Asus router 66U debacle.

[Mastermind2214]

I'm having a hard time figuring out which router to buy to replace my dying netgear dual band. I've narrowed my search to the 2 Asus ones, the N66U and AC66U. I'd like to know which would be better, in general, and a pros and cons list of each if possible.

Thanks,

Nate

[Hyydrah]

The AC66U will have better theoretical performance, greater range, etc. but also a bigger price tag. It really depends on your needs and budget.

[Mastermind2214]

No budget really, and I just need a router that won't kill my speeds randomly and make me reset it every few days. Some online gaming and streaming from wifi is about all I do.

[Thunderjolt]

No budget really, and I just need a router that won't kill my speeds randomly and make me reset it every few days. Some online gaming and streaming from wifi is about all I do.

You'll have to look at reviews to know that. Also all routers have their own fair share of problems. A lot of the routers I've owned have had a problem or two (Cutting out etc). I'd go with the AC. From the name I'm guessing it runs of 802.11ac so why not future proof now

[LAwLz]

The AC66U will have better theoretical performance, greater range, etc. but also a bigger price tag. It really depends on your needs and budget.

I haven't seen any tests done, but I don't think 802.11ac has longer range than 802.11n, especially not if you use the 2.4GHz band on 802.11n (ac is only 5GHz, and will drop down to n for 2.4GHz).

 

Anyway OP it's up to you to decide. Do you want 802.11ac? Please keep in mind that you won't get any benefit from it whatsoever unless you get devices which support it as well, and even if you do get devices that support it (like the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One) you need to have next to no devices which doesn't support it on the network to get full speed (802.11n devices gets priority over 802.11ac devices because of collision issues, so 802.11ac devices have to wait until 802.11n devices have finished sending or receiving before they can start sending).

Another "drawback" of 802.11ac right now is that the final specs are not done (the current devices are based on the latest draft of the specs) and while I doubt that any major changes will happen, you might miss out on some cool feature. The current 802.11ac devices are also fairly low end compared to what the spec actually allows for. The maximum bandwidth the current draft allows for would be 3.47Gbps, and the highest end consumer router with ac "only" tops out at 1.3Gbps.

I am not saying that 802.11ac is bad, but we will get much better routers with it in a year or so. If you want the latest and greatest now then get the AC66U. If you're OK with lower bandwidth (will pretty much only affect your local traffic) then go with the (probably) significantly cheaper N66U (or maybe even something cheaper).

 

It's hard to say which one suits you the best without knowing what you are going to use it for. What do you do on your network? Just Internet browsing? What's your Internet speed like? Do you transfer lots of files on your LAN?

[Hyydrah]

I haven't seen any tests done, but I don't think 802.11ac has longer range than 802.11n, especially not if you use the 2.4GHz band on 802.11n (ac is only 5GHz, and will drop down to n for 2.4GHz).

Apparently it has superior range to 802.11n.

 

"While speed is what will likely sell 802.11ac routers, range is equally important. Here wireless ac excels. 

The first point to make is the 802.11ac standard lives entirely in the 5GHz spectrum. While some more modern routers broadcast 802.11n in 5GHz as well as 2.4GHz they remain relatively rare.  

Consequently, the 5GHz spectrum tends to be 'quiet', meaning much less interference from neighbourhood Wi-Fi. This more than counters the fact that, in lab conditions, 5GHz signals do not actually broadcast as far as 2.4GHz signals. 5GHz is also necessary to support the faster speeds of wireless ac. 

The second key factor is 802.11ac makes ‘beamforming’ a core part of its spec. Rather than throw out wireless signal equally in all directions, WiFi with beamforming detects where devices are and intensifies the signal in their direction(s). 

This technology has been around in proprietary form (it made a huge impact in the D-Link DIR-645), but now it will be inside every 802.11ac router and every 802.11ac device. 

The combination of these two technologies is profound. This was most clearly seen with the Linksys EA6500 which hit speeds of 30.2MBps (241.6Mbit) when connecting to a device just two metres away, but still performed at 22.7MBps (181.6Mbit) when 13 metres away with two solid walls in the way. By contrast Linksys’ own EA4500 (identical except being limited to 802.11n) managed 10.6MBps (84.8Mbit) dropping to 2.31MBps (18.48Mbit) under the same conditions."

 

Source

[LAwLz]

-snip-

Oh I didn't know beamforming was a requirement in 802.11ac. 802.11n does support it (as your article mentions) but it's optional so the majority do not use it, and I thought it was the same for 802.11ac.

Something you have to take into consideration that the maximum allowed transmitting power for devices using beamforming is lower than normal MIMO antennas so unless the FCC changes their rules, the gain from using beamforning might become neglectable (maybe a ~1dB increase).

 

Here is a link to a very good article about beamforming, and here are two quotes:

 

 

Beamforming increases the performance of wireless networks at medium ranges. At short ranges, the signal power is high enough that the SNR will support the maximum data rate. At long ranges, beamforming does not offer a substantial gain over an omnidirectional antenna, and data rates will be identical to non-beamformed transmissions.

 

 

802.11ac operates subject to regulations regarding transmit power. When MIMO was first introduced, regulators imposed a limit based on the array gain. MIMO systems improve performance by analyzing signals across multiple antennas, which offers a signal-processing gain that is equivalent in concept to simply using a larger antenna. The array gain is related to the number of antennas in the array and is defined as 10*log(N), where N is the number of antennas in the array. For a two-antenna system the array gain is 3 dB, and for a three-antenna system the array gain is 4.8 dB.

 

Regulatory rules are typically a cap on effective radiated power (ERP), and ERP includes the array gain in both the US and Europe. Because ERP is the sum of the power from the Wi-Fi radio itself plus the antenna gain, in practice, regulations impose a lower limit on MIMO systems. For a two-antenna MIMO array limited to 20 dBm ERP, the maximum input power to the array will be 17 dBm because the ERP includes the array gain: 17 dBm conducted power + 3 dB antenna gain = 20 dBm ERP. European regulations have always required that the array gain adjustment be used only in “correlated” transmission methods such as beamforming; rules in the US required the array gain adjustment to all transmissions until October 2012. As this book went to press, transmit beamforming implementations were required to use a lower radio power output than other forms of MIMO.^[35] This may limit the practical advantage of transmit beamforming systems, at least until regulatory rules are changed again.

 

I'll remain skeptical about the range of 802.11ac until we start seeing more tests being done. Especially compared to 802.11n on the 2.4GHz band.

Something very interesting with beamforming is that it allows for MU-MIMO but let's not get into that.

[R4STABAN]

I got the n66u because I run our 2 main PCs and my home server on ethernet, leaving wireless for any laptops / phones which all use N.

 

In fact only my S3 uses the 5Ghz band of N and I prefer to use the 2.4Ghz, because with 5 I can't get signal in the garden.

[ygohome]

congrats.  I've had my n66u for a couple weeks now and very happy with it so far.

 

 

I usually use wired, but when using wireless I too often use the 2.4Ghz just because of broader ranger.