• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Explain 802.11ac speeds to me

J

JMB1911

Member
On an individual device level, say the latest smartphone would I notice any speed difference between an AC1900 and AC5200 router or does that higher number only mater if I'm going to have a lot of wireless devices running at the same time?

All of my "critical" stuff(desktop, roku, file server) is hardwired; only my phone, tablet, and laptop(when not docked) would be using wifi.
 
Short answer: No.

Long answer: You would likely never use your phone in such a way as to be able to take advantage of the extra speed. Unless you are transferring large files over the local network (streaming doesn't count), you likely won't see any additional benefit. Depending on your internet connection, you may not even see any benefit to the AC1900 speeds.
 
Last edited:
Without the proper adapter you'll never see max transfer speeds. In Small Net Builder's review of the Asus RT-AC5300 router, they used a second router (Asus RT-88U) to test the 4-stream performance because there are no quad-band wireless adapters.

ASUS supplied two RT-AC5300's so 4x4 thoughput could be tested. But the AC5300 doesn't support wireless bridging, so I had to use an RT-AC88U as the bridge partner.
Click to expand...

In conclusion, they had this to say:

Perhaps Wi-Fi router makers have finally jumped the shark with this latest class of "kitchen sink" routers and their too-big-to-be-believed numbers on the box. The 1x1 and 2x2 devices most of us have get no benefit from the two extra transmit / receive chains, no benefit from Broadcom's "Nitro-QAM" non-standard modulation and no benefit from the MU-MIMO that even ASUS admits won't be properly baked until sometime this summer. And unless you have a lot of dual-band devices in simultaneous use, you'll get no benefit from the second 5 GHz radio, either.
Click to expand...
 
In other words the Thingies above AC 1900 are basically Marketing Ploy rather then being useful innovation in Wireless technology.




😎
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top