Hi

Has any one tried the TL-WA7210N yet?

I have some and getting unexpected results :confused:: Here's what I posted to TP-Link tech support so far:

If anyone has any input/suggestion, would be appreciated.

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31/07/2013 - Tech support question

Have the TL-WA7210N for a customer. Just experimenting with setup. Simple thing on the wireless. in bgn mixed mode which he must have. if I leave the channel width to auto. I find I get data rates of 135-144 channels used are 1-5.

In my customer set up there are no other WI_FI near-buy so taking opportunity to separate wi-fi channels I set the channel width to 20Mhz and channel 1. I now find data rates drop to 54-65.

I have other routers including TP-Link products where I have set channel and channel width and don't see this drop on data rates! Why?

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01/08/2013 - Reply and my responses

Hello Nancy,

Please see responses below.

From: Nancy Xie
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 10:10 AM
To: it@sjgnet.co.uk

Dear Steve,

Thank you for choosing TP-LINK, This is Nancy from TP-LINK Technical Support.

How did you test the speed? Using inSSIDer and general web browsing via a laptop. Using my existing router (a TD-W8960N) Wi-Fi no problems, via the TL-WA7210N very slow! if not just drop out altogether!
Have you tried other channels with channel width 20MHz? No will do and report back,
How about channel auto with other channels? With channel auto it must default to 40Mhz bandwidth as I see 1+5 in inSSIDer.

When I first brought the TD-W8960N router a few years ago I saw 1+5 channel usage, so switched to 20Mhz bandwidth with no problems max rate is reported as 144.
Assumed the same with the new TL-WA7210N. But does not appear to be the case if I switch to 20Mhz bandwidth max rate drops to 65 or less. It’s like it thinks its in ‘g’ mode but it’s not!
I have even changed to ‘n’ only mode and it still drops the rate.

Further to my original posted question. I reset the TL-WA7210N device and started setup again. I’m using just as a simple access point at this time which is how it comes out of the box.
So just using default setting so it connects to my LAN and internet via Ethernet connection to the TD-W8960N
I now also find that after a few minutes use on a laptop everything slows down and in becomes almost impossible to browse the web. switch to the TD-W8960N wireless and all fine,
switch back to the TL-WA7210N wireless again after a few minutes use on a laptop I everything slows down!

Any help you can give me with the TL-WA7210N would be appreciated. These are for a customer of mine.

Regards
Steve Glover
SJG Computer Services

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01/08/2013 - Further information after some more testing

Hi Nancy,

I addition to my previous responses I’ve done some more work with the TL-WA7210N today my results are as follows:-
I have also tried all of the bellow with a number of wireless laptops, and different OS, results the same!

Your question: Have you tried other channels with channel width 20GHz?"

Yes I tried channel 6, results the same see attached Pics from inSSIDer

On these pics the TL-WA7210N has the SSID of ‘Laurels-Public’ and you can see in pic 1 we have 6+2 indicating 40Mhz channel width and a rate of 135Mbps
If I set the channel width 20Mhz the channel is 6 as expected but the max rate drops to 65Mbps, see pic 2, and I have seen less! Why?

The TP-LINK_sjgnet is my TD-W8960N it’s channel width is set to 20Mhz and the as you can see the rate is 144Mbps

Both are set to ‘bgn’ mixed mode, but I get the same results if I set both/either to ‘n’ mode

Interestingly why is the max rate I get out of the TL-WA7210N 135Mbps and not 144Mbps? as you can see from the pics every other ‘n’ device around me has a max rate of 144.

Yes I know there is a LOT of other wireless around me. But I don’t see that as a factor in this issue.

With regards to my comments that after a few minutes usage any internet access slows down and I’m unable to browse the internet:

Ok I think this has something to do with DNS traffic via the TL-WA7210N and gateway settings.

In the LAN section, as I would naturally expect to do, I set a static IP for the AP, subnet and gateway address which in my setup is of course the TD-W8960N

EG 192.168.1.20
255.255.255.0
192.168.1.1 (my TD-W8960N)

When I reset the TL-WA7210N because it felt like a DNS issue I left the gateway address to 0.0.0.0 default.

As my TD-W8960N acts as DHCP it supply’s gateway and DNS info to any clients issued a dynamic IP

And well this appears to work! I have been browsing ok since I did this. (but not at full rate possible rate!)
But what if you had an unusual gateway setup where you need to tell an AP the gateway address?
This works in my set-up but who’s to say it will at my customer? He has a D-link router!

Your Faithfully
Steve Glover
SJG Computer Services