MikroTik hAP ax3: Every Port Explained, and ax2 vs ax3

The hAP ax3 is the router we sell most of to people who have outgrown whatever their internet provider gave them. It costs 65.00 KWD, it is in stock in Kuwait, and the thing people get wrong about it is the ports — because they look identical and they are not.

The ports, one at a time

Five sockets, four different jobs.

Three consequences worth knowing before you cable anything:

The 2.5G port should face your internet line. If your service is above a gigabit — and in Kuwait both fibre packages and a good 5G connection now exceed it — putting the internet on any other port caps the line you are paying for at 1 Gbps. That single port is most of the reason the ax3 exists.

Port 5 can power something else. One access point, one camera, one small switch, powered over the same cable that carries its data. It is *passive* PoE, not 802.3af/at, so the device on the end must accept passive PoE at the voltage you feed in — check before you connect a standards-PoE device to it.

Port 2 can power the router. Useful when the router goes somewhere without a socket: a ceiling void, a riser cupboard, a shop counter. 18–28 V passive, or use the DC jack, which takes 12–28 V.

The specification, with the number we had to correct

A note on honesty, because this page used to be wrong. Our own listing previously stated 1800 Mbps on 5 GHz. That is not right, and we have corrected it. AX1800 is the combined figure — 574 on 2.4 GHz plus 1200 on 5 GHz adds up to roughly 1800, and MikroTik's own specification page states 1200 Mbit/s for the 5 GHz radio. If a retailer quotes you 1800 Mbps of 5 GHz throughput on an AX1800 device, they have made the same mistake.

And as always with wireless numbers: 1200 Mbit/s is the radio's theoretical maximum under ideal conditions with a client that can match it. Real throughput across a Kuwait apartment with concrete walls will be a fraction of it. Wi-Fi 6's practical benefit is handling many devices at once, not raw speed to any one of them.

hAP ax2 vs hAP ax3

This is the comparison most people actually need, and the 20 KWD between them buys two specific things.

The wireless is the same. Same chipset family, same AX1800 rating, same 574 + 1200. If you are hoping the ax3 has better Wi-Fi, it does not in any way the specification shows.

What you are buying is the 2.5 Gigabit port and the PoE output.

Buy the ax2 at 45.00 KWD when your internet is a gigabit or less and nothing needs powering from the router. For the large majority of Kuwait homes and two-room offices, this is the correct purchase and the ax3 is 20 KWD of capability you will not use.

Buy the ax3 at 65.00 KWD when either of these is true:

If neither applies, the honest answer is the ax2.

Where the hAP ax3 sits in the MikroTik range

People searching for the ax3 are often really choosing between it and something that is not a Wi-Fi router at all.

Two of those deserve a sentence each.

The RB5009 at 62.00 KWD is three dinars cheaper than the ax3 and a substantially more powerful router — quad-core ARM at 1.4 GHz, 1 GB DDR4, seven gigabit ports, a 2.5G port and a 10G SFP+ cage. It has no wireless at all. If you are putting access points in anyway, or the router lives in a cupboard, the RB5009 is the better machine for the money and it is not a close call. Pair it with a separate access point and you have a far better network than one box can give you.

The Chateau 5G ax at 175.00 KWD is the ax3's wireless and port layout with a 5G modem bolted on. Buy it when the internet arrives over a SIM rather than a cable — a site office, a villa waiting for fibre, a shop in a new development, a backup line. There is a longer discussion in our 5G router guide for Zain, Ooredoo and STC.

Why you would buy any of these instead of the box from your ISP

The hAP ax3 runs full RouterOS v7, which is the actual reason to own MikroTik hardware. Not a locked-down consumer firmware with a mobile app and four settings. That means VLANs, a real firewall with rules you write, WireGuard and IPsec VPN, per-device bandwidth management, and queue management including CAKE and FQ-CoDel for bufferbloat — the thing that makes a video call stutter when somebody starts a large upload.

It also means a learning curve. RouterOS does not configure itself and the defaults are deliberately minimal. If you would rather not build it yourself, we configure RouterOS before delivery — WAN, LAN, DHCP, firewall basics and the Wi-Fi — at no charge on any MikroTik purchase. Tell us your provider and we will have it working out of the box.

Short version

All five are in stock in Kuwait at the time of writing. Prices move — confirm before you budget.

Centrix Kuwait — Hawally. Call 2208 5406, or ask us which one fits your line speed and we will tell you honestly, including when the cheaper one is correct.