Shopping for a router.....

bsullivan1983

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Feb 29, 2012
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Looking to buy a MacBook Pro here in the next few weeks. It supports 802.11ac, but all of the routers I see that support this are so expensive! Questions- Do I REALLY NEED 802.11ac? Is there going to be a massive difference between that and Wireless N? I just want to keep the router by my desktop and be able to use the laptop in other parts of the house (which is fairly small). Need advice on a decent router. I haven't used wireless in years. I don't need any frills. Just something that is fast, won't drop signal and reliable.
 
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802.11ac has exactly the same coverage as 802.11n. The reason people "think" it does not is because they are comparing 2.4g to 5g. If you compare 802.11n running on 5g to 802.11ac running on 5g the coverage will be the same but the 802.11ac will run faster at a given signal level.

The key restriction is if you need to use 2.4g to get the coverage in your house then you cannot use 802.11ac since it only runs on 5g.

But more to your questions. If you are just going to surf the internet then it likely makes no difference at all. If you have only say a 20m internet if you connect to the router at 300m or 1.3g your traffic will still only run at 20m. which means even old 802.11g will be fast enough.

The people that can...
Can't remember the exact distance, but the 802.11ac has a lower coverage than N and G (once max distance is reached, it will lower to N then to B/G), so you'll only get true 802.11ac while standing close to the router, take that into consideration before investing on one of those routers.
 
802.11ac will give you at least 500mbps (theoretically can reach 2Gbps+ when the device has multiple specific antennas), so the question is if you are really gonna use those 500mbps+ or if the 300Mbps from 802.11n will suffice you now and in the foreseeable future.
 
802.11ac has exactly the same coverage as 802.11n. The reason people "think" it does not is because they are comparing 2.4g to 5g. If you compare 802.11n running on 5g to 802.11ac running on 5g the coverage will be the same but the 802.11ac will run faster at a given signal level.

The key restriction is if you need to use 2.4g to get the coverage in your house then you cannot use 802.11ac since it only runs on 5g.

But more to your questions. If you are just going to surf the internet then it likely makes no difference at all. If you have only say a 20m internet if you connect to the router at 300m or 1.3g your traffic will still only run at 20m. which means even old 802.11g will be fast enough.

The people that can actually use 802.11ac are doing things like video streaming INSIDE their house or running NAS on their home lan. These feature can benefit from the higher speed of 802.11ac.

Since 802.11ac is backward compatible it does not hurt to buy equipment that supports it. When 802.11ac equipment drops in price then you will be ready....if you can actually find a need to run that fast.

I suspect we will start to see a drop in the 802.11ac price . They were suppose to finalize the 802.11ac standard sometime around now so first part of next year we should hopefully see some competing product from the low cost vendors that did not want to risk shipping product before the standard was final.
 
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