I need to put a new network card in my router (current only can only do n and doesn’t work in AP mode). I thought I’d try and future proof with Wi-Fi 6/ax. Are there any current chips that support 802.11ax in hostap mode? I know some Intel cards support ac, but they don’t work as access points (last time I tried).
Nope, still early for that; looking at history with 802.11ac - maybe in 2020?
Even with ac, from a usability/price perspective, you’re probably likely better off getting a ubiquiti nano hd or some such similar AP (which is basically a separate Linux box with its own kernel and drivers maintained by a vendor so you don’t have to, and running hostapd across two interfaces and hardware has plenty of antenna power tuning and kernel performance tuning).
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Cisco has Wifi 6 APs
a wifi card for your router? like a PFsense router or something? i was always curious if the wifi cards in those could act like a real AP. Of course most just use APs.
PFSense can’t support anything over 802.11n since FreeBSD still doesn’t have ac support yet.
However on Linux, I got a Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac working fine in AP mode. The configuration for it is dead simple too:
/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
interface=wlp2s0
bridge=brlan
hw_mode=a
channel=0
ieee80211d=1
country_code=US
ieee80211n=1
ieee80211ac=1
wmm_enabled=1
ssid=<insert SSID>
auth_algs=1
wpa=2
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
wpa_passphrase=<wifi password>I don’t think i’d bother with any, a true blue AP like a ubiqutiy isn’t limited to talking to only 1 device at a time like tradition home routers or wifi devices.
Yes, even with 2x2 or 3x3 they can only pass off packets to one device at a time, it’s really fast but, it’s extra latency.