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Why buy an N router?

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The last router I bought some time back was an 11n - but that's a travel router for my computer bag.

These days, it's hard to justify buying an 11n, when 11ac routers are just slightly more expensive, and generally I've found that they do 11n just fine, and perhaps a little (but measurable) better performance - mostly due to faster SoC's and radio processors...
 
To summarize this thread:

With regards to routers:
N is dead! Long live AC!

Unless cost is concern #1, regardless of performance. :)
 
To summarize this thread:

With regards to routers:
N is dead! Long live AC!

Unless cost is concern #1, regardless of performance. :)
In consumer land anyway.
Still can't find a decent smb router with AC under $600.
 
N is still a good buy. I can't stand people recommending the AC87U to a person who has a G laptop and a cell phone. N900 and AC1900 are at the top of the game now. AC2400 and AC3200 are gimmicks to steal your money.


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N is still a good buy. I can't stand people recommending the AC87U to a person who has a G laptop and a cell phone. N900 and AC1900 are at the top of the game now. AC2400 and AC3200 are gimmicks to steal your money.

I agree - for some folks, a there's a lot of value perhaps in digging thru the bargain bin in the N300 class of devices.

I don't see a lot of value in the space above AC1900 at the moment - mostly due to lack of clients - we're in the second year of 802.11ac - and most of the clients in that space are either single or two stream at best, with some full on 3-stream clients in the laptop space (the business/pro space, e.g. MacBook Pro's, and the like from Dell/Lenovo/HP perhaps, and gamer specific niche Laptops).

The AC1750/AC1900 class is mature... stepping down just a bit into the AC1200 class, I do see some real value solutions popping up..

In the Enterprise Space - AC1750 is probably were most will go - anything higher can be additional support costs to the helpdesks due to interop issues with TurboQAM and AC type elements in the the 2.4GHz legacy space.

sfx
 
N is still a good buy. I can't stand people recommending the AC87U

The AC87U seems to have a lot of issues, period...

The AC68 series, on the other hand, seem to be fairly sorted out on the OEM firmware, and rMerlin is picking up some of the slack there with his spins...
 
I agree - for some folks, a there's a lot of value perhaps in digging thru the bargain bin in the N300 class of devices.

I don't see a lot of value in the space above AC1900 at the moment - mostly due to lack of clients - we're in the second year of 802.11ac - and most of the clients in that space are either single or two stream at best, with some full on 3-stream clients in the laptop space (the business/pro space, e.g. MacBook Pro's, and the like from Dell/Lenovo/HP perhaps, and gamer specific niche Laptops).

The AC1750/AC1900 class is mature... stepping down just a bit into the AC1200 class, I do see some real value solutions popping up..

In the Enterprise Space - AC1750 is probably were most will go - anything higher can be additional support costs to the helpdesks due to interop issues with TurboQAM and AC type elements in the the 2.4GHz legacy space.

sfx

You nailed it dude. Check out the TP-Link TL-WR841N on Amazon for $18.99. They are shipping V9.2 now. This version has a Qualcomm 550MHz processor. There are thousands of positive reviews on this router. I just picked one up for the fun of it. And let me tell you this is a beast of a N300 router. Great speeds and great range. I have a 150 Mbps download speed and this little budget N300 runs it like a charm. Anyone needing a budget N300 router this is the one to get. Plus it runs DD-WRT great as well.
 
I wanted to chime in here since I just scored a new router to replace my 'old man' Netgear N300 which has been very reliable yet limited. I contemplated going this route hunting for an N900 (Asus RT-N66U and Netgear WNDR4500). But at the end of the day, neither are future proof. Fortunately I managed to score a Brand New AC class router for LESS than a new N900 which will out perform the N router in all ways (Asus RT-AC56R for $55 in case you're wondering).
 
After doing many test on my current Netgear D6300 router connecting in N 300 mps mode versus AC 866 mps mode I have concluded that N is more stable and on average gives better data throughput speeds for my needs currently.

Sometimes I could get the AC mode to run at 25 MB/s data throughput but sometimes it would run at 2 MB/s data throughput depending on which device to which device the transfer was occurring over the network. The N mode provided a more solid and consistent 8 MB/s to 16 MB/s throughput in the same tests.

Maybe it is just my routers implementation of N versus AC but I believe the AC implementations by many router manufacturers continue to be somewhat variable in performance. I am still trying to figure out why that is the case and what exactly is failing in AC mode that causes it to drop to an unacceptably slow throughput for no apparent reason between certain devices using certain file transfer functions

cheers
Rohan
 
After doing many test on my current Netgear D6300 router connecting in N 300 mps mode versus AC 866 mps mode I have concluded that N is more stable and on average gives better data throughput speeds for my needs currently.

Sometimes I could get the AC mode to run at 25 MB/s data throughput but sometimes it would run at 2 MB/s data throughput depending on which device to which device the transfer was occurring over the network. The N mode provided a more solid and consistent 8 MB/s to 16 MB/s throughput in the same tests.

Maybe it is just my routers implementation of N versus AC but I believe the AC implementations by many router manufacturers continue to be somewhat variable in performance. I am still trying to figure out why that is the case and what exactly is failing in AC mode that causes it to drop to an unacceptably slow throughput for no apparent reason between certain devices using certain file transfer functions

cheers
Rohan

On the 5 gHz band with my RT-AC56R I'm getting over 70 mbps which is 68% the wired speed I get through the WAN. My old Netgear N300 router at best would do 30 mbps.. In my opinion this AC router is rock solid not to mention having both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and wired speed that's faster than my older gigabit router. My $.02.
 
On the 5 gHz band with my RT-AC56R I'm getting over 70 mbps which is 68% the wired speed I get through the WAN. My old Netgear N300 router at best would do 30 mbps.. In my opinion this AC router is rock solid not to mention having both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and wired speed that's faster than my older gigabit router. My $.02.

Do you mean "bits per second" or "bytes per second"?
 
70 MB per second. My wired connection is around 123-125 MB per second (Comcast Blast tier) which is rated at 100 MB/ps..Thanks.
 
70 MB per second. My wired connection is around 123-125 MB per second (Comcast Blast tier) which is rated at 100 MB/ps..Thanks.

You mean 70 Megabits/Second... Comcast is offerent 100 Megabit connections, not MegaBytes (if so, Have them give me a call, I've got some data center work for them at $70/Month)...
 
Little m vs Big M, little b vs Big B...

I was reading it as millibits per second :D

not to be pedantic about things

I love how kilobyte no longer means 1024 bytes. Now kibibyte means 1024 bytes.

So, really, we all have no idea what the the other person is referring to. Good times.o_O

:D
 
I love how kilobyte no longer means 1024 bytes. Now kibibyte means 1024 bytes.

So, really, we all have no idea what the the other person is referring to. Good times.o_O

:D

It's like buying hard drives, eh?

1,000 vs. 1,024 - and then there is cluster sizes on top of that for practical use... vendor says 1,000, the operating system says 1024... go figure...

My preference when buying connectivity is a commitment level - no less than XXXX bits per second, not up to a performance level...

And I buy a fair amount of connectivity wearing my work hat..
 
It's like buying hard drives, eh?

1,000 vs. 1,024 - and then there is cluster sizes on top of that for practical use... vendor says 1,000, the operating system says 1024... go figure...

My preference when buying connectivity is a commitment level - no less than XXXX bits per second, not up to a performance level...

And I buy a fair amount of connectivity wearing my work hat..

As a consumer, I have only 1 broadband ISP available... but hey, still happy to have the 1! :)
 
On the 5 gHz band with my RT-AC56R I'm getting over 70 mbps which is 68% the wired speed I get through the WAN. My old Netgear N300 router at best would do 30 mbps.. In my opinion this AC router is rock solid not to mention having both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and wired speed that's faster than my older gigabit router. My $.02.

Yes I can get 25MB/s or about 220 Mb/s on AC (2x2 866 mb/s connection) between some of the devices on my network but on others I get only 2 MB/s OR 18Mb/s. this variation is not due to the devices themselves as the the low speed pairings work faster when wired or on N. it is how they react to having a AC wifi link as part of the network which appears to be variable and device specific. I find while I dont get the high speeds of AC I also dont get the low speeds of it with N and the N speeds are in the middle and more consistent. If you networks likes AC then go for it or use it selectively for where it works

cheers
Rohan
 
Yes I can get 25MB/s or about 220 Mb/s on AC (2x2 866 mb/s connection) between some of the devices on my network but on others I get only 2 MB/s OR 18Mb/s. this variation is not due to the devices themselves as the the low speed pairings work faster when wired or on N. it is how they react to having a AC wifi link as part of the network which appears to be variable and device specific. I find while I dont get the high speeds of AC I also dont get the low speeds of it with N and the N speeds are in the middle and more consistent. If you networks likes AC then go for it or use it selectively for where it works

cheers
Rohan

Well... if you have 802.11ac Clients with inconsistent performance, it's likely a driver issue with the client.

I've found that most 802.11ac AP's - they performance as well, or even better, than 802.11n AP's - even in mixed mode A/N/AC environments.

I haven't had a chance to check QC-Atheros/Quantenna solutions, but looking at Broadcom/Marvell designs, they perform very well in mixed mode, and excellent performance in 1-2-3 stream 802.11ac - at least for Wave1 implementations.

I think Quantenna is likely pretty good with their radios, but based on feedback here on SNB, there seems to be some integration issues that can impact performance on the Layer3 and above (network up to application layers).

QC-Atheros should perform similar to Marvel/Broadcom solutions in the AC1900 space - Atheros has always been solid.

sfx
 

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