Wi-Fi 4x4 MIMO?

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I haven’t been able to answer a few questions, hoping someone can clarify for me please.

1 . Common sense seems to suggest that 4 streams are better than 2. And if the 2.4ghz and 5ghz frequencies require a radio each, in circumstances where one would want to get the most out of any Wi-Fi WAN connection what, if any, real world gains are to be had from MIMO 4x4 Wi-Fi antennas, when there is only a 2x2 WiFi-as-WAN capability ?

  1. Other than the Sierra wireless XR series supporting “only” 3x3 Wi-Fi (the latter of which, I might add, must have censored all reviews because there is absolutely no trace open source) there’s nothing in the Peplink range that I can see. Even the BR2 5g / MBX series only has Wi-Fi 2x2 MIMO with 2 Wi-Fi antenna connectors.

  2. Would you be able to use one or two Ethernet WAN ports as a substitute for Wi-Fi antenna connectors to be able to fully utilise any 4x4 MIMO antenna ? I haven’t read or seen much about this which makes me think I’ve missed something

  3. If there is after all a router option, would your AP also be required to support 4x4?

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  1. WiFi-WAN’s typically dont provide enough bandwidth to saturate more streams. I doubt there would be many environments that benefit by having 4x4 WiFi-WAN.

  2. I use the integrated wireless functionality of the peplink devices almost exclusively for WiFi-WAN. If you use a dedicated access point you can find many which support 4x4 on 5ghz and 2.4ghz. I use this

  3. No. ethernet ports are not designed to operate as an atenna.

  4. If the goal is 4x4 on both sides then yea. But thats not really required.

Better antennas (directional instead of omni) would likely increase wifi performance more so than more mimo. The wireless chipset inside a peplink device is very low powered. In a mobile setting its rare to even be close enough to a wireless access point to achieve full bars.

Here is a good primer on the benefits of 4x4 mimo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fa0pTNA5wc&t=3s - it focuses on LTE but the mimo concepts are similar for wireless.

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Hi Erick. Thank you for your reply.

I ll probably need a smaller, 12v friendly, dual band AP.

Re the ethernet wan ports. How is it that something like the Mikrotik Wi-Fi antenna is able to utilise them? Are you able to recommend a directional wifi antenna for a campervan?

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The Peplink AP AX is a 4x4 MIMO wifi 6 AP, and it can be run from 12v.