Five Things You Need to Know About Gigabit Wi-Fi

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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The new 802.11ac standard is slowly being introduced into the marketplace, but is it time to rush out and adopt this new standard immediately? The 5G Wi-Fi is still in its infancy with few early adopters, expensive in relation to other hardware, and expensive to initially deploy. Check out the five things you really need to know before considering the switch.

What all this means is that Gigabit Wi-Fi isn't really here. Faster Wi-Fi is but it's not really going to take off until 2014 and when it does come deploying it is going to be expensive. I foresee all of us using 802.11n Wi-Fi for years still to come. 802.11ac is not going to roll out quickly.
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Darn. Then again, in a home user environment, it is not likely to mean much. N speeds is enough for your typical laptop or tablet feeding off of a media server or light file server. Businesses, or those that really need the speed will just have to pay the early adopter tax like usual.
 
Before I clicked on the article (yes I was going to be guilty of commenting before reading) I was thinking "#1 you will NEVER get gigabit speeds..." but then read the article, and my faith in humanity (or this article writer) was restored :D

That said, I agree N speed is usually more than fine, there are some times when I need to transfer large files (not stream them) to my laptop and want to do it in 1 minute instead of 10, and I'll just plug into my gigabit cable at my desk to do it, but for the most part that level of speed isn't necessary.
 
I run 802.11n on 5GHz. Basically have to. I see around 15-20 stations from my apartment and 2.4GHz N dropped all the time or was slow as all hell.
 
I bought the new Apple Extreme (ac capable) router. Its nice, and I knew I was going to get it eventually, so might as well get it now. Just released and its nice, as expected.
 
I've had my 802.11n router for a couple of years now. Even in my new place, it's performing just fine. Would I like higher speeds? Of course. But, I'm not hurting for it.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but 5.8ghz has good range, it just doesn't penetrate objects well.
At legal (unlicensed) power, I ran 3.3 miles with 25mbps bi-directional 4 years ago. I got full bars on both ends. In theory it was capable of 20 km at full speed.

So if you have a situation where you need just a single room, and mount the router high, the room could be a blimp hanger or a fairgrounds.
 
I bought the ASUS RT-AC66R AC router recently when my Linksys N router recently failed. Coincidentally just before I got the new MSI GT60 with an Intel AC card. I'm getting great transfer speeds. May be early adoption or whatever but I'm not crying about increases in speed. If my router had not broke I wouldn't have upgraded quite yet however.
 
I've tested a few AC Routers out from Newegg's Eggxpert program, all top end routers from name brand companies. The speeds are awesome, (if you have a compatible device/adapter) but the range is god awful on pretty much all of them, it's almost unusable. My budget wireless N router easily surpasses them. The range is great vertically from floor to floor. But horizontally the signal drops tremendously the farther you walk away and fluctuates constantly. Many other reviewers have complained about this as well. Unknown if it's a early hardware limitation, or software bug..
 
Chunder said:
I've tested a few AC Routers out from Newegg's Eggxpert program, all top end routers from name brand companies. The speeds are awesome, (if you have a compatible device/adapter) but the range is god awful on pretty much all of them, it's almost unusable. My budget wireless N router easily surpasses them. The range is great vertically from floor to floor. But horizontally the signal drops tremendously the farther you walk away and fluctuates constantly. Many other reviewers have complained about this as well. Unknown if it's a early hardware limitation, or software bug..
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Part of the eggspert program and you don't know the fundamentals of Wi-Fi? /sigh.
Highly simplified, the higher the frequency the lower the penetration. In addition when referring to data transmission, the higher the speed the lower the penetration.. so combining 5ghz spectrum with high data shouted transmissions and yes the range is going to be very short when trying to pass through objects. Proper coverage in this standard is going to require multiple access points to cover a normal house.
 
I'm still using 802.11g. For anything that requires transfer speeds, I just use Ethernet which is still superior to and more reliable than wireless.
 
damicatz said:
I'm still using 802.11g. For anything that requires transfer speeds, I just use Ethernet which is still superior to and more reliable than wireless.
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I have an old Linksys WRT54GS that I loaded Tomato onto and bumped teh transmission power up to 84. I still get very poor speeds not even 15 yards from the router.

I'm thinking about getting an N router, but as I understand, aren't the AC routers able to transmit via electrical circuits? This is my main enticement...to be able to stream movies to my TV back in my bedroom reliably.
 
ravx25 said:
I have an old Linksys WRT54GS that I loaded Tomato onto and bumped teh transmission power up to 84. I still get very poor speeds not even 15 yards from the router.

I'm thinking about getting an N router, but as I understand, aren't the AC routers able to transmit via electrical circuits? This is my main enticement...to be able to stream movies to my TV back in my bedroom reliably.
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You'll never get full speed on any wireless network, not even next to the wireless AP. Wireless networks have a ton of overhead; for example, 50mbps is considered a good speed from a 150mbps 802.11n network and 20mbps for a G network.
 
ravx25 said:
I have an old Linksys WRT54GS that I loaded Tomato onto and bumped teh transmission power up to 84. I still get very poor speeds not even 15 yards from the router.

I'm thinking about getting an N router, but as I understand, aren't the AC routers able to transmit via electrical circuits? This is my main enticement...to be able to stream movies to my TV back in my bedroom reliably.
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DO NOT fall for the 120vac network shit. The only worst than the AC outlet network stuff is two tin cans and a string. Dial up is more reliable.
 
Wireless N when set up right is stupid fast and will stream HDTV with no problem. Get the PCIe 300mbps cards.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Part of the eggspert program and you don't know the fundamentals of Wi-Fi? /sigh.
Highly simplified, the higher the frequency the lower the penetration. In addition when referring to data transmission, the higher the speed the lower the penetration.. so combining 5ghz spectrum with high data shouted transmissions and yes the range is going to be very short when trying to pass through objects. Proper coverage in this standard is going to require multiple access points to cover a normal house.
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I know how WiFi works... You must've missed where I said the vertical coverage was great, it was only the horizontal coverage that was terrible.. rather on 5Ghz bandwidth or 2.4 Ghz they all suffered the same thing. Even with just Wireless N enabled they were lacking range, which is why I said "Many other reviewers have complained about this as well. Unknown if it's a early hardware limitation, or software bug."
 
It may not be gigabit wifi, but It's still much faster than any "N" router out there. I am consistently getting 410mb + on large file copies over my AC router and adapter. About 300mb on a bunch of smaller files. If you need to copy a fair amount of data over a wifi network, It's pretty useful.
 
That's pretty cool, but I hate how with wifi they always exaggerate the speed. If you read the article, it's nearly impossible to actually get those speeds in a normal setting. It's kinda like how unifi APs are rated at 300mbps but use a 100mbps port. I know the reason they can get away with that, but I still hate how they do that. With gigabit ethernet, you actually do get extremely close to gigabit speeds with a decent setup. Not 1/3 of it. Then again, if one wants speed, you go with wired, it's always going to be better.

Wireless has come a very long way though and it's still plenty of speed for every day use. TBH I never actually speed tested my N network, I'd have to do that some time.
 
I find it a little funny they seem to think you'll need port channels to support the "2nd wave" of products. It's not like they won't work on a single gig, plus by the time it's released we'll probably have much cheaper 10GbE options.
 
10Gb ethernet seems more attractive. Wireless is good but it will never be as reliable as wired. Wireless is good though for convenience mostly ;). Probably get 250mbps at most under good conditions with the ac standard.
 
Conker said:
10Gb ethernet seems more attractive. Wireless is good but it will never be as reliable as wired. Wireless is good though for convenience mostly ;). Probably get 250mbps at most under good conditions with the ac standard.
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Agreed. Give me a wired connection over wireless ANY time i don't need to move around. Wish hotels still had wired, because traveling and trying to use hotel WiFi is an exercise in pain.

Hell, the hotel i am in now has network jacks in the room, but they are not live. Which sucks major bunghole. :mad:
 
One thing i'm not clear about...

802.11ac is 5Ghz only, yet every 802.11ac AP/router on the market also works on 2.4Ghz. So that means the 2.4Ghz radio is simply an 802.11n radio?
 
I have an ac66u and the asus ac pcie card. Going through a couple walls, I get a 4/5 or 5/5 bar signal at ~800mbps. I transferred from my gigabit wired nas at just under 100MBps, which puts me right around the 800mbps connection rate. I don't know why the author or the article had such a slow connection.
 
I've said it before, I'll never move in to a house without dropping cat5e/cat6 in the rooms I need it ;)
 
The real question is where the hell is consumer priced 10 gig wired cards that work on regular copper. I honestly expected them to be mainstream like 2-3 years ago... That's the real BS...
 
6) Running 1 gig wired Ethernet in your home is cheaper than 1 gig wireless hardware.
 
tazeat said:
I've said it before, I'll never move in to a house without dropping cat5e/cat6 in the rooms I need it ;)
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Yep. Wireless is convenient for stuff like phones, but I'll never go full wireless for everything. I prefer wired for connectivity to my servers etc. Also more secure. The wireless is always on a different vlan with minimal access to the rest of the network. WPA2 is secure now, but so was WEP at one time.
 
I've been using 802.11a since about 2001, and have never had a problem with it. I know about the supposed limited range and such, but it simply hasn't been much of a problem, sometimes outside I have to move a few feet to one side of where I'm sitting, but otherwise, it seems to work just as well as b/g. I haven't installed n yet, because I haven't needed to.
 
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