Gigabit Wi-Fi: 802.11ac is here: Five things you need to know

[Brink]

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.

Read more at: Gigabit Wi-Fi: 802.11ac is here: Five things you need to know | ZDNet

 

[lehnerus2000]

If it works

From EightForums:

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.).

I created a thread here about it:
http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/292275-billion-bipac-7800n-low-wireless-speed.html

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.

 

[PeaB4YouGo]

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.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

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.

 

[chev65]

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.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

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

 

[chev65]

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.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

ah, nevermind then.