Linksys WRT1900AC

[Rrrr]

What do you think of this....


price is high...

Just to tone down some of the ac hype

 

[sinshiva]

article; http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/othe...goes-back-to-the-future-for-new-ac1900-router
thread; http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=14558

 

[stevech]

since so few of us have 11ac capable client devices, and handheld devices don't need super high speeds ($$$), to me it's moot. And wouldn't pay $100 or more for a WiFi router with 11ac.

 

[L&LD]

To me; the 'AC Hype' is real - the customers I have with AC routers give my older and newer devices much better performance than the RT-N66U I have now.

Either in range or throughput for the older 'N' devices and for both range and throughput for my upgraded to AC7260 card laptops.

As for this particular Linksys model - pass. 4 Antennas but only 3 stream (which hints at no MU-MIMO). May as well get an older version like the Asus RT-AC66U (which is also better and cheaper than my N66U).

Supposedly the range is supposed to increase with the 4th antenna - but I don't have hope of that happening outside of a sterile test environment.

 

[RogerSC]

Has nothing of interest for me. If I were in the market for wireless-1900ac, I wouldn't choose to pay $100 more than the going rate anyways. The wireless-ac router that I have now covers my whole house, and works just fine.

Maybe Linksys/Belkin marketing is just running this one up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes *smile*? As far as I'm concerned, they're going to have to come up with something that is more interesting.

 

[remixedcat]

since so few of us have 11ac capable client devices, and handheld devices don't need super high speeds ($$$), to me it's moot. And wouldn't pay $100 or more for a WiFi router with 11ac.

I'd rather pay extra for more features like comprehensive monitoring, bandwidth shaping, advanced firewall controls, etc. I would never pay more then 200 for a consumer router. 300 is way too much when I can get a wireless N meraki Z1 for 180 and have the best QoS controls, cloud management, advanced firewall, etc. Sure it doesn't have .ac but the features are very nice and meraki has very polished firmware.

This is what other manufactrers need to take a look at and think "mabye we are too pricey after all" and lower the prices and enhance the firmware and add more enterprise grade features if they expect to have borderline enterprise pricing.

 

[sfx2000]

Some more details are filtering out...

It's three stream with TurboQAM (256QAM for 802.11n 2.4/5GHz) along with Mu-MIMO for 11ac, so basically a 11ac Wave 2 device.

Marvell based... would be interesting to tear into one to see if it is the Marvell radios doing the smart antenna resolution - which means perhaps some real beamforming...

The fact that Belkin/Linksys is supporting OpenWRT is significant, but I'm still a bit surprised at the 256MB RAM limitation...

So all in all, looks like 2014 will be interesting...

 

[L&LD]

sfx2000, I didn't see the MU-MIMO specs stated.

Do you have a link confirming this?

Still seems crippled though with only three streams, even if it does have 4 antenna

 

[sfx2000]

sfx2000, I didn't see the MU-MIMO specs stated.

Do you have a link confirming this?

Still seems crippled though with only three streams, even if it does have 4 antenna

It's a logical estimation based on the smart antenna items to be honest...

If one has beam-steering, which is the hard part, MU-MIMO is a given - why have one without the other? Beam-Steering is at the RF/PHY level, MU-MIMO is pre-coding at the MAC into the PHY.

sfx

 

[L&LD]

I have been burned many times counting on a 'given'.

Unless the product states (and can be shown in actual tests) to have a feature - then that feature is not a given (especially if not advertised at it's world premiere).

Having 4 antenna and only three streams is a giveaway for me - it doesn't even support 160MHz channel width - this is definitely not the Quantenna chip which advertises both features of it's AC Wave 2 prowess as does the Asus RT-AC87U too.

 

[thiggins]

It's a logical estimation based on the smart antenna items to be honest...

If one has beam-steering, which is the hard part, MU-MIMO is a given - why have one without the other? Beam-Steering is at the RF/PHY level, MU-MIMO is pre-coding at the MAC into the PHY.

MU-MIMO requires more than beam steering. It has a different channel sounding technique and is more complicated and compute intensive than gain type beamforming.

At any rate, if the Marvell chipset supports MU-MIMO, Linksys isn't supporting it in this router. This is an AC1900 design.

 

[thiggins]

To me; the 'AC Hype' is real - the customers I have with AC routers give my older and newer devices much better performance than the RT-N66U I have now.

Any performance advantage you get from AC router used with non AC devices is due to better RF design. Non AC clients can't access the higher link rates that open up significant throughput gains, at least with strong to moderate signal levels. How Much Throughput Can You Really Get From An AC Router?

Supposedly the range is supposed to increase with the 4th antenna - but I don't have hope of that happening outside of a sterile test environment.

The extra receive channel for increasing gain has been around and used in two stream products. Whether it actually provides the increased gain that it is capable of all depends on implementation. But it is a known technique and doesn't require anything on the STA side like beamforming does.

 

[jalyst]

Hmm, the Asus RT-AC87U based on Quantenna looks like it could give the AC1900 a run for it's money:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7688/...c-chipset-asus-gets-first-dibs-in-the-rtac87u
Are there F/OSS sw stacks that support Quantenna chipsets (similar to Broadcom) or is the sw completely closed/proprietary?

 

[jalyst]

At any rate, if the Marvell chipset supports MU-MIMO, Linksys isn't supporting it in this router, this is an AC1900 design.

How do you know this, are you making that call on the basis of the device's name?

 

[thiggins]

How do you know this, are you making that call on the basis of the device's name?

Jeez, man, what's with you?
I am not able to say how I know this.

 

[jalyst]

Jeez, man, what's with you?
I am not able to say how I know this.

What your problem?
Harmless & completely legit Qn, posted before I knew your post in the other thread was coming.