Hi,
i want to upgrade my Turris Omnia wifi to 2 wifi6 adapters, I got for my notebooks already the Intel AX200 and my smartphone is a Samsung Galaxy S10, so everything on client side is ready.
My question is can i put two AX200 in my Omnia? What about drivers, is the card able to do access point mode so it usable at all for this purpose?
Would be nice if somebody knows more and can help out with it.
Thank you
So this is the end for my omnia than it seems. And as far as i see there is nothing planed with SFP+ and 10 gig ports, i guess i will have to move to full blown x86 to use that as router 
what a waste of energy.
x86? I’d expect it to be more practical to buy a separate device specialized just for WiFi and keep Omnia for the rest (assuming you really want WiFi 6).
In the end that’s the same route I will be taking.
The only promising alternative seems to be prototypes like this one: http://shop.compex.com.sg/hk01.html
But pricing is… high
And the 10GBit Ethernet is only for accessing the fast wifi6.
Keep in mind that 10GBit-routing (several 10GBit-ports on the x86 router’s switch) needs power a normal embedded machine most likely will never have.
If i want to go single device x86 would be my only option as far as i found devices. Also 1 gig of the Omnia is not enough anymore, my Modem does already 2,5 Gbit/s RJ45 and my Internet speed exceeds 1 GBit/s if i put my PC directly attached to the modem.
As far as i can tell there are no drivers for it, so you have nothing you can run on this board.
it would be useless to sell the board without drivers. They provide their own OpenWRT based os images
Sure - that’s why i called it prototype 
Anyhow - you will have to wait for 802.11ax as there are to my knowledge no drivers for openwrt available yet (which will be the basis requirement even when you’re running the openwrt x86-64 image inside a vm).
At least I myself will never again run closed source as a core component of my network (which is currently the only way to use 802.11ax as access point)…
Hm… no security searching user would run such an adapted OS, right? Do they provide sourcecode?
Hmm, for the HK01 they state
Operating System Qualcomm Reference Firmware
Whilst for previous boards
Operating System CompexWRT or OpenWRT/LEDE
Their download area requires registration. I did not made the effort to have a look
It feels wrong that Internet speed is now so fast that you have problems with routers because they only have 1 GBit/s Ports.
Even the Turris Mox doesn’t help here because it has no 802.3bz extension cards.
Are there any plans for the future @turris-admin ? I mean upc.cz will offer soon 1 GBit/s too which is in reality more like 1,1 GBit/s if the modem has 802.3bz. In germany Vodafone offers already 1,1 GBit/s so i see clearly a need for a product to address this.
Could a SoC handle fluently the scope/load of a 1+ G/s. Probably looking at a least 4 CPU cores @ something of 2.5 Ghz. And then there the is the RAM type, 2 GB in size will probably be still ok.
Plus considering modularity and pricing. Something at the price tag of the HK01 is likely not going to fly with a broad consumer audience. And if such all-in-one system like the HK01 suffers the slightest hardware malfunction the whole unit goes RMA.
But certainly if NIC.CZ has something more powerful up their sleeves it would be intriguing.
I maybe found something intriguing:
(preview only available in German, sorry for that, but website available in english).
Using this adapter, it should be possible to install M.2 WiFi6-card to TO.
According to https://wikidevi.com/wiki/List_of_802.11ax_Hardware there is currently only one WiFi6-card commercially available: https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Intel_Wi-Fi_6_AX200_(AX200NGW), which uses 2230 format.
Unfortunately the driver has not yet been implemented into kernel (see link), but at least there’s a description on how to install it: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi/core_release
I think it doesn’t make much sense trying to get this combination flying for 5GHz (as the card only offers 2x2:2, there are 802.11ac WAVE2 cards available with 4x4:2@160MHz which makes much more sense for a router), but it seems interesting for 2,4GHz as 802.ax offers MU-MIMO which is not available with 802.11n, and throughput is also reasonable with 574 Mbit gross.
But right now there seems to be noone who already tested such a combination even on x86 and I can’t find anything related in openwrt documentation. So I doubt it to be useable right now.
If someone has more information I’m willing to try (just becaue it is not that expensive - ~30EUR for the adapter and ~20EUR for the WiFi card) as soon as I have my testing device available in the next couple of weeks.
That looks interesting so maybe there is hope for the Omnia. After drivers are available it’s worth a try.
what about the antenna?
or is the intention just
Well… this assumed there would be a much better card available (maximum as stated is 8×8 for 5GHz and 4×4 for 2,4GHz). But in the end it’s just holes that need to be drilled as soon as such a card becomes available.
You’re right, this card is really mediocre and even worse for a access point.
But I think it’s worth a try as 802.11ax even with 2×2 (provided by the mediocre Intel card) is still much better than the 802.11n cards available - normal clients have two antenna and therefore this card can already max 2,4GHz throughput and additonally offers MU-MIMO. And as 2,4GHz has much better range than 5GHz one should give it a try.
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I had to abandon 2.4 due to signal congestion in a densely populated area.
That aside, is the card just enough or doesn’t the antenna need to support ax as well, something to do with
- the implementation of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes in the IEEE 802.11ax physical layer
- Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (OFDM MU-MIMO)
Sure, that’s a good reason for trying it in the 5GHz band.
And yes, clients would need fully support on 2,4GHz. On 5GHz WAVE2 clients would be sufficient to take advantage of the card (better MU-MIMO handling).
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Not with the 2x2, least not worth to me to make the investment for that card.
Maybe I misunderstand you, though I did not consider that the clients of course have to support ax too (which I have none).
But what I meant will the antenna shipped with the TO suffice or does it require additional investment in ax capable antenna for the TO? Probably not, it is just piece of wire afterall, right?
That’s what I thought, too. Would be just something to play with, nothing for a productive environment.
They will suffice.
There’s a difference between 2,4GHz and 5GHz wires that defines the gain the antennas can reach (that’s why dedicated antennas will always beat mixed ones like those shipped with our dear TOs), but I think that will be irrelevant due to the sheer amount of antennas needed - have a look into the currently available ax-routers which are real antenna-beasts…
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