TP-Link's MU-MIMO Powered Archer C2600 Wireless Router Now Available

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TP-Link's Archer series encompasses a broad range of networking products, from routers, to modems, to adapters. This morning, the Archer series added another router to its lineup, the TP-Link Archer C2600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router.

As you probably guessed, the Archer C2600 is an AC2600 router, with speeds of up to 1733 Mbps on 5 GHz band and up to 800 Mbps on 2.4 GHz band. The Archer C2600 includes 4 Stream technology, which TP-Link said allows devices to reach their maximum speeds. This means that devices can fully utilize the speeds necessary in high-bandwidth applications such as streaming 4K video and multiplayer games, and when used along with MU-MIMO, multiple devices may run under heavy network strain simultaneously.

The TP-Link Archer C2600 is powered by a 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. It sends data with the help of beamforming technology and four detachable, dual-band antennas. Although aimed at modern and upcoming wireless devices, the Archer C2600 is also compliant with legacy standards such as 802.11 b/g/n.

The I/O is split between the back and the right side. The rear I/O includes four gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, one gigabit Ethernet WAN port, a 12V power jack and power button. The right side I/O includes two USB 3.0 ports and buttons for toggling Wi-Fi on/off, as well as WPS and Reset.

Also included with the Archer C2600 are a power adapter, an RJ45 Ethernet cable and a quick installation guide. TP-Link also provides its Tether app on the Android and iPhone store, which eases the setup for the C2600 and allows users to manage network settings through their phone.

The TP-Link Archer C2600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router is available today for an MSRP of $249.99.

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2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • eklipz330
    tp-link has sure done a good job distinguishing themselves in the router market. i had there wdr3600 or something of that sort for a few years, worked 'okay'. rarely had any disconnecting issues. but poor signal strength. then again, it was like $30.
    Reply
  • Kewlx25
    I wonder if they are using per device wifi queues. You still have round-robin issues once you have more active devices than mu-mimo supports or two devices are in the same direction. mu-mimo uses beam-forming to break up broadcast domains and does not work if the two beams overlap.

    The reason per device network queues are important is because wifi is only so fast because it can send bursts of packets, but when you have two or more devices causing interleaving packets, burst no longer works. eg

    Say you have one device and below are the packets
    Device1
    Device1
    Device1

    You can batch up those three packets and send them at the same time

    But say you have two devices
    Device1
    Device2
    Device1
    Device2
    Device1
    Device2

    You can no longer batch the packets. Per device queues would instead do

    Queue1
    Device1
    Device1
    Device1

    Queue2
    Device2
    Device2
    Device2

    And round-robin the queues instead of the packets. Some researchers have tested this out and it makes a HUGE difference in throughput and latency. Of course no known routers do this yet, unless you install custom firmware.
    Reply