Gigabit Wi-Fi: 802.11ac is here: Five things you need to know
Gigabit Wi-Fi: 802.11ac is here: Five things you need to know
Posted: 21 Jun 2013
Gigabit Wi-Fi, 802.11ac is not really going to give you gigabit speeds - and there are other factors you need to consider before adding it to your wireless network.
Gigabit Wi-Fi, 802.11ac, is officially here, but what does that really mean? Here's my list of the five things you need to know before you invest in this new wireless technology.
I have a helluva enough bad time getting my Router to deliver N speeds. which my iPhone is supposed to be able to use, but the highest speed is still 54mbps. My experience has been, that my router will deliver full N speed only when all of my WiFi devices are set up for N. But it is an older WRT110 router.
My friend and I have the same problem with our Billion (BiPAC 7800N) router.
It will not run faster than 15 Mb/s even if the only wireless devices around are using 802.11n dongles.
No amount of tinkering with the settings makes any difference (e.g. bandwidth, channels, security, etc.).
It sounds nice in theory, but I'd be surprised if this 802.11ac system actually delivers more than ~200 Mb/s of useful throughput.
Even that would be a lot faster than our ISP provides and we only get a fraction of that because of the cabling.
That was going to be my thought. If my ISP is only giving me 3 Meg service, why do I want/need G/bit wireless on the home network? I don't move big files, I don't stream media from one device to another (often enough to worry about), and I don't run huge databases.
Unless there was some gain in range and/or bandwidth, I don't think I'd bother.
Computer Type: PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number: iBuyPower NZXT OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home Build 15036 CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-860 @ 2.80GHz Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P55-UD3L Memory: 4.00 GB Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Sound Card: (1) Line 6 UX2 (2) Realtek High Definition Audio Monitor(s) Displays: 23" acer Screen Resolution: 1920 x 1080 x 32 bits (4294967296 colors) @ 60 Hz Cooling: Corsair H75 liquid cooler (Very easy to install, actually) Hard Drives: (1) WDC WD5000AAKS-00D2B0 ATA Device (2) Seagate FreeAgent Go 250G USB Device Internet Speed: 60M cable modem-->Linksys E1200-->1Gbps net card Browser: Chrome Other Info: This is probably the longest I've ever had a Windows machine run without having to restore it to scratch. I'm used to restoring to "factory" about every 2 yrs. I've run with Win7 since new in 2009 and only recently (Nov, '14) restored to clean up the machine from all my 'xperimenting. LOL!! I may never need another machine.
Upgraded to 10 when it was still free, then installed 2017 update.
That's useful for streaming HD stuff from a NAS to your media center/tablet/phablet/whatever (even on "n" it does have some hiccups). Which is admittedly a very limited application, and not even 100% sure about it.
Unless someone moves his backside and gives a decent mobile Internet (as I doubt anyone will place cables to support better speeds than 1-3 Mbit outside of major cities), that tech is useless.
Computer Type: PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number: custom built OS: Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601 CPU: AMD Phenom 9650 QuadCore, revision DR-B3 Motherboard: ASUS M4A78 Memory: 5 GB yes I run 2x 2GB and 1x 1GB, different brand, spank me. Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512 Mb, unknown manufacturer. Sound Card: Crappy Realtek Integrated Audio Monitor(s) Displays: Fujitsu Siemens P19-3P Screen Resolution: 1280 x 1024 x 32 bits @ 60 Hz Oh yeah, 4:3 rocks! Keyboard: Microsoft, PS/2, white. Mouse: Optical, logitec. PSU: whatever, around 450w Case: Scavenged from old company PC, 10+ years old Cooling: CPU fan, GPU fan, case fan, nothing fancy Hard Drives: (1) MAXTOR S TM3320613AS SATA Disk Device (2) STM35004 18AS SATA Disk Device (3) TOSHIBA USB 2.5"-HDD Internet Speed: effective max speeds: 70-ish kB/s down 30-ish kB/s up Browser: Firefox with FXChrome to make it look like Google Chrome :P Antivirus: Avira, free edition. Other Info: Was discarded by previous owner due to "horrible performance".
Was running Win Xp from a IDE drive. Yeah. Was a pain.
SATA II drive and Win7 and it zips away! Yay!
Useless? I think not. Since when is a useless connection faster than a 1Gbps wired connection?
Maybe it's best to see the results from someone who is currently running this new technology.
No laboratory required. This wireless status speed is from my Garage machine using an Asus AC66U PCI-e card using the new Asus AC66U router.
This is 35 feet from the Asus router which is set up as an access point. The good thing is that nobody is using the 5Ghz frequency yet so it's all for me in my area, no interference at all.
The real draw back is that you must use the 5Ghz frequency for this and the 5Ghz frequency won't go through walls at all. It's really made for large open spaces such as big offices or large outdoor area coverage.
I already told why it is useless in my opinion. The bottleneck is internet speed even for wifi-n. Even 1TB wifi remains useless to me and a large amount of people because there is no way in heck to get more than 1-3 Mbit/s of "theoretical upper limit" in internet speed. Due to lack of infrastructure in the countryside. Makes no sense to put optic fiber for a few homes per km2
Computer Type: PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number: custom built OS: Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601 CPU: AMD Phenom 9650 QuadCore, revision DR-B3 Motherboard: ASUS M4A78 Memory: 5 GB yes I run 2x 2GB and 1x 1GB, different brand, spank me. Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512 Mb, unknown manufacturer. Sound Card: Crappy Realtek Integrated Audio Monitor(s) Displays: Fujitsu Siemens P19-3P Screen Resolution: 1280 x 1024 x 32 bits @ 60 Hz Oh yeah, 4:3 rocks! Keyboard: Microsoft, PS/2, white. Mouse: Optical, logitec. PSU: whatever, around 450w Case: Scavenged from old company PC, 10+ years old Cooling: CPU fan, GPU fan, case fan, nothing fancy Hard Drives: (1) MAXTOR S TM3320613AS SATA Disk Device (2) STM35004 18AS SATA Disk Device (3) TOSHIBA USB 2.5"-HDD Internet Speed: effective max speeds: 70-ish kB/s down 30-ish kB/s up Browser: Firefox with FXChrome to make it look like Google Chrome :P Antivirus: Avira, free edition. Other Info: Was discarded by previous owner due to "horrible performance".
Was running Win Xp from a IDE drive. Yeah. Was a pain.
SATA II drive and Win7 and it zips away! Yay!
I already told why it is useless in my opinion. The bottleneck is internet speed even for wifi-n. Even 1TB wifi remains useless to me and a large amount of people because there is no way in heck to get more than 1-3 Mbit/s of "theoretical upper limit" in internet speed. Due to lack of infrastructure in the countryside. Makes no sense to put optic fiber for a few homes per km2
Your opinion isn't motivation for what I wrote. Maybe you should have wrote useless in your case but certainly not for others.
That entire article was just as pessimistic but I'd be willing to bet that guy has never even tried this out.
Nothing like hearing it from the horses mouth rather than an uninformed opinion from some writer trying to make a name for himself. I'm sure at least a few of us here will be happy to hear my opinion and the results I posted on this. After all I did spend the 300 bucks to make it happen.
Is a matter of fact the throughput to my ISP went from 20Mbps to 35Mbps just because I eliminated the wireless N bottle neck. Moving files is also three times faster, just as fast as my wired connections now. I'd have a hard time calling that useless.
Computer Type: PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number: custom built OS: Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601 CPU: AMD Phenom 9650 QuadCore, revision DR-B3 Motherboard: ASUS M4A78 Memory: 5 GB yes I run 2x 2GB and 1x 1GB, different brand, spank me. Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512 Mb, unknown manufacturer. Sound Card: Crappy Realtek Integrated Audio Monitor(s) Displays: Fujitsu Siemens P19-3P Screen Resolution: 1280 x 1024 x 32 bits @ 60 Hz Oh yeah, 4:3 rocks! Keyboard: Microsoft, PS/2, white. Mouse: Optical, logitec. PSU: whatever, around 450w Case: Scavenged from old company PC, 10+ years old Cooling: CPU fan, GPU fan, case fan, nothing fancy Hard Drives: (1) MAXTOR S TM3320613AS SATA Disk Device (2) STM35004 18AS SATA Disk Device (3) TOSHIBA USB 2.5"-HDD Internet Speed: effective max speeds: 70-ish kB/s down 30-ish kB/s up Browser: Firefox with FXChrome to make it look like Google Chrome :P Antivirus: Avira, free edition. Other Info: Was discarded by previous owner due to "horrible performance".
Was running Win Xp from a IDE drive. Yeah. Was a pain.
SATA II drive and Win7 and it zips away! Yay!
Cannot get gigabit performance out of Nics in Win 7.. Locked 100 mbps. My motherboard is an Evga 590 Sli Am2 motherboard, with dual gigabit nics. Having established that there is really no benefit to using both nics at the same time in another post, I am now posting because it seems I am only...