EnGenius ENS1750 Outdoor Access Point Review

By Julian Duque

Manufacturer: EnGenius Technologies Inc.
Product Name: Dual Band Wireless AC1750 Outdoor Access Point
Model Number: ENS1750
UPC: 655216007574
Price As Tested: $349 (Amazon l B&H l Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by EnGenius Technologies

If you have been following the wireless networking world then you must be familiar with the advancements manufacturers have made around the 802.11ac standard. It has been quite some time since Broadcom released the BCM4706 chipset which is found in most AC1750 units. To be exact, it entered the market in May 2012, more than three years ago, advertising a total 1,300 Mbit/s data transfer speed on the 5 Ghz band. But just because the AC1750 standard is not the latest it does not mean that it is useless. When EnGenius asked Benchmark Reviews to take a look at the EnGenius ENS1750 Outdoor Access Point featuring the aging AC1750 standard we were a bit skeptical at first, but that all changed as we went along our testing.

Just a couple of months ago at CES 2015, networking companies showcased the prototypes for the newer AC2600 routers based on Qualcomm’s QCA9880 SoC. Such routers are set to start shipping later this year with features such as 4×4 5 GHz radio, MU-MIMO, and Wave 2 support. But why did EnGenius make a new AC1750 access point? Although EnGenius is probably the only one capable of answering that question we can speculate a number of reasons. First, it could be a measure to keep the cost of the ENS1750 down and make it price competitive while still keeping important features like IP55 rating and regular MIMO support. Secondly, the AC1750 is a proven standard, meaning that it is reliable, and many IT professionals are familiar with it.

Just as a recap of the AC1750 standard, the ENS1750 features 802.11a/b/g/n/ac wireless, with speeds up to 450 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz and 1300 Mbps on the 5 GHz frequency bands. It is also a 3-stream access point, featuring 3×3 5 GHz radio and support for MIMO, which enables multiple transmission and receive frequencies. Asides from that, the most important features of the ENS1750 are IP55 rating, which would allow the router to operate under moderate rain conditions, support for PoE with an included 48v injector, and a high transmit power of 28 dBm over the 5 GHz band. The ENS1750 supports 16 SSIDs (8 per band), as well as multiple management features which will be discussed later in this review.

Courtesy of EnGeniustech.com

Hardware	Standard: IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Data Rate: Up to 450 Mbps on 2.4 GHz, up to 1300 Mbps on 5 GHz Memory: 64MB IEEEE 802.3at
Transmit Power	2.4 GHz: 29 dBm 5 GHz: 28 dBm Maximum power is limited by regulatory power
Supported Radio Technologies	802.11b: Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) 802.11a/g/n/ac: Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) 802.11n/ac: 3×3 MIMO with 3 Streams 802.11ac with 20/40/80 MHz Channel Width 802.11n with 20/40 MHz Channel Width 802.11a/b/g with 20 MHz Channel Width
Supported Modulation Types	802.11b: BPSK, QPSK, CCK 802.11a/g/n: BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM 802.1ac: BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM, 256-QAM Supported Data Rates (Mbps): 802.11b: 1, 2, 5.5, 11 802.11a/g: 6, 9, 12, 18, 36, 48, 54 802.11n: 6.5~450 Mbps (MCS0 to MCS15) 802.11ac: 6.5~1300 Mbps (MCS0 to MCS9, NSS= 1 to 3)
Power Source	802.3at Compliant Source Active Ethernet (Power over Ethernet, PoE)
Antenna Array	Internal 5 dBi Dual Concurrent Omni Antenna Polarization: Linear Azimuth Beam-Width: 360° Elevation Beam-Width: 2.4 Ghz: 45°, 5 GHz: 40°
LED Indicators	Power WLAN (2.4GHz) WLAN (5GHz) LAN1 LAN2
Physical Interface	2x RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000 Mbps) – BASE-T Ports LAN1: Supports 802.3at PoE Input LAN2: Data Pass Through Reset Button Power Connector

Although you can easily use the ENS1750 with a PoE switch capable of supplying 48 volts, EnGenius includes a standard PoE injector along with a power adapter. This is not the cleanest assembly, but if you are using a single access point without the need for a switch it will work just fine. Along with the injector is a pole mounting bracket which is adequate for mounting the ENS1750 in the roof of a warehouse but not big enough to mount it on a standard street pole. You also get two screws to mount the access point to a wall, like most routers nowadays. The quick installation guide is “okay”, it contains a pretty basic setup, but I was hoping for an appropriate user guide and manual considering this is an enterprise product. Our sample did not come with any Rj45 Ethernet cables, but that is probably because it is a sample.

The ENS1750 measures 7.3″ x 11.81″ x 1.34″and weights 1.89 lbs. Lightweight in this market is not an option. Outdoor access points with a high IP rating must accommodate all antennas within the enclosure to avoid damage. This means that within the case, around 60% of the space is attributed to a 3 x 3 radio array. Although bulky, the ENS1750 doesn’t demand a lot of attention due to it’s simple nature. There isn’t any flashy logos or patterns, rather just a white enclosure which is perfect for a professional environment.

The EnGenius ENS1750 comes with five LED outputs located one of it’s sides, all which are soft green with the exception of the power light which is orange. Having the appropriate output LEDs should allow you to troubleshoot really easily, specially if you hang the ENS1750 in a high ceiling or a post.

On the input side of things we find two RJ-45 gigabit ethernet base-T ports, one for a 802.3at PoE input and the other as a data pass through. In the middle there is also a reset button that can be accessed with a small screwdriver or utensil. These are all features that you most commonly find when you are deploying multiple access points on a location, it makes everything so easy to troubleshoot and allows for seamless integrity of the network. The bottom part of the ENS1750 is protected by a plastic cover which is sufficient enough to prevent rain water from reaching the RJ-45 ports.

Now that we have seen the exterior of the EnGenius ENS1750, let’s crack it open.

Although the ENS1750 is not a serviceable unit, it is quite easy to crack open. There is a single screw located at the top hidden by the plastic tab that protects the Ethernet ports at the bottom. Once removed, you will have access to the Philips screw which simply holds the motherboard in place. The motherboard simply slides out like a tray after you remove the screw. Most users will not notice this since there is no practical reason for removing the casing. Inside we find a small PC board with all the components is inside, but the biggest portion of the ENS1750 is attributed to the antenna array. There are no metal plates, or ballasts inside to add weight to the unit, but that shouldn’t matter as the ENS1750 is supposed to be mounted vertically on a wall or post.

A general view of the internals reveal that there is no vents that allow air inside the ENS1750, which leaves the plastic casing itself to conduct the heat created by the Broadcom BCM4706 chipset. I wouldn’t consider this something to worry about, as the operating temperature of the router is rated by EnGenius at 140 degrees which may possibly be reached if you set the access point in the middle of the dessert. EnGenius expects most buyers to situate the access point in an open area, such as hanging from a post or the roof of a classroom were it can be passively cooled by air.

With the main board exposed, the first thing that stands out is how small the PCB actually is. The PCB just covers a small area of the overall board which probably means that there are not that many heat producing elements in the system. Along the top are the three input ports consisting of two RJ-45 ports and a reset button witch are soldered to the motherboard. The antennas are located at the bottom, isolated from the PCB, and constituting most of the weight of the access point itself and making their way from the PCB to the bottom of the IP 55 rated case. Right on top of the antennas, squeezed between three heatsinks, we find the isolation and impedance matching pulse transformers that keep the Ethernet signal noise free. There are no shielding devices located inside the ENS175 with the exception of the aluminum heatsinks themselves and the protective shield at the back.

While the chipset and overall architecture are sourced from Broadcom, the board found inside the ENS175 is clearly not a reference design, by a lot. Unfortunately it would be almost impossible to get the aluminum heatsinks off without destroying them, and most of the time, damaging the board itself. For this reason we will not be looking at a detailed layout of the PCB itself. Usually, we would also go into deeper discussion of the overall architecture of the chip found inside, which is were technology gets interesting. But unfortunately, Broadcom is pretty strict with the technology inside their chips. For now we will skip to our testing methodology.

To test the EnGenius ENS1750 Access Point I used two similar test applications, both of which are specifically designed for testing network throughput. The first one is Passmark Performance v7.0 Advanced Network Test. The second one is TamoSoft’s Throughput Test v1.0, Build 28. These tests measure throughput between two PCs connected through a router, switch, or access point and normally, the router, switch, or access point is the device that is under test. With a known baseline for the router, switch, or access point you can also test the performance of other devices in the communication chain, such as wireless adapters or network interface cards (NICs). In order for this test to work one PC must be set up as ‘Client’ and the other must be set up as the ‘Server’. Each test was run at least five times with the highest and lowest result omitted and the remaining results averaged to give a final result.

A baseline benchmark speed was established before with a GbE network switch connecting the server and client workstations used in both of these tests. Both systems have been part of the same network for a long time, and can easily sustain Gigabit transfer speeds and higher over wired LAN.

PassMark Advanced Network Test

This benchmark eliminates most of the variables involved in network speed testing, but not all. The PCs themselves can introduce spurious issues, such as hardware bandwidth limitations, resource conflicts, wait states, and buffer inconsistencies. In some cases, the networking hardware is having issues communicating with other networking gear. The following chart shows why you have to dig a little deeper than just looking at the Average Transmission rate that is displayed on the main screen. For some reason, at the start of this test the two systems were having a hard time establishing a rapport. The average value (shown in yellow) doesn’t really reflect the true capability of the network until things start to settle down around the ten second mark. The default time period that’s set in the software for this benchmark is 2 seconds, and the calculated average result after 20 seconds is more than 20% lower than the average after 2 minutes. I maxed out the test period to 200 seconds, and was finally able to see some convergence on the data rate after the first minute or so.

TamoSoft Throughput Test

For the second set of tests, I used an application that our own Bruce Normann discovered when trying to get the measure of some 10GbE networking gear that was on his test bed at the time. The graphs I show from Passmark Performance v7.0 Advanced Network Test are only available for viewing after the test is complete. Plus, there is a 200 second limit for the Passmark software, which TamoSoft does not have. Oh, and did I mention that you can run the TCP/IP and UDP tests at the same time? Results for both upload and download are presented, and I ended up using the two download averages for reporting purposes. The packet loss and Round-trip time are shown as well, although this information isn’t truly relevant for our purposes. TamoSoft has a bunch of additional test applications that are more comprehensive and are available for purchase, but this one is free for downloading.

• Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3
• NIC: Realtek 8111C
• System Memory:G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) F2-5300CL4D-4GBPQ
• Processor: AMD Phenom X3 8600
• Disk Drive: Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD
• Enclosure: SilverStone SG13
• PSU: Corsair CX430
• Operating System: Windows 8.1 Pro

Client

Alienware 13

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4210U
• Wireless: Killer 1525 802.11ac 2×2 WiFi
• Memory: 8GB Dual Channel DDR3L (2x 4GB)
• Operating System: Windows 10 Home

Support Equipment

• 40-Feet of Category-6 Solid Copper Shielded Twisted Pair Patch Cable

• TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 Router

• EnGenius ENS1750 Firmware Version 2.0.28

Testing Procedure

If you have ever worked with a wireless network you are probably aware of the random degradation of Wi-Fi signal in a typical home or office environment. A drop in signal strength comes along with a lower maximum data rate, and are usually caused by barriers between the signal provider and the receiver. Added to this, the increased traffic caused by various devices using the same band has caused a saturation of the 2.4 Ghz band, with most buyers nowadays looking to take advantage of the less congested 5 Ghz band. It is almost impossible to obtain a location with no traffic near a location in which an internet provider provides access to the net. To avoid this variation in traffic, each of the tests in this review is conducted at night (between 2:00 to 3:00 am) when the traffic is low.

Ultimately, we want to measure the performance of an access point, even when there are barriers which are all common within the EnGenius ENS1750 target market which includes small businesses, corporations, schools, and even large homes. So we have picked three locations that accurately represent three typical client locations. Our network consists of a server connected to a TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 Router through 5 feet of Cat-6 cable. The location of both the server and router remained static throughout all the tests. The access point was placed on the roof inside a room central to our test building. The client consists of an Alienware 13 laptop with a Killer 1525 WiFi adapter, probably one of the most popular among high-end gaming laptops due to it’s high throughput, low latency, and yes, compatibility with ac wireless. The first location was right below the access point, at a distance close to 3 meters or 10 feet with no obstacles and a clear line of sight between the client and the access point. The second location was in a room 15 meters away (around three rooms away), two floors higher and with three wooden walls of your typical Florida building being the only obstacles. The third location was in the ground floor of the building (were the access point is located), 40 meters away from the installation point, with two walls and a storage room filled with computer cases, clothes, and other equipment acting as barriers in a “worse” case scenario in both of our tests.

The encryption level was set to WPA2-PSK at all times. It is true that you get better speeds with no encryption, but most businesses, schools, and even home owners realize the importance to having a protected network and will most likely use it. The Killer 1525 WiFi adapter is a 2×2 adapter compatible with the 802.11ac protocol, which will limit our throughput to 867 Mbps over the 5 Ghz band in theory, however that is almost never really achieved unless you are in a perfect environment. This test concentrates on 802.11n for our 2.4 Ghz band testing, and 802.11ac in the 5 Ghz band since there is no point in proving that new hardware works with an outdated protocol.

The first thing to note is that these benchmark results show ‘Real-World’ throughput. Nobody using Wi-Fi is actually getting the throughput performance that’s highlighted on the front of the manufacturer’s box. Those are theoretical numbers, and they refer to the raw data bitrate that’s possible with the hardware in question. In this particular test, with the router and adapter in the same room, we are still limited by the card in our client to 867 mbps, which was reached at peak points during our testing. But, between the data encryption that I was running and the error handling overhead of the various communication protocols, the average effective data rate is always going to be much lower.

For this test we will only be using TCP as our Transfer Protocol as we were getting some major discrepancies over UDP. Our time was set to 200 seconds, as the access point does not reach a steady state signal until around 40 seconds after starting the test. EnGenius did not provide any indications as to how to conduct a test of the access point, so we left everything in the router settings as default, with the exception of enabling encryption. PassMark results are only shown as upload speeds from the client side, in this case we are uploading from WLAN to LAN.

This first test was conducted right below the access point which is our model for having the access point on the roof of your living room or classroom. The results are strong, managing an average 388.9 download speeds with peaks close to 800 Mbps occurring randomly through our 802.11ac performance tests. Our 2.4 Ghz were also impressive, so much that I almost confused them with accessing the 802.11n network over a 5 Ghz band on one of the older routers in the office. Nowadays 100 Mbps over wireless is still plenty to spare, almost half as much bandwidth when compared to a similar test conducted with the N300 located in the office.

Distance is not the only deteriorating factor to the signal provided by the access point. Obstacles such as walls, waves emitted by appliances, and even things like clothes and insulation can brake the overall data signal. Of course, the stronger the signal provided by the access point, the higher chance of having a stable signal even after setting various obstacles between the access point and the client. At 15 meters with three wooden walls acting as obstacles our 802.11ac signal dropped by more than half the throughput when compared to 3 meters with no obstacles. Surprisingly, the 802.11n signal throughput only dropped by a couple Mbps. This is caused because the lower 2.4 Ghz frequency has better penetration through obstacles.

In the last of our locations, the client never seemed to to finish the test at 5 Ghz due to a lost connection with the server, although at 2.4 Ghz it still managed to get some packages over without losing complete connection.Trying to browse using just 360 Kbs brings me back to ten years ago, were you had to constantly wait for media to load. It is still possible to “browse”, although to most people standards it is completely useless.

TamoSoft is a privately held company based in Christchurch, New Zealand that develops cutting-edge security and network monitoring software for the Internet and Local Area Networks. The TamoSoft Throughput Test is a utility for testing the performance of a wireless or wired network. This utility continuously sends TCP and UDP data streams across your network and computes important metrics, such as upstream and downstream throughput values, packet loss, and round-trip time, and displays the results in both numeric and chart formats.

Although we have played around with the settings of this software, we always seemed to get the best results when leaving the settings as default. TamoSoft’s throughput test provides plenty of tools, ironically more than PassMark’s network test which requires the purchase of a license. Just like the previous test, we will only be reporting averages after 200 seconds which is a lot of time to get a stable throughput measure.

If you are wondering why my TCP throughput is higher than my UDP throughput, I am still wondering too. And no, I did not mix them up. What is even more weird is that even at 3M, 18% of the packages were being lost on all five runs. I tried different builds of TamoSoft but the results were still very similar. TCP throughput was stellar again, showing very similar results to the PassMark tests in both download and upload streams. Throughput did hit peaks of 800 Mbps again at 5 Ghz, while at 2.4 Ghz throughput remained constantly high with not many spikes.

At 15 meters we still get bad UDP throughput while TCP numbers drop by only a couple of Mbps when compared to the 3 meter test. Package lost reached an all time high of 35% at 5 Ghz. At the 2.4 Ghz band we saw a lot more throughput percentage lost with distance. TCP results are still consistent with the ones from the PassMark Network Test, with peaks of 800 Mbps and some loss when increasing the distance by some meters. My only worry here are UDP results, which are surprisingly slower than TCP’s. It is clear that no matter how fast wireless technology has advanced, we are still a long way from reaching a sustained data transfer rates of 1 Gbps.

In this case, TamoSoft didn’t even connect to the server at our 40 meter distance test. I think it is time for a conclusion.

Before I go into my conclusion, it was weird seeing some discrepancies over UDP, however these could be attributed to a million other reasons, starting with fragmenting caused by Windows 10. It should be noted that most developers nowadays are moving away from UDP, and as speeds are constantly increasing the heavy TCP is suddenly becoming the standard for transfer protocols. With that being said, the ac standard is still a long way from making it’s way into the world. It has been available for quite some time, but it is still really expensive to implement on a large scale. Most phones, laptops, or desktops do not support the 802.11ac standard, and it is going to take a really long time before they do. But EnGenius has taken the right approach here, by making an enterprise 802.11ac access point with a very low price point. I see the ENS1750 taking an important step by making the newest wireless technology available to small businesses, schools, and even homes at a fraction of the price of other enterprise access points.

Important: This section is a brief five point summary on the following categories; Performance, Appearance, Construction, Functionality and Value. Although the ratings and final score in this conclusion are as objective as possible, please be aware that every author perceives these factors differently, at various points in time. As Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. A high or low score does not necessarily mean that it is better or worse than a similar product that has been reviewed by another writer here at Benchmark Reviews. These are subjective ratings, and they’re unique to the individual who creates them. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusions, as they represent our product rating for the sample received, which may differ from the retail versions available when you are ready to purchase.

Aside from the weird UDP results, the EnGenius ENS1750 is right on point with other 802.11ac wireless points. Using a single client we were able to get download and upload peaks of 800 Mbps 15 feet away from the access point. It was quite disappointing to see that using the 5 Ghz band we never got signal in our third test location. But then again, the ENS1750 is marketed as an outdoor access point. EnGenius sets the client limit to 127, which should give users a good sense of how confident they are of the access point.

Appearance is not an important factor when it comes to an access point. Most of the time, companies want a “professional” looking access point, and that is exactly what the ENS1750 is. There is no fancy exterior pattern, and six intimidating antennas that make it look like something out of a Star Trek movie. It is rather simple, with all the antennas protected by the white plastic exterior in charge of keeping the ENS1750 clear of rain and dirt. The only thing flashy about this access point are the output LEDs that can be used to diagnose any problems with the access point.

EnGenius clearly hit jackpot with the construction of the ENS1750. The external design is well done, so much that they even got an IP-55 rating. The PC board seems well designed, with appropriate heatsinks covering all the important components taking into account that there are no vents that allow air inside the casing. The only improvement I can see is providing a larger pole mounting pole mounting strap.

The functionality spectrum of the EnGenius ENS1750 is well balanced. Users can set to use the ENS1750 as an access point or WDS(AP and Bridge). The monitoring software is also excellent with SNMP-based EZ controller wireless access. Setup is simple straight from the box, just plugging it in and changing your encryption will have it ready for most people. The ENS1750 also supports up to 16 SSIDs (8 per band), with the ability to tag each one to a specified network VLAN for different user access based on established access rights. This access point can easily server a purpose in any office, home, or school environment.

The EnGenius ENS1750 is available online for $349 (Amazon l B&H l Newegg). It is a bit pricey when compared to most entry-level based access points, but with such a large portfolio of features it clearly puts itself in a category above most AC1750. In my opinion the ENS1750 is a very refined version of the AC1750 standard, with IP-55 rating, and a valuable implementation for businesses in the need of an excellent, yet inexpensive 802.11ac access point.

+ IP-55 Rating.
+ Included 48V PoE Injector.
+ Easy to set-up straight from the box.
+ Affordable 802.11ac outdoors access point.
+ Looks professional and not flashy.
+ Supports 127 clients.

• Manual lacks information.
• Included pole mounting strap is really small.
• No MU-MIMO support.

• Performance: 8.25
• Appearance: 10.00
• Construction: 9.25
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 10.00

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.