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ASUS RT-AC68 as a WAP... Just wow

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abailey

Very Senior Member
For the past 3 years or so my wireless network has been pretty good. I had been using a Dlink DAP-2553 for 5ghz N and Ubiquiti AP's for 2.4ghz N. The performance was ok but not great. Anyway at Christmas this year there was an explosion in wireless devices in my house. With this came wireless performance problems when the entire family is home and using the devices at the same time. We would get dropped connections and lots of buffering. I decided it was time to upgrade the wireless a little. Since I liked the Ubiquiti AP's I decided to purchase some new ones that were capable of 5Ghz. Since I did not have any devices capable of wireless AC, I purchased a Ubiquiti AP-Pro. After installing it in place of the Dlink DAP, the dropped connections went away but we still had buffering problems on video's and slow performance on web pages. I thought it may be my internet connection, but after testing it, that was definitely not the problem. I decided we must have too many devices connected to the same AP, so I purchased a second AP-Pro and gave it s different SSID and channel so I could spread the devices out between them. Well the problem got a little better but to say I was disappointed is an understatement (with spending nearly $400 on Ubiquiti AP-Pro's). I even put in a wired jack next to where my daughter usually sits with the laptop and asked her to plug in when she used it. I had pretty much decided that the wireless I had was the best it could get (with no wireless AC clients), until I read the article here on using wireless AC WAP's even if you have only N clients. Well in one last attempt I decided to give it a try. I found a new Asus RT-AC68W for $159.00 and bought it Friday. By Friday night I had it set up as an AP and started testing. WOW the difference was huge. The difference in range, throughput, and handling of multiple clients. The range improvement was good enough that it can service the entire house with good signal. The throughput difference is amazing. With the Ubiquiti AP-Pro my laptop connects at 300Mbit on the 5ghz channel and it would test out at about 95Mbit/s max. Now the same laptop connecting to the Asus at 300Mbit test out at 140Mbit max. But the real test was having the whole family use their devices at the same time, which happened Saturday and Sunday. No problems at all! No buffering problems or drops of any kind. The Asus has taken the place of both my Ubiquiti Ap-Pro's. Very happy and I am glad SmallNetworkBuilder did test and an article on using AC WAP's even with N only devices.
 
This is what I've experienced myself with my customers AC class routers (and my mostly N class clients) too. :)

The small number of supposedly superior corporate class equipment has failed to impress me in actual use vs. the cost difference to an RT-AC68U or even higher.

Even the customers that would initially find it hard to comprehend why going to a $200+ router from a $50 or lower cost option became believers once it was installed and running in their homes or offices. The extra cost was easily seen by the increased performance and stability of the network. Regardless of the clients used. I always offer a satisfaction guarantee (no cost to the customer) but so far, nobody has taken me up on it who have moved to an AC 1900 class router or higher.

They might still grumble at the cost (vs. their unrealistic expectations), but they kept the new toys. :)
 

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