MikroTik hAP ac3 LTE6 - Performance test

Network equipment manufacturer Mikrotik is widely known in professional circles and is often considered the best in its field. The manufacturer in question has managed very well within the lower end of the market between home routers and products on a corporate level. Offering an attractive combination of hardware and price, especially for those who do not need advanced features in mainstream products.

Microtik's most important reason for success is perhaps the original RouterOS operating system, which is capable of solving many tasks remotely away from home. At the same time, the company offers not only a wide range of its own hardware at different levels, but also several license options for a separate operating system that can be run on other compatible hardware or virtual machine. Note that RouterOS has a closed code. Thus, despite the flexibility, it is impossible to exceed the limits provided by the developer on your own. In this material, we will explore the capabilities of MikroTik hAP ac3 LTE6 - a dual-band wireless router with a category 6 LTE modem installed.

Equipment specification

The router's hardware platform is on Qualcomm IPQ-4019. MikroTik hAP ac3 LTE6 has four cores of Cortec A7 ARM architecture, which work with a nominal frequency of 716 MHz. The amount of RAM is 256 MB, while the firmware uses 16 MB FLASH memory. The adapted SoC is really multifunctional, apart from the same processor cores there are also two 2x2 radio units. AC1200 class: up to 300 MBps in 2.4 GHz in 802.11n standard and up to 867 Mbps in 5 Ghz in 802.11ac standard. The cooling of this microcircuit is ensured by a relatively small heatsink, which can be found at the front of the case.

In addition to the standard power supply via a 24 V DC network adapter, the router can also be powered via a Passive PoE port.

Other hardware functions include the 'Mode' button, to which any script can be assigned. A custom LED can also be assigned to this function. Another interesting feature is the ability to program the power off of the USB port, which can be especially useful when restarting mobile modems. You can also change CPU frequency from 716 MHz to 896 MHz.

The device can operate wirelessly in the following configurations:

As a standalone WI-Fi transmitter or WiFI client

As a repeater

As a MESH station and Wi-Fi transmitter with dynamic WDS

As a station and transmitter in full mesh mode

As a WiFi transmitter under CAPSMan management.

RouterOS

For people who are used to ordinary home routers with a limited set of features, switching to RouterOS can be very difficult. Of course, the Internet has an endless number of topics devoted to RouterOS. Unfortunately, the situation is complicated by the fact that many instructions from the network may be out of date, so Mikrotik has prepared a Quick Set for beginners. This function provides ready-made templates for the most commonly used scenarios. For example, it is the easiest place to enable wireless access point security.

Recently, MikroTik has also made their mobile application available with which you can configure their devices. This is undoubtedly a strong asset for novice users. Prepared wizard allows to configure most of the popular settings. The application contains similar sections to Winbox, although working on the screen of a mobile device is much less convenient than on a computer of course. The company tried to implement more functions in a simplified format, but not everything turned out to be convenient and intuitive.

Performance test MicroTik hAP ac3 LTE6

Like most modern IT equipment, the router is a combination of a device and advanced software. In this case, the consumer is already dealing with the finished software and it is important here to understand how the developers have implemented the interaction of these elements. So there is no need to implement additional features and services due to the fact that the speed of the hardware in question essentially depends on the settings, we have carried out a test with settings almost identical to the factory state.

According to the manufacturer, with basic firewall configuration MikroTik hAP ac3 has a performance for 1518 bytes packets of 1.9Gbps. Of course, for smaller packets of 65 bytes the performance is lower and oscillates at 112-912Mbps.

The IPSEC performance oscillates around 400Mbps for 1400 bytes packets.

The manufacturer has equipped the device with a powerful category 6 LTE modem with download speeds up to 300Mbps and upload speeds up to 50Mbps, with band aggregation options.

Modem parameters

MIMO	MIMO 2x2
2G Category	Class 12
3G Category	R7: Downlink 21Mbps Uplink 5.76Mbps R8: Downlink 42.2Mbps Uplink 5.76Mbps
3G Bands	B1 - 2100MHz B2 - 1900MHz B5 - 850MHz B8 - 900MHz
LTE Category	6 Downlink 300Mbps Uplink 50Mbps
Carrier Aggregation	2xCA
LTE FDD bands	B1 - 2100MHz B2 - 1900MHz B3 - 1800MHz B7 - 2600MHz B8 - 900MHz B20 - 800MHz B5 - 850MHz B12 - 700MHz B17 - 700MHz B25 - 1900MHz B26 - 850MHz
LTE TDD bands	B38 - 2600MHz B40 - 2300MHz B39 - 1900MHz B41n - 2500MHz
WCDMA bands	No date

The performance test was performed at a distance of 4km from two Play network transmitters, the next transmitters of this network are at a distance of 6km and 8km. The modem was tested in two rooms. The first place is the desk at which I work, and the second room was selected as the most optimal in terms of base station signal quality.

Tests were carried out at different times to eliminate transmitter overload situations.

Mikrotik hAP ac3 LTE6 can actually connect using 2xCA (carrier aggregation), then the maximum speeds can oscillate between 60-70Mbps for the Play network. However, during LTE testing we observed a problem, the device did not want to go into 2xCA mode. Most of our tests were without 2XCA mode, MikroTik hAP ac3 simply connected to one transmitter. Verification of different versions of RouterOs did not change the situation, also the upgrade of the firmware itself did not bring any improvement.

Measurement with a radio analyzer

The measurement with a radio analyzer indicates a very neat work of the wireless module. On a basic transmitter power of 17 dBm, the device does not generate any additional interference. According to the manufacturer, the maximum transmitting value is 26 dBm. We checked this, the measurement at this power also showed no additional interference. However, the signal analysis shows that in practice raising the power from 17 dBm to 26 dBm does not give any real improvement, which is confirmed by our observations from over two weeks of tests of this device.

Signal map

To make a signal map we used the AirSurvey software. To read the signal levels correctly, please pay attention to the color legend at the bottom of the picture. Access point location is marked with an appropriate icon.

Speed test

We performed speed tests with WiFiPerf, software and the speed test server was iperf3 software.

measuring point No. 1

Download 507Mbps

Upload 446Mbps

measuring point No. 2

Download 491Mbps

Upload 443Mbps

measuring point No. 3

Download 315Mbps

Upload 146Mbps

measuring point No. 4

Download 262Mbps

Upload 144Mbps

measuring point No. 5

Download 42Mbps

Upload 15Mbps

measuring point No. 6

Download 52Mbps

Upload 55Mbps

We've raised the processor's frequency from 716MHz to 896MHz. During the tests we didn't observe any problems with overheating or crashes at maximum processor frequencies. However, raising the processor's operating frequency should be done carefully, because it can lead to the device crash or other irregularities in operation. However, each user should do this on their own responsibility.

Test summary MicroTik hAP ac3 LTE6

In terms of performance MikroTik hAP ac3 LTE6 has handled all the basic routing tasks very well. The best results were obtained in a vertical and sideways position towards the transmitter. The only thing worth noting is the problem with 2xCA. This mode worked very unevenly, sometimes it started up and speeds reached 70Mbps, and sometimes the mode turned off and speeds reached max 35Mbps.

All in all, with 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 256 RAM and a quad-core processor the hAP ac3 LTE set is able to satisfy even the largest and most demanding households. The MicroTik hAP ac3 LTE6 housing allows vertical or horizontal mounting, and you will also find a wall mount kit. However, in our opinion, using it at home should be considered by specialists who already have experience with such equipment, or users who have to solve complex problems with processing network traffic.

The most important features:

LTE cat. 6
LTE works in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands simultaneously
Double polarity (2x2 MIMO / dual chain) in both bands
5 Gigabit Ethernet ports
USB port, microSIM slot, miniPCIe slot
Powerful IPQ-4019 processor (4 cores of 716 MHz)
256 MB RAM
RouterOS system with a Level 4 license

Call us at (+48) 34 361 04 48 or write to [email protected]

Products from the article

MikroTik RBD53GR-5HacD2HnD&R11e-LTE6 | LTE Router | hAP ac3 LTE6 Kit, 5x RJ45 1000Mb/s, 1x USB, 1x microSIM

161,05 GBP

with VAT