modem is provisioned for (Comcast over-provisions).
I wouldn't argue that the price is "unfair", I just don't think it will lead to market adoption. I understand the flagship mentality, but I don't know that it applies in this arena. The companies making these products would profit far more if they were selling to the mass markets even if margins were lower. By keeping new protocols out of the hands of "the many" there is no incentive to device manufacturers to start implementing these new standards, thus the "chicken and egg" paradox. So it isn't a matter of gouging, it's a matter of adoption rates.
I don't follow, the solution to what? The device works fine throughout your house, it's just that 60GHz waves don't penetrate through anything and taking advantage of that requires LoS. As long as you NAS and router can see each other, they can still take advantage of the massive bandwidth.
There seems to be a lack of understanding, 802.11ad IS LOS based. That doesn't mean that AC and N won't still function the same way they always have. So if you are in the same room or have LOS then your speeds will be incredible, if not they will be just as good or better than they were before. There is nothing "bad" about this new standard, if anything it bridges the gap.
The other strange feature is the 10G SFP+ fiber port.
Did they actually specify their SFP+ port was only compatible with fiber transceivers? There are different types of SFP+ modules; many that are copper based and don't use fiber, are they not compatible?
That's honestly what I figured. Didn't really make sense as SFP+ ports really should be media agnostic. My thought was maybe a marketing drone googled SFP, saw "fiber", and decided to add another buzzword to the spec list...
It shows it labeled as a Fiber port... But it's just SFP+ and as Ganesh confirmed, you can use copper based modules too. Doesn't have to be a fiber module.
Really interested in the 10GbE SFP+ port. That combined with the Asus switch with 10GbE BaseT ports launched earlier gives me hope that 10GbE will actually make it to the consumer market. Who doesn't want 1GB/s LAN connections?
If this could be used to add a wireless network to a fiber 10GbE network, then that would be extremely interesting, though it sounds like they intend for that SFP+ port to be linked via a patch cable directly to a NAS rather than to a switch. I'm all for fiber over copper, however. Used 10GbE fiber gear is dirt cheap right now as data centers phase it out, and most of it is fiber, not copper.
That SFP+ port is really strange, maybe, just maybe they thought having 10G BASE-T port will limit the distance as users might put the NAS ( or whatever device ) much further than what a Copper can do @ 10G's.. but hell even Cat 6 can do 55Meter's, you will need Cat 6a or 7 only when you need more than 55 meters ( to 100 meters ) which is more than enough for like 99% of consumers...
Not to mention the fact the lack of any consumer NAS's with SFP+ ports, while you can see few prosumer targeted with 10G BASE-T copper ones...
Does it work? Many years back I jumped over an expensive Netgear home broadband router and, despite the reviews not mentioning ANYTHING about issues (Including the PC Pro magazine), it basically did not work. The Netgear forums also mirrored the same experience.
You can get a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite, a Ubiquiti Unifi AC Pro AP, and a used HP Procurve 24 port Gbe managed switch for half the price of this thing. Granted, you won't have 10Gbe SFP+ ports or Plex transcoding, but you will have a rock solid, easily and cheaply upgradeable ethernet and Wi-Fi network that will handle absolutely anything a home network environment could possibly throw at it. It makes these consumer grade SOHO routers seem like a waste of money to me.
You show me where to buy that equipment for that price and I will buy it all RIGHT NOW. I've been trying to get my boss to buy me an 8-port Procurve (2915) and the cheapest one was $600+ on Ebay.
A used HP ProCurve 1800-24G 10/100/1000 layer 2 managed switch that is passively cooled and low power is about $50 shipped. It's a great switch for the money.
Make a post on reddit.com/r/homelab. The users on that sub are very good at knowing which hardware is going for cheap. I know the Nortel 5520 is usually the go-to layer 3 switch. They can be had for $50-$60 with 48 gigabit ports and PoE. They are just loud and use a lot of power. I bought the ProCurve because it is passively cooled and low power. I live in an apartment and don't have a place to put a bunch of loud server equipment, so I have to compromise. If you have a closet you can put it all in, get that Nortel for $60 and let 'er rip.
In regards to the Ubiquiti equipment, I got my EdgeRouter Lite and Unifi AC Pro AP from Amazon Warehouse Deals for $60 like-new and $115 like-new, respectively. They usually go for $90 and $125.
Having a lone 10G SFP+ port is very strange. You only get one, so you can't actually have two devices talking to each other at 10G speeds as you would with a proper switch. It's not a WAN port, so it can't be used if you have a >1Gbps internet connection. And consumers are more likely to have ethernet cabling than multi-mode fibre in any case.
I suspect the lone SFP+ port primarily exists to allow the built in plex server 10Gb access to the NAS, which would allow it to saturate all of its 1Gb ports with media streams and have bandwidth to spare. I also suspect that port is meant for a short SFP+ cable in the network room rather than a long stretch of fiber. Then again, the 802.11ad LoS requirement makes that less plausible.
Optic fiber is complete horseshit in consumer space.
As an extreme enthusiast I dont mind spending even two grands on an amazing router, but this one is completely useless for 500. I may as well just throw 500 on the window.
The 10G port is compatible with copper DACs (article is updated with new info from NTGR).
As for 60 GHz -ad equipment - many new notebooks are coming with WiGig chipsets - not only Qualcomm-based, but, also from Intel (most vPro notebooks starting with Broadwell) have Intel's tri-band Wi-Fi solution (AC17625 was the first Intel WiGig soln. IIRC).
Looking at it, a Sinology 1515+ probably has more computing power to transcode unless you are looking at a lesser entry-level NAS. Any real benefit to PLEX on the router other than not needing a high-powered NAS?
Are there not many other Tri-Band routers on the market, not just two? There are only two tri-band routers that use the 60GHz band but there are a few others that use two 5GHz networks in a transparent manner to enable load balancing of devices over two 5GHz networks without two different SSID's on the 5GHz band. Those two 5GHz on top of the 2.4GHz make them tri-band, does it not?
This is not what we need from Wireless AD! 60GHz WiFi can be amazing, but the range is absolute crap! What we need is an 'affordable' home grade controller switch with PoE that can then control AD access points in various rooms of a house. Without this one feature AD becomes a sort of single room high speed bluetooth, which isn't what we want at all.
Also, we need 10Gbps Ethernet for home networking to become a thing.... or at least 5. Gigabit, or even dual linked Gigabit, is simply not fast enough for these new wifi standards.
TLDR: It's physically impossible for 60GHz waves to do what you want. There is and always would be a conflict between bandwidth and signal penetration when it comes to wireless communications.
I had cat7 cables installed in my next flat so I can choose 10gb tbase if it becomes affordabele at least for the NAS to router connection (2 cables for that connection actually ;-) ); so I'm not really happy to hear about 10gb SFP^^ but since I don't like to flush money down the drain I will wait to see about the combatibility of 802.11ad anyways
If this Annpurna Labs CPU equipped router will in fact support plex transcoding, I'm hoping that this implementation will be ported to Plex server for Synology NAS units such as the DS715...
Guys I am sorry for noob question. I currently have two airport extremes in bridge mode. And they have auto selection to automatically switch clients to different channels. Can I do this with net gear routers. One network to join and auto switches channels and various bridges routers.
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fanofanand - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
While I understand first to market, at $500 for a router market adoption will be extraordinarily slow. This looks like an awesome product that is priced way too "aspirationally".bug77 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
If it was cheaper, I would have killed myself over buying the R8500 ;)close - Thursday, October 20, 2016 - link
I think this is more about promoting the brand name than market adoption. That's the purpose of almost any flagship on the market in most fields, especially consumer ones.Kakti - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
lol...the TP-Link 7200 competitor is going for $325 on Egg/Amazon and has everything except the 10g port. Been using mine for about a month now and am very happy with it. Obviously haven't tried the 802.11ad band though.ganeshts - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
They are not even in the same league despite both being AD7200-class.The R9000 has 6 GbE ports vs. 4 in the Talon for the LAN
The R9000 supports link aggregation on two of the 6 ports vs. none in the Talon
The R9000 supports Plex with transcoding natively vs. no Plex support in the Talon
The R9000 has the 10G SFP+ port vs. no 10G in the Talon (you have already mentioned this).
All things considered, the $500 price point seems acceptable for the R9000. In fact, when I was discussing the feature set with the other editors without disclosing the price, $500 was the consensus. I might complain about lots of things in the R9000, but the price, despite being high for this market, is not unreasonable.
eek2121 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
If DOCSIS 3.1 modems start supporting 10G SFP+ I would probably pick one of these up along with the modem. Comcast's current D3.1 solution is stuck on Gigabit ethernet, so you only end up getting 940-950 mbit/sec instead of the 1200 mbit/sec the modem is provisioned for (Comcast over-provisions).fanofanand - Thursday, October 20, 2016 - link
I wouldn't argue that the price is "unfair", I just don't think it will lead to market adoption. I understand the flagship mentality, but I don't know that it applies in this arena. The companies making these products would profit far more if they were selling to the mass markets even if margins were lower. By keeping new protocols out of the hands of "the many" there is no incentive to device manufacturers to start implementing these new standards, thus the "chicken and egg" paradox. So it isn't a matter of gouging, it's a matter of adoption rates.jordanclock - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
It's a halo product. It's not about sales or value.Michael Bay - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Why can`t they just state it`s Apple instead of "major OS vendor" bullshit?ganeshts - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
The first rule of talking about Apple's future plans is that you don't talk about Apple or show that you have any knowledge of its plans.Michael Bay - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Ugh.docbones - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
At this price point why do they not have a MOCA port also?Gunbuster - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Line of sight makes it a big fat nope. Perhaps if it had some kind of mini node setup running POE that could be placed around the house...bug77 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Tbh it's a shortcoming of the technology (wavelength used), not of this particular product.Gunbuster - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Then the solution should not be a giant beastly $500 device that only works in 1 room out of 8 room or more house...bug77 - Thursday, October 20, 2016 - link
I don't follow, the solution to what?The device works fine throughout your house, it's just that 60GHz waves don't penetrate through anything and taking advantage of that requires LoS. As long as you NAS and router can see each other, they can still take advantage of the massive bandwidth.
fanofanand - Thursday, October 20, 2016 - link
There seems to be a lack of understanding, 802.11ad IS LOS based. That doesn't mean that AC and N won't still function the same way they always have. So if you are in the same room or have LOS then your speeds will be incredible, if not they will be just as good or better than they were before. There is nothing "bad" about this new standard, if anything it bridges the gap.slumberlust - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Can I pay more for an NSA free version?JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
No! You'll take your government surveillance, and you're gonna LIKE IT.Solidstate89 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Sure, just don't use that internet option.djayjp - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Love these new mobile ads.... :(Ironchef3500 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
+1cygnus1 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Did they actually specify their SFP+ port was only compatible with fiber transceivers? There are different types of SFP+ modules; many that are copper based and don't use fiber, are they not compatible?
Devo2007 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
4th photo shows that it is indeed a Fiber port.ganeshts - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
It is compatible with copper DACs. I have updated the article with new information from Netgear.cygnus1 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
That's honestly what I figured. Didn't really make sense as SFP+ ports really should be media agnostic. My thought was maybe a marketing drone googled SFP, saw "fiber", and decided to add another buzzword to the spec list...cygnus1 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
It shows it labeled as a Fiber port... But it's just SFP+ and as Ganesh confirmed, you can use copper based modules too. Doesn't have to be a fiber module.Inteli - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Really interested in the 10GbE SFP+ port. That combined with the Asus switch with 10GbE BaseT ports launched earlier gives me hope that 10GbE will actually make it to the consumer market. Who doesn't want 1GB/s LAN connections?If this could be used to add a wireless network to a fiber 10GbE network, then that would be extremely interesting, though it sounds like they intend for that SFP+ port to be linked via a patch cable directly to a NAS rather than to a switch. I'm all for fiber over copper, however. Used 10GbE fiber gear is dirt cheap right now as data centers phase it out, and most of it is fiber, not copper.
Xajel - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
That SFP+ port is really strange, maybe, just maybe they thought having 10G BASE-T port will limit the distance as users might put the NAS ( or whatever device ) much further than what a Copper can do @ 10G's.. but hell even Cat 6 can do 55Meter's, you will need Cat 6a or 7 only when you need more than 55 meters ( to 100 meters ) which is more than enough for like 99% of consumers...Not to mention the fact the lack of any consumer NAS's with SFP+ ports, while you can see few prosumer targeted with 10G BASE-T copper ones...
hechacker1 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
It's an odd choice, but you can get a cable that's SFP+ twinax / fiber on one end, and 10Gb ethernet on the other side.I kind of welcome it, especially if you connect it to a 10Gb SFP+ switch.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
But...Does it work? Many years back I jumped over an expensive Netgear home broadband router and, despite the reviews not mentioning ANYTHING about issues (Including the PC Pro magazine), it basically did not work. The Netgear forums also mirrored the same experience.
It was never fixed as far as I know.
snakyjake - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Does this router for Netgear offer better parental controls than OpenDNS (e.g. Disney Circle, KoalaSafe)?SpetsnazAntiVIP - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
You can get a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite, a Ubiquiti Unifi AC Pro AP, and a used HP Procurve 24 port Gbe managed switch for half the price of this thing. Granted, you won't have 10Gbe SFP+ ports or Plex transcoding, but you will have a rock solid, easily and cheaply upgradeable ethernet and Wi-Fi network that will handle absolutely anything a home network environment could possibly throw at it. It makes these consumer grade SOHO routers seem like a waste of money to me.techguymaxc - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
@SpetsnazAntiVIPYou show me where to buy that equipment for that price and I will buy it all RIGHT NOW. I've been trying to get my boss to buy me an 8-port Procurve (2915) and the cheapest one was $600+ on Ebay.
SpetsnazAntiVIP - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
@techguymaxchttp://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_saca...
A used HP ProCurve 1800-24G 10/100/1000 layer 2 managed switch that is passively cooled and low power is about $50 shipped. It's a great switch for the money.
techguymaxc - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
I see. It's managed but it's layer 2. I'm looking for layer 3.Thanks.
SpetsnazAntiVIP - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Make a post on reddit.com/r/homelab. The users on that sub are very good at knowing which hardware is going for cheap. I know the Nortel 5520 is usually the go-to layer 3 switch. They can be had for $50-$60 with 48 gigabit ports and PoE. They are just loud and use a lot of power. I bought the ProCurve because it is passively cooled and low power. I live in an apartment and don't have a place to put a bunch of loud server equipment, so I have to compromise. If you have a closet you can put it all in, get that Nortel for $60 and let 'er rip.In regards to the Ubiquiti equipment, I got my EdgeRouter Lite and Unifi AC Pro AP from Amazon Warehouse Deals for $60 like-new and $115 like-new, respectively. They usually go for $90 and $125.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nortel-5520-48T-PWR-Networ...
jardows2 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
any of those devices going to provide 802.11adSpetsnazAntiVIP - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Not currently, but if/when they do, you can just buy a new AP for ~$125 and upgrade just the wireless part. That is the beauty of it.techguymaxc - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Nevermind. Those edgerouters look like great devices but their SFP ports are gigabit only.r3loaded - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Having a lone 10G SFP+ port is very strange. You only get one, so you can't actually have two devices talking to each other at 10G speeds as you would with a proper switch. It's not a WAN port, so it can't be used if you have a >1Gbps internet connection. And consumers are more likely to have ethernet cabling than multi-mode fibre in any case.Inteli - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
I suspect the lone SFP+ port primarily exists to allow the built in plex server 10Gb access to the NAS, which would allow it to saturate all of its 1Gb ports with media streams and have bandwidth to spare. I also suspect that port is meant for a short SFP+ cable in the network room rather than a long stretch of fiber. Then again, the 802.11ad LoS requirement makes that less plausible.JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
I think at these exorbitant prices, someone's better off building a pfSense router box and buying a wireless access point for the WiFi.wyewye - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Optic fiber is complete horseshit in consumer space.As an extreme enthusiast I dont mind spending even two grands on an amazing router, but this one is completely useless for 500. I may as well just throw 500 on the window.
wyewye - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
What client devices do we have that use this 60ghz "AD"?ganeshts - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
The 10G port is compatible with copper DACs (article is updated with new info from NTGR).As for 60 GHz -ad equipment - many new notebooks are coming with WiGig chipsets - not only Qualcomm-based, but, also from Intel (most vPro notebooks starting with Broadwell) have Intel's tri-band Wi-Fi solution (AC17625 was the first Intel WiGig soln. IIRC).
zodiacfml - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
The price only reflects the niche of the product. I really wonder how to make good use of the hardware though.It might be of use for small offices with a 10GbE NAS and MacBook Pros as video editing machines
jnaks - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Looking at it, a Sinology 1515+ probably has more computing power to transcode unless you are looking at a lesser entry-level NAS. Any real benefit to PLEX on the router other than not needing a high-powered NAS?Freakie - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Are there not many other Tri-Band routers on the market, not just two? There are only two tri-band routers that use the 60GHz band but there are a few others that use two 5GHz networks in a transparent manner to enable load balancing of devices over two 5GHz networks without two different SSID's on the 5GHz band. Those two 5GHz on top of the 2.4GHz make them tri-band, does it not?CaedenV - Thursday, October 20, 2016 - link
This is not what we need from Wireless AD!60GHz WiFi can be amazing, but the range is absolute crap! What we need is an 'affordable' home grade controller switch with PoE that can then control AD access points in various rooms of a house. Without this one feature AD becomes a sort of single room high speed bluetooth, which isn't what we want at all.
Also, we need 10Gbps Ethernet for home networking to become a thing.... or at least 5. Gigabit, or even dual linked Gigabit, is simply not fast enough for these new wifi standards.
bug77 - Thursday, October 20, 2016 - link
Typical unrealistic expectation followed by unwarranted outrage at supposedly subpar products.See: https://phorgyphynance.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/60...
Check the "Penetration" section.
TLDR: It's physically impossible for 60GHz waves to do what you want. There is and always would be a conflict between bandwidth and signal penetration when it comes to wireless communications.
billy_no_bush - Thursday, October 20, 2016 - link
I had cat7 cables installed in my next flat so I can choose 10gb tbase if it becomes affordabele at least for the NAS to router connection (2 cables for that connection actually ;-) ); so I'm not really happy to hear about 10gb SFP^^but since I don't like to flush money down the drain I will wait to see about the combatibility of 802.11ad anyways
yetanothertechchannel.com - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
If this Annpurna Labs CPU equipped router will in fact support plex transcoding, I'm hoping that this implementation will be ported to Plex server for Synology NAS units such as the DS715...TheUsual - Sunday, October 23, 2016 - link
Have you done a review of any of the Mesh routers yet? I'd like to see one along with comparisons to tradition routers with extenders.azulon1 - Monday, October 24, 2016 - link
Guys I am sorry for noob question. I currently have two airport extremes in bridge mode. And they have auto selection to automatically switch clients to different channels. Can I do this with net gear routers. One network to join and auto switches channels and various bridges routers.harrybarracuda - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - link
Since its major selling point is probably the 60Ghz, not a lot of point in buying one unless you have a device that supports it at the other end.I'm just amazed that none of the three vendors are selling a compatible USB adapter.