zjohnr
Regular Contributor
Am I satisfied with the AC56U? Yes and no.
I would suggest you at least glance through an article like Tim's, "Is AC1900 Worth It?". While the questions he asks are focused on AC1900, it's also worth it to consider the "Is it worth it?" question in a more general context.
In other words, what Wi-Fi clients will you be using? Will they be able to make use of the extra throughput you supposedly purchase with a higher cost router of whatever brand?
That's the main reason I went with the AC56U. A "faster" router would not actually be faster for me. A 3 stream router makes absolutely no sense for me since my clients are all only 8011.n. I do not have nor do I expect to soon purchase a client which could use what the AC68U or AC66U supposedly provide.
Even if you decide to go with a brand other than ASUS, I would advise you to avoid paying extra for features you are unlikely to be able to actually use in the near future.
I did speculate that I might get a small bit of "future proofing" by going with 802.11ac. I didn't really look at 802.11n routers because I reasoned the manufacturers are unlikely to actively support them from now on. An 802.11ac router ... well, there is at least maybe a chance, no?
Am I satisfied with the AC56U? Well, yes and no.
The short answer is yes, I'm mostly happy with it. When my AC56U works, it works well as far as I can tell. But I have also run into quirks which range from annoying to really annoying to concerning.
Note: The Firmware Version of my AC56U is currently 3.0.0.4.374_4561.
Quirk/bug 1
Shortly after I purchased my AC56U ASUS released the firmware update which I am currently using to correct the infamous security hole with an attached drive. The security problem was not a big concern to me because I have never used my AC56U to access an external drive.
I just tend to always upgrade to the latest firmware if I can. (I like to live on the edge.)
I downloaded & installed the firmware and power cycled. I did not notice any problems. I'm uncertain of the exact time, but maybe a week or three later I attempted to signin to the router's HTTP admin page. I could not. IIRC, the router's admin login page would not display for me. I power cycled the router but still could not reach the admin login page.
Next step, of course, was to reset the router. And after I did this I was able to sign in and repeat the set up of the AC56U. The problem has not repeated since the reset.
Perhaps I merely misunderstand the firmware upgrade instructions. I thought all I was supposed to do was power cycle the AC56U, but perhaps the reset was required. I don't know, but it is concerning.
Quirk/bug 2
Something I find really annoying ... and probably it's just me ... is what appears to be a bug in the router's IPv6 support. I realize most people won't even enable IPv6, and that this is a "Don't care" for them. But for me, IPv6 is potentially a "new toy". I was really hoping that moving to a new router would let me play/experiment with IPv6 a bit.
But whenever I either enable or disable IPv6 on the AC56U, it hangs. When I "Apply" the new setting, the AC56U's IPv6 admin page shows a progress indicator which goes from 0% to 100%, then it displays "Complete!", and then it just hangs there.
What's worse, when this happens my ethernet attached Win 7 desktop loses its LAN connection. My desktop's IPv4 address reverts to a link-local e.g. 169.254.60.254. The only way I know of to correct this is to power-cycle the router.
It appears that the hang in IPv6 causes the IPv4 DHCP to fail. What's truly strange though is that the "fail" seems specific to the wired LAN ports. The Wi-Fi connected devices do NOT lose LAN connectivity. Wierd.
Quirk/bug 3
Why am I enabling/disabling IPv6? Because the router seems to periodically "lose" its WAN IPv6 address. Of course I have no idea why. Since IPv6 is not necessary to use the Internet, I only notice this when I happen to stumble upon it. But it does happen. And sometimes I attempt to correct it by disabling/enabling IPv6. Which implies I'll have to power-cycle the router at least twice.
Whenever I come across complaints about a router such mine above, I never know what to think. Is this one person's experience typical? Even it is, will it matter to me for the way in which I will most likely use the router? Will going with another manufacturer ensure I get "good" versus "less special" firmware?
I wish I had answers to even one of these questions to offer, but I don't. In spite of the long winded, whiny nature of this post, I am essentially happy with the AC56U. If I avoid the quirky stuff, I think it has worked fine for me.
And I'm very happy to be able to take advantage of channel bonding with 5 GHz. I have Apple devices and Apple clients disable channel bonding in 2.4 GHz. Apple's rational, which I don't claim to understand, is that they wish to avoid the potential for conflict with Bluetooth. Whatever. I appreciate the slight throughput bump the 40 MHz bandwidth at 5 GHz gets me.
It's also nice to not have to worry about blowing away my Wi-Fi connection whenever I use either the microwave or my (very ancient) pre-DECT 6.0, cordless, land-line phone.
Enough. Time for me to start drafting a problem report about IPv6 for ASUS to see if they'll try to fix it. Hope this helped at least a bit.
I would suggest you at least glance through an article like Tim's, "Is AC1900 Worth It?". While the questions he asks are focused on AC1900, it's also worth it to consider the "Is it worth it?" question in a more general context.
In other words, what Wi-Fi clients will you be using? Will they be able to make use of the extra throughput you supposedly purchase with a higher cost router of whatever brand?
That's the main reason I went with the AC56U. A "faster" router would not actually be faster for me. A 3 stream router makes absolutely no sense for me since my clients are all only 8011.n. I do not have nor do I expect to soon purchase a client which could use what the AC68U or AC66U supposedly provide.
Even if you decide to go with a brand other than ASUS, I would advise you to avoid paying extra for features you are unlikely to be able to actually use in the near future.
I did speculate that I might get a small bit of "future proofing" by going with 802.11ac. I didn't really look at 802.11n routers because I reasoned the manufacturers are unlikely to actively support them from now on. An 802.11ac router ... well, there is at least maybe a chance, no?
Am I satisfied with the AC56U? Well, yes and no.
The short answer is yes, I'm mostly happy with it. When my AC56U works, it works well as far as I can tell. But I have also run into quirks which range from annoying to really annoying to concerning.
Note: The Firmware Version of my AC56U is currently 3.0.0.4.374_4561.
Quirk/bug 1
Shortly after I purchased my AC56U ASUS released the firmware update which I am currently using to correct the infamous security hole with an attached drive. The security problem was not a big concern to me because I have never used my AC56U to access an external drive.
I just tend to always upgrade to the latest firmware if I can. (I like to live on the edge.
)I downloaded & installed the firmware and power cycled. I did not notice any problems. I'm uncertain of the exact time, but maybe a week or three later I attempted to signin to the router's HTTP admin page. I could not. IIRC, the router's admin login page would not display for me. I power cycled the router but still could not reach the admin login page.
Next step, of course, was to reset the router. And after I did this I was able to sign in and repeat the set up of the AC56U. The problem has not repeated since the reset.
Perhaps I merely misunderstand the firmware upgrade instructions. I thought all I was supposed to do was power cycle the AC56U, but perhaps the reset was required. I don't know, but it is concerning.
Quirk/bug 2
Something I find really annoying ... and probably it's just me ... is what appears to be a bug in the router's IPv6 support. I realize most people won't even enable IPv6, and that this is a "Don't care" for them. But for me, IPv6 is potentially a "new toy". I was really hoping that moving to a new router would let me play/experiment with IPv6 a bit.
But whenever I either enable or disable IPv6 on the AC56U, it hangs. When I "Apply" the new setting, the AC56U's IPv6 admin page shows a progress indicator which goes from 0% to 100%, then it displays "Complete!", and then it just hangs there.
What's worse, when this happens my ethernet attached Win 7 desktop loses its LAN connection. My desktop's IPv4 address reverts to a link-local e.g. 169.254.60.254. The only way I know of to correct this is to power-cycle the router.
It appears that the hang in IPv6 causes the IPv4 DHCP to fail. What's truly strange though is that the "fail" seems specific to the wired LAN ports. The Wi-Fi connected devices do NOT lose LAN connectivity. Wierd.
Quirk/bug 3
Why am I enabling/disabling IPv6? Because the router seems to periodically "lose" its WAN IPv6 address. Of course I have no idea why. Since IPv6 is not necessary to use the Internet, I only notice this when I happen to stumble upon it. But it does happen. And sometimes I attempt to correct it by disabling/enabling IPv6. Which implies I'll have to power-cycle the router at least twice.
Whenever I come across complaints about a router such mine above, I never know what to think. Is this one person's experience typical? Even it is, will it matter to me for the way in which I will most likely use the router? Will going with another manufacturer ensure I get "good" versus "less special" firmware?
I wish I had answers to even one of these questions to offer, but I don't. In spite of the long winded, whiny nature of this post, I am essentially happy with the AC56U. If I avoid the quirky stuff, I think it has worked fine for me.
And I'm very happy to be able to take advantage of channel bonding with 5 GHz. I have Apple devices and Apple clients disable channel bonding in 2.4 GHz. Apple's rational, which I don't claim to understand, is that they wish to avoid the potential for conflict with Bluetooth. Whatever. I appreciate the slight throughput bump the 40 MHz bandwidth at 5 GHz gets me.
It's also nice to not have to worry about blowing away my Wi-Fi connection whenever I use either the microwave or my (very ancient) pre-DECT 6.0, cordless, land-line phone.
Enough. Time for me to start drafting a problem report about IPv6 for ASUS to see if they'll try to fix it. Hope this helped at least a bit.