RT-AC68U / RT-AC68P / RT-AC1900 / RT-AC1900P

[Tech9]

RT-AC1900U:
BCM4360 RTC6649E BCM4360 SKY85402

RT-AC66U B1:
BCM4360 RTC6649E BCM4360 SKY85728

 

[wouterv]

Hm...right the RT-AC66U B1 is "1750" as 450 + 1300
While the RT-AC1900U is "1900" because due to TurboQAM on 2.4 GHz it is 600 + 1300.
My goodness...I always thought based on assumptions that those two routers are identical, well practically they are because TurboQAM is useless.
Where early RT-AC68U models also 1750 (where my newer model at the front shows it is AC900 instead of RT-AC68U)?
Router manufacturers throw CPU's, Radio chips and amplifiers of all different kinds together, probably because they can and maybe due to availability on the market, gathering all the different chips and run a production batch of an existing or new router model or type to roll out on the hungry market.
Some chip combinations and printed circuit board designs shall work out very well, others may give only troubles.
The table is further completed with the new details.

Does the RT-N66U B1 RT-AC66U B1 really lack this non standard TurboQAM/256-QAM option in the 2.4 GHz - Professional settings?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Does the RT-N66U B1 really lack this non standard TurboQAM/256-QAM option in the 2.4 GHz - Professional settings?

Why are you asking about the RT-N66U B1?

 

[wouterv]

Why are you asking about the RT-N66U B1?

Because I made a typo.

 

[Tech9]

Does the RT-N66U B1 RT-AC66U B1 really lack this non standard TurboQAM/256-QAM option in the 2.4 GHz - Professional settings?

Yes, marketing - software limitation to make it different than the same hardware AC1900-class routers. AC66U B1 was sold as AC1750-class router. You can see above some were sold as RT-AC67U in AC1900-class. Asus likes to make total model numbers confusion for unknown to me reasons.

 

[L&LD]

Reasons are easy to understand; $BottomLine.

 

[Boris4G]

I have RT-AC68U revision C1. Is it possible to flash Tomato by Shibby firmware?

I was using TOMATO by Shabby before on my old router Linksys-WRT54g, when I upgraded to Asus RT-AC68U C1 I hade to abandon Tomato and I switched to DD-WRT, its running fine and have done so for a couple of years now, but it's incomparable with Tomato. Tomato rocks when it comes easy of use and features and it has always been rock solide.

 

[Boris4G]

I was using TOMATO by Shabby before on my old router Linksys-WRT54g, when I upgraded to Asus RT-AC68U C1 I hade to abandon Tomato and I switched to DD-WRT, its running fine and have done so for a couple of years now, but it's incomparable with Tomato. Tomato rocks when it comes easy of use and features and it has always been rock solide.

Sadly Shabby has stoped maintaining it and no one has taken over the stick.

 

[Tech9]

Sadly Shabby has stoped maintaining it and no one has taken over the stick.

Are you sure?

FreshTomato – Alternative open source firmware for Broadcom based routers

freshtomato.org

 

[Boris4G]

That one I missed, fantastic what you learn from the community. During the past years I have seen a couple of initiatives that built upon Shibby and they all gave a nice face lift to the GUI, but no one hade knowledge to support new routers. On the fresh Tomato I see some updates though many are missing ( quick glance Asus AC86U and no AX routers)

 

[wouterv]

As a side note: ASUSWRT, the Asus stock firmware, was originally based on Tomato as you can recognize in the GUI layout.
I am not sure what extra FreshTomato offers compared to ASUSWRT, the generally recognized best alternative for Asus routers is Asuswrt-Merlin.

 

[Tech9]

On the fresh Tomato I see some updates though many are missing

All current Asus routers contain closed source Broadcom components preventing 3rd party firmware development. As far as I know FreshTomato team is in talks with Asus to get something to work with, eventually. Otherwise FreshTomato started from Shibby and adopted AdvancedTomato UI.

I am not sure what extra FreshTomato offers compared to ASUSWRT

It's not that much about features, but about what you like better. Tomato has its own fan base. FrestTomato attracts with modern UI, bandwidth monitoring graphs, built-in VLAN support, built-in ad-blocker, WISP on some routers, Cake QoS on AC68U. Unfortunately, up to 2015 model year routers.

 

[sfx2000]

All current Asus routers contain closed source Broadcom components preventing 3rd party firmware development. As far as I know FreshTomato team is in talks with Asus to get something to work with, eventually. Otherwise FreshTomato started from Shibby and adopted AdvancedTomato UI.

Asus can't license Broadcom proprietary components to third parties...

This is what sunk the Linksys WRT1900/Marvell situation with OpenWRT - Belkin found themselves in a hard spot with promises that the lawyers said "nope, can't do that" because of licenses...

Broadcom, like Marvell, has upstream licenses for patents that need to be paid for directly - Asus, like Linksys, can't sub-let those things out without upstream agreements.

 

[Tech9]

Asus can't license Broadcom proprietary components to third parties...

Somehow we get it in Asuswrt-Merlin and GNUton fork. Limited to Asus routers, but still something.

 

[sfx2000]

Somehow we get it in Asuswrt-Merlin and GNUton fork. Limited to Asus routers, but still something.

Yes, but those are forks based on the GPL drop, and only run on Asus HW (officially).

Just saying...

Best thing would be for the DD-WRT team to come to an arrangement with Broadcom, similar to what they did with Marvell on the whole Linksys WRT1200/1900/3200 routers - they did get access to the vendor proprietary drivers, and some level of support from the vendor there..

 

[wouterv]

Around March 18 2024 the RT-AC68U is declared End Of Life (EOL) by ASUS.

End-of-life product list

Expand "Wireless Routers" and find:

When a product is end-of-life, it means:

• It is no longer manufactured
• Its certification will not be renewed
• Its firmware, utility, website, DM, QSG and manual will not be updated
• It may be replaced by a new product with updated hardware and similar functions

 

[Tech9]

The crowd at the event was unbelievable!

The best router model Asus ever made is now... gone!

 

[wouterv]

The EOL is serious, the support page has been moved to the "legacy" corner of ASUS:

RT-AC68U - Support

www.asus.com

 

[23eox]

Apologies for my ignorance in this post (new to the space), but if the AC-1900 is EOL'd, will it stop receiving security/firmware patches from Asus as well? If so, would switching to Tomato or WRT enable the ability to continue receiving security updates?

 

[bennor]

... if the AC-1900 is EOL'd, will it stop receiving security/firmware patches from Asus as well?

Note what Asus indicates on their End-of-life product list page:

End-of-life product list

End-of-life product list
When a product is end-of-life, it means:

• It is no longer manufactured
• Its certification will not be renewed
• Its firmware, utility, website, DM, QSG and manual will not be updated
• It may be replaced by a new product with updated hardware and similar functions

If the product/version1 you are looking for is end-of-life, it is recommended to purchase the latest version or other similar models2. However, an EOL will not change the limited warranty period for hardware.

Generally Asus will not update the firmware of an EOL product unless it is to fix a specific security vulnerability or some other feature. For example even though Asus end of lifed the AC series of routers, they did release firmware updates for them to address a severe security vulnerability recently and to fix certain AiMesh issues. One cannot expect such updates to continue.

One will have to check the third party firmware to see if it is still being regularly updated for their end of life Asus router.

It ultimately depends on the use case for the end of life router. Is it internet facing? If so, one may want to consider replacing it if the third party firmware for it isn't regularly updated.