Share What You Know: ASUS RT-AC3200 News, Release Date, Price and Expectations

[IAAI]

Hey ,
I created this topic for everyone to share what they know/may know about ASUS Router RT-AC3200 like News, Release Date, Price, Availability and Expectations

https://www.asus.com/Networking/RTAC3200/

 

[sanke1]

Share what I know:

• This router is a massive overkill.
• No device will be able to fully utilize it's bandwidth.
• Initially there will be firmware problems for 5-6 months.
• At home, this router would look plain weird with those many antennas.
• Be prepared to be ridiculed by non-techy friends who will say "How geek you are"
• No reason for AC68U/AC87U users to upgrade as (wireless ad) will replace (wireless ac) sooner than we think.

 

[KGB7]

Here's what I know;

/facepalm


Instead of mass producing various AC WiFi adaptes, they throw money at creating a Frankenstein.

Skip 3200 and make a 6400 with 12 antennas, add a $800 price tag and call it a day.

 

[theveterans]

Does this router have the same Xstream feature as Netgear R8000? It would probably not support MU-MIMO as Broadcom haven't made any chipset that has MU-MIMO as of this writing. We'll soon see how which firmware and manufacturer is better at implementing xstream.

Also, AFAIK, Xstream doesn't support combining the speeds 2 completely separate 80 MHz channel from lower and upper channels to produce a theoretical throughput of 3200 Mbps. Correct me if I'm wrong if 2 of these are running in bridge mode, ASUS RT-AC87U will still be faster due to being 4x4 while this ASUS will only be limited to 3x3 speeds since xstream only allows simultaneous broadcast of 5 GHz radios but not actually combining their throughput.

 

[funkahdafi]

Share what I know:

• This router is a massive overkill.
• No device will be able to fully utilize it's bandwidth.
• No reason for AC68U/AC87U users to upgrade as (wireless ad) will replace (wireless ac) sooner than we think.

You don't understand the AC3200 then. Let me wrap it up for you:

From a plain link speed perspective, this router is NOT faster than the AC68 and AC87. Also, this router is not meant to be an upgrade for the AC87.

Asus release this router as an alternative to the AC87. It uses a completely different technology than the AC87. Instead of going with a new chipset that support MU-MIMI and higher linkspeeds like the AC87, the simply deploy more radios on the AC3200 and use a technology called Xstream to intelligently and automatically distribute Wifi clients to it's three different radios.

The goal is to separate slower standard clients like 802.11g or 11n from the faster 802.11ac clients. That is very desireable because if you mix clients with different Wifi standards on the same radio, the slower clients will dramatically reduce performance for the faster 11ac clients.

What this router will do is put 802.11g and 11n clients on one radio, and 802.11ac clients on another radio, completely separating them from each other and allowing 802.11ac clients to operate at full speed. Something that neither the AC68 nor the AC87 can do.

So this router is anything BUT overkill. In fact, it's a much better choice at this point in time than the AC87, which uses technologies that no Wifi client can support yet (there are no MU-MIMO clients out there and there are no 4x4 clients out there that would support the higher link speed). The Xstream technology on the AC3200 on the other hand is completely independant on client support, it works out of the box with any client that's out there.

The AC3200 is comparable to the Netgear R8000.

 

[funkahdafi]

Also, AFAIK, Xstream doesn't support combining the speeds 2 completely separate 80 MHz channel from lower and upper channels to produce a theoretical throughput of 3200 Mbps. Correct me if I'm wrong if 2 of these are running in bridge mode, ASUS RT-AC87U will still be faster due to being 4x4 while this ASUS will only be limited to 3x3 speeds since xstream only allows simultaneous broadcast of 5 GHz radios but not actually combining their throughput.

That's correct. The AC3200 will not combine the throughput of it's three radios. It's not a 4x4 design, it's still 3x3. It's basically an AC68 with more radios and antennas and the addition of Xstream to separate mixed standard clients from each other.

It's designed to optimize Wifi networks that have a lot of different, mixed standard clients.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Such a sexy router.

 

[wouterv]

That's correct. The AC3200 will not combine the throughput of it's three radios. It's not a 4x4 design, it's still 3x3. It's basically an AC68 with more radios and antennas and the addition of Xstream to separate mixed standard clients from each other.

It's designed to optimize Wifi networks that have a lot of different, mixed standard clients.

What I am really interested in to know is the status and behaviour of Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) support in those latest routers (RT-AC68, RT-AC87, AC3200).
Does DFS work in the latest version RT-AC68, does DFS work in the RT-AC87?

The AC3200 seems to make use of the recent expansion of allowed 5 GHz channels (5G band 1 and 5G band 4) by the FCC in the USA. What exactly are this Band 1 and Band 4? Will this become a worldwide allowed standard?

[EDIT]
A little clarity is given here:
http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-increases-5ghz-spectrum-wi-fi-other-unlicensed-uses
http://www.revolutionwifi.net/2014/03/fcc-eases-restrictions-on-5ghz-unii-1.html

Many other regions like Europe seems still to rely on DFS.
Without DFS there are only 4 channels in the 5 GHz band (36, 40, 44 and 48), which is barely enough to handle 802.11n in crowded areas.

 

[thiggins]

Does this router have the same Xstream feature as Netgear R8000? It would probably not support MU-MIMO as Broadcom haven't made any chipset that has MU-MIMO as of this writing. We'll soon see how which firmware and manufacturer is better at implementing xstream.

This router and all AC3200 routers are based on Broadcom XStream. See this article for details of how XStream works and comparison with MU-MIMO.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...s-xstream-the-coming-battle-for-wi-fi-airtime

 

[thiggins]

What I am really interested in to know is the status and behaviour of Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) support in those latest routers (RT-AC68, RT-AC87, AC3200).
Does DFS work in the latest version RT-AC68, does DFS work in the RT-AC87?

DFS is not implemented in either the NETGEAR R8000 or ASUS RT-AC3200. XSteam doesn't support DFS. Broadcom has told me that XStream is therefore for U.S. market only, at least for now.

 

[funkahdafi]

DFS is not implemented in either the NETGEAR R8000 or ASUS RT-AC3200. XSteam doesn't support DFS. Broadcom has told me that XStream is therefore for U.S. market only, at least for now.

Oh that's bad news. I really wanted to buy this router, but if it's not going to be available here in Europe, I guess I'll have to pass.

 

[IAAI]

DFS is not implemented in either the NETGEAR R8000 or ASUS RT-AC3200. XSteam doesn't support DFS. Broadcom has told me that XStream is therefore for U.S. market only, at least for now.

Thats something new to me . If i may ask why just in the U.S. ?

 

[funkahdafi]

Regarding to this Wikipedia article, DFS is also a requirement in the USA (since 2007):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#5.C2.A0GHz_.28802.11a.2Fh.2Fj.2Fn.2Fac.29.5B16.5D

 

[thiggins]

Thats something new to me . If i may ask why just in the U.S. ?

Simple. Europe doesn't allow use of the U-NII-3 band (Chans 149 - 165).

 

[thiggins]

Regarding to this Wikipedia article, DFS is also a requirement in the USA (since 2007):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#5.C2.A0GHz_.28802.11a.2Fh.2Fj.2Fn.2Fac.29.5B16.5D

Yep. DFS is required if those Channels are supported. But nothing says that products must support those channels. Consumer router makers have generally decided to not support DFS channels in the US.

 

[RMerlin]

Simple. Europe doesn't allow use of the U-NII-3 band (Chans 149 - 165).

I was wondering about that when I saw how Xtream worked. I thought that maybe they could have made it use 100-140 for the second radio, which would still allow them to separate them from clients on the first band. There's certainly enough channels available in Europe (with DFS enabled) to spread the two radios accross them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#5.C2.A0GHz_.28802.11a.2Fh.2Fj.2Fn.2Fac.29.5B16.5D

 

[RMerlin]

DFS is not implemented in either the NETGEAR R8000 or ASUS RT-AC3200. XSteam doesn't support DFS. Broadcom has told me that XStream is therefore for U.S. market only, at least for now.

Actually, I'm not so sure about that. According to the webui source code, DFS _is_ available on the RT-AC3200.

        if(country == "EU"){            //display checkbox of DFS channel under 5GHz
                if(based_modelid == "RT-AC68U" || based_modelid == "RT-AC68U_V2" || based_modelid == "DSL-AC68U" || 
based_modelid == "RT-AC69U" || based_modelid == "TM-AC1900"
                || based_modelid == "RT-AC87U"
                || based_modelid == "RT-AC3200"){
                        if(document.form.wl_channel.value  == '0' && '<% nvram_get("wl_unit"); %>' == '1')
                                $('dfs_checkbox').style.display = "";

These are the models for which the DFS option gets shown on the webui. That doesn't imply that things won't change as Asus get closer to the actual product launch tho, it could be just a typo or for testing purposes at this time.

 

[neil0311]

What's the expected release date and MSRP?

 

[W500]

Think Again

Maybe we should start using our brains. Why would you try to fulfil all your requirements with one brick? I have one ac66. If I need more wireless capacity or more coverage I can buy another one. For 100 pop. for two that is still a lot less $ than one of these new (buggy) holy grails.
p.s.
I use the ac66 as an access point, because it is not a good router and not a good switch.

 

[microchip]

I use the ac66 as an access point, because it is not a good router and not a good switch.

Care yo explain? My ac66u is a real workhorse. Streams video, transfers large files from multiple pc's, etc all without a hitch. Routing performance is also really good