First 802.11ac WF-Fi Router Coming from Netgear

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,400
Netgear will have bragging rights to being the first company to commercially offer a router using 11ac standards, operating on the 5 GHz band. Bragging rights will be all they have for a while since there are no compatible devices presently available on the market.

The R6300 is a dual-band router, though, so a settings tweak should let you banish slower devices to the lower 2.4 GHz band, while maintaining faster devices on the 5 GHz band.
 
As long as it dosn't take 3 years and 11 drafts like N does bring it on.
 
didnt even know about this standard lol

The 0.1 standard was just written in January, and chipsets have been around for just about as long as that. Basically other than Qualcomm talking about having Wi-Fi chips available that support it not much has been released. I still think the idea that they will be finished by the end of 2013 is wishful thinking however.
 
Why is a new standard being introduced? What are the benefits of this? I'm not seeing it.
 
Why is a new standard being introduced? What are the benefits of this? I'm not seeing it.
"reportedly run up to 1.3 Gbps on the 5 GHz band, which makes it (theoretically) more than twice as fast as current 802.11n routers."

Downside is higher frequencies tend to lower the range. Probably the reason 802.11a never really took off.
 
Meh.. N is fast enough for now.. I would much rather see a bump in range.
 
They seem to be implying that running 802.11n 5Ghz clients will slow the network down.

Someone who previously wanted the fastest speeds would have invested in 802.11n 5Ghz tech already, so it would be pretty lame if those same wireless clients then became a liability for 802.11ac.
 
Meh.. N is fast enough for now.. I would much rather see a bump in range.

Streaming HD video from a local computer to a device or other computer shows that this is not the case. I also would like longer range though, but I'm just happy with this also for the moment.
 
Unfortunately that can't be helped. The same thing happens when G equipment is connected to N routers, they can't do things as aggressively as they can on a pure N or AC network for compatibility.
 
You could always boost the range IF there is a RP-SMA type connector and you attach a helical coil antenna or a parabolic reflector tuned to the frequency :)
 
It makes for replacing my home wired LAN a now completely wireless LAN now that it can do 1gbps, I see this for home users being a good thing, the range is there for a home network to be completely wireless now, matching wired speeds finally.
 
Not familiar with the 802.11ac standard, but does it rely on using multiple channels to boost speeds, like 802.11n does? In that case, I'm not interested.

802.11n may give great speeds to those who live in the boonies, but around here where I can always see anywhere from 25 to 30 different SSID's in my list on my laptop, it's not very fast. I don't even live in the city, just in a suburb, where I guess everyone has Wi-Fi routers.

I used to use a Netgear WNDR3700 N600 router claiming 300+300Mbps for combined 600Mbps speeds. I could never even connect at the max speed of a single channel of 65Mbps. I often connected at 20Mbps or so, even while right next to the router...

Since this, I have upgraded to a Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi AP, and it seems to somehow deal with interference much more effectively. Now I connect at the max for a single channel (65Mbps) all the time, but I never connect above this, as there is never an adjacent channel available for it to expand to.

And because there is so much overhead in the protocol, actual transfer speeds are nowhere near 65Mbps.

This has more or less led me to give up on Wifi. I leave it on for phones and such, but everything else is hardwired at gigabit with CAT6 wiring.

I feel like the WiFi really only works as advertised if your network is in a secluded area where there is no interference at all.
 
It makes for replacing my home wired LAN a now completely wireless LAN now that it can do 1gbps, I see this for home users being a good thing, the range is there for a home network to be completely wireless now, matching wired speeds finally.

Depends on how the latencies compare to wired networks, especially for gamers.

Also, see my post above. Unless you live in more secluded areas, I just don't see people actually getting the advertised speeds.
 
Well crap, that means there will be another edition of a network+ book will be out soon.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038666664 said:
Depends on how the latencies compare to wired networks, especially for gamers.

Also, see my post above. Unless you live in more secluded areas, I just don't see people actually getting the advertised speeds.

This!!!

Doesn't matter if its as fast as wired it won't have the latency of a wired network and to setup that matters more.
 
Back
Top