Sonic.net

We're on Sonic's AT&T FTTH service, and we were provisioned with a BGW320.

Quick topology of our network ---
BGW320 Modem --> Gryphon mesh wifi base --> Netgear GS324TP smart managed switch

On the BGW320, we have turned on IP passthrough and disabled both the 2.4 and 5 Ghz wireless radios on the BGW 320 in order to use an external wireless router.

It works great.

However, I was just poking around in the BGW's configuration screens and saw under HOME NETWORK > STATUS, the interfaces include:

Ethernet
5G Ethernet
Wi-Fi 2.4 Ghz
Wi-Fi 5 Ghz
Mesh Clients

I have two questions...

1. What is 5G Ethernet, in comparison to Ethernet? What exactly is "5G Ethernet"?

2. I do recall the back of the BGW320 had a "5G" label next to Port 1. We have our Gryphon router plugged into Port 2. (We have nothing plugged into port 1, or any of the other ports.) Should I have our mesh router plugged into that 5G port or into the Ethernet ports?

shadowfax1 wrote:I have two questions...

1. What is 5G Ethernet, in comparison to Ethernet? What exactly is "5G Ethernet"?

In the abstract, there is no such thing; it's marketing blather.

More concretely, AT&T appears to be offering 5G-capable wireless hotspots (it would be interesting to see if these were really 5G, as AT&T has lied about this sort of thing before). And it appears that these hotspots are meant to be plugged in to the Ethernet port labelled "5G" on your router, presumably because the router software is pre-configured to recognize it. But that's just a guess on my part.

The port is capable of 2.5, 5Gbps--aka NbaseT, 802.3bz, multigig.

klui wrote:The port is capable of 2.5, 5Gbps--aka NbaseT, 802.3bz, multigig.

(*blink* *blink*)

AT&T actually sprung for a 5GBASE-T NIC? Well, I feel silly...