Items tagged with 802.11ac

Most of us have had a love-hate relationship with wireless networking. It’s a wonderful technology when all your devices remain connection and perform well in every room of your house, but that’s not always the case. When your devices intermittently drop off or can't find a strong enough signal strength... Read more...
Updated: 2/10/2017 -  Since we initially launched this article, Netgear assisted with resolving a technical issue we were experiencing with 802.11ad connectivity and performance with the Nighthawk X10 router we had in for testing. As such, we have updated this review with both fresh 60GHz 802.11ad performance... Read more...
Consumer WiFi router products are generally classified by three major performance characteristics: overall throughput or bandwidth, multi-client performance, and range. Although throughput and multi-client bandwidth has scaled-up nicely over the years, range perhaps hasn't improved quite as robustly and even the most powerful WiFi routers,... Read more...
At this point we've reviewed quite a few high-end AC routers, including tri-band routers, flagship dual-band models, and even the latest MU-MIMO devices too. However, the one portion of the market we haven't covered much is the one that exists on the more affordable end of the pricing spectrum. We all know there are... Read more...
The second wave of 802.11ac routers are now shipping, and they offer a tantalizing performance benefit over the previous routers we’ve reviewed (at least with their older firmware) — the ability to broadcast multiple data streams to several clients at once. This technology, named MU-MIMO, which stands for Multiple... Read more...
You read the headline correctly – this is not a review of a Synology NAS, but instead a wireless router. If this sounds unusual to you, you are not alone. Synology is a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) company, or at least it used to be, as it's now taking all its networking expertise and jumping into the router market, and the black beauty... Read more...
The router game is heating up once again, after being dormant for what seemed like an eternity, thanks to new iterations of the Broadcom XStream platform. We first examined this platform for 802.11 AC routers back in October when we rounded up four AC3200 routers from Netgear, D-Link, TrendNet, and Asus. We then added... Read more...
Shortly after we published our AC3200 router roundup, Linksys contacted us and wanted to throw one of its routers into the ring. We agreed, and the company sent us its Linksys EA9200 Tri-band Smart Wi-Fi router, which like the others in the roundup is a tri-band router that uses the Broadcom XStream 5GHz platform, throwing out dual 5GHz networks... Read more...
Wireless routers are going through somewhat of a renaissance right now, thanks to the arrival of the 802.11ac standard that is "three times as fast as wireless-N" and the proliferation of Internet-connected devices in our homes and pockets. Whereas before we merely had a handful of laptops and PCs connected to the... Read more...
Today, Qualcomm is announcing full support for a new wireless transmission method that could significantly boost performance on crowded networks. The new standard, MU-MIMO (Multiple User - Multiple Input and Multiple Output) has a clunky name -- but could make a significant difference to home network speeds and... Read more...
While sometimes rewarding, being an early adopter also carries its share of risks and pitfalls, and not just for the consumer. Manufacturers are prone to buyer's remorse as well, and Apple may feel that way if it can't come up with a fix for its 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology baked into its newest MacBook Air models... Read more...
It’s router time, baby. D-Link has a new quartet of them, and they all sport 802.11ac technology, which is the next generation of WiFi speed, which will enable more flexible options for streaming movies, gaming online, and other activities. "Today's average home now has more than 15 devices, oftentimes with multiple iPads, iPhones, as... Read more...
The first wave of devices supporting the 802.11ac standard is still coming, and Western Digital is now part of it with its announcement of the My Net AC1300 router and My Net AC WiFi Bridge. As you might expect, the routers offers both 802.11ac on the 5GHz band and 802.11n on the 2.4GHz bands, and the My Net AC1300 is... Read more...
Here come the 802.11ac routers, and a little ahead of schedule at that. Networking manufacturers were talking up the new wireless standard at CES in January, promising to have product ready by the fall. Asus is the latest to join the still-small club of companies to release a router that uses the new 802.11ac... Read more...
It's been quite awhile since a new wireless networking standard has appeared on the mainstream home router scene, but that stretch is coming to an end with the arrival of devices supporting 802.11ac. Today, D-Link joins the club with its Cloud Router 5700 (DIR-865L), which is at online retailers for $189.99. The 5700 boasts total theoretical... Read more...
Netgear today introduced the availability of what it claims is the world's first 802.11ac Wi-Fi router. It's the Netgear R6300 and it's an 802.11ac dual-band gigabit Wi-Fi router with support for 5th generation (5G) Wi-Fi, and is also backwards compatible with 802.11a/b/g/n. Powered by Broadcom's 5G Wi-Fi IEEE... Read more...
For all the computing power and innovation built into today’s devices, connectivity is always a bottleneck. Even as streaming, video chats and meetings, and mobile connectivity becomes a normal part of computing life, the limitations of network speeds are constantly there, reminding us how far the technology and associated rollouts still... Read more...
TRENDnet is already announcing its next-gen networking products, even though you won’t get to play with them until late this year (unless you’re at CES in a few days). The company’s 1300 Mbps Dual Band Wireless AC Router (TEW-811D), and 1300 Mbps Dual Band Wireless AC Media Bridge (TEW-800MB) utilize... Read more...
Not only is 1Gbps heading for your Wi-Fi network by next year, it will be instantly über popular. The new 802.11ac 1G Wi-Fi standard hasn't even been ratified by the IEEE yet and In-Stat predicts that by 2015, consumers will have bought nearly 1 billion devices that use it.  1G Wi-Fi, which will use radio spectrum in a range below... Read more...