So, I thought I knew a little bit about Wi-Fi, turns out, my knowledge has been outdated since N was released
I have >100 mbit fiber in my appartment, and used to have a 300N router (new at that time). As performance wasn't good enough, I added 500mbit powerline adapters to the mix, and to my surprise got 100mbit actual throughput between the two outlets farthest from eachother. The electricity company replaced part of the system in my apartment recently, and now powerline speeds have been decimated. I already wanted something faster, but now I'm forced to get it done ASAP.
I can't put ethernet in this appartment without violating a lot of housing rules or putting cable in visible areas (ugh) so I'm looking into this AC5300 unit. In fact, two of them, or a combo with AC88U. The second unit would be in media bridge mode in my home office, approximately 35 feet from the main unit connected to the fiber modem (two single-brick walls and one window in between). In case you are wondering why I would use a second AC5300 instead of an AC88U, the latter is not yet available in my country, while the former is, and the price difference isn't big enough for me to care.
(1) My TV/media room is even further than the main router from my office, but tends to stream everything from my main office desktop. Others have tested my media player to be able to reach 300mbit actual throughput on AC, but for my needs 100mbit would easily be enough. Is it realistic to expect with such a setup? (desktop->gbitEth->bridge->5ghz(35ft)->main->5ghz(15ft)->player). FWIW, I did use the player with the 300N router (before powerline) and got about 35mbit actual throughput.
(2) If I understand correctly, the bridge unit would simply connect on a single band, and not link both 5ghz bands simultaneously for even more speed? So this means 2167mbps link speed is the theoretical max?
(3) In one of the manuals I was able to download, I found a note saying that in bridge mode, the main router only connects wirelessly and bridge only connects wired. While I'm a bit miffed that the bridge can't also be an AP at the same time (seems the AC5300 would have enough bands for that?), I can live with that. What really strikes me is that statement that the main router only connects wirelessly, as I am considering hooking up my NAS to the main router instead of the bridge. I suspect this is just a faulty/ambiguous statement and you can still connect to the main router through ethernet as well, but it would be great if someone could confirm this!
I hope someone has some answers for me, thanks in advance. Any tips on improving the setup are of course always welcome.
