There has been much discussion on the performance of going from an N Series outdoor wireless system to AC. Not all AC is created equal. Right now there is AC Wave 1 and AC Wave 2. Just about all the AC stuff currently in the pipeline for outdoor wireless is wave 1. There is wave 2 indoor gear available, but for a WISP you are interested in the outdoor gear.
So what’s the difference?
For some reading about spatial streams, channel sizes, etc. look at this article https://info.hummingbirdnetworks.com/blog/80211ac-wave-2-vs-wave-1-difference
For the WISP folks who want the Cliff Notes version here are some key differences.
-Wave 1 uses 20,40,and 80 Mhz Channels. Wave 2 can support 80 and 160mhz channels. The 160mhz channel would be two 80mhz channels bonded together.
-Wave 1 can do 3 spatial streams. Wave 2 does 4. This requires an additional antenna to take advantage of wave2. This is a hardware upgrade from wave1 to wave 2.
-Wave 2 supports MU-MIMO. The AP can talk to 4 clients individually at once. The client must also support this, which is a hardware upgrade from wave 1 to wave 2 on both the client and the AP.
The question to ask your vendors is what is the upgrade path if you are using existing AC gear. If you are running AC currently you are most assuredly going to have to replace your AP radios and antennas. Will your existing clients work with the new AC wave 2 aps? An important thing to ask.