Synology RT2600ac Router Reviewed

[melodies]

that only suggests the other two where prob faulty , as the ea9500 is pretty much as good as the best routers tested on 2.4 gig

the ea6700 we have little info on so cant say if it was crud

again though we have well past the so called extra coverage capability of any claims as with eirp reached the manufactures are not allowed to transmit above that level and can pull a rabbit out of a hat and produce extra coverage with any single transmission routers on ether band

So you mean basically the tests and rankings at SNB are useless then (apart from the leakage)?

 

[pete y testing]

So you mean basically the tests and rankings at SNB are useless then (apart from the leakage)?

no but look closely , there is very little difference in the coverage , and the difference is minimal in real world terms , being tested with a 2 x 2 client device also doesnt really reflect performance when use with a 4 x 4 client

 

[melodies]

no but look closely , there is very little difference in the coverage , and the difference is minimal in real world terms , being tested with a 2 x 2 client device also doesnt really reflect performance when use with a 4 x 4 client

Looking into the plot, the TP-Link 3150 actually disconnected at 63dB, while the Synology RT2600ac maintained highest bandwidth (probably due to leakage in tests). If it weren't for the leakage, I would call it a significant difference.

As for my own real-world scenario, I had dead spots in my main bedroom when I use an iPhone 7 plus, an iPad mini 4, and an iPhone 6 plus. With the Linksys EA6700/EA9500 these devices intermittently dropped packages while they had 1/3 for their signal bars, and I had pretty poor experience for video calls and online stream watching. With the Synology RT2600ac (same antenna direction as the EA9500, i.e. default vertical) I get 2/3 for their signal bars and I never get any stuttering for video calls or streaming.

One of my friend is specialised in communication and signal processing, and told me that different routers may deal with the signal spectrum differently. While he doubts that the attenuation tests at SNB may not be able to simulate different kind of walls (bricks/wooden/concrete etc), these tests can be used for reference.

 

[pete y testing]

Linksys EA6700/EA9500 these devices intermittently dropped packages while they had 1/3 for their signal bars,

then as suggested something must have been wrong esp with the ea9500

Synology RT2600ac (same antenna direction as the EA9500, i.e. default vertical) I get 2/3 for their signal bars and I never get any stuttering for video calls or streaming.

cause i can assure you there is not 1/3 more signal out of the synology than the ea9500

and told me that different routers may deal with the signal spectrum differently

um no they all have to play in the same airwave and technology space

 

[thiggins]

The 2,4 GHz tests are valid out to 45dB. Data past that point has been removed from the database and rankings recalculated based on the new data set.

What generally happens is that once devices transition into the falloff part of the curve, they maintain the same slope.

I would not expect a huge real-world 2.4 GHz range difference with the Synology on downlink from this data.

 

[melodies]

then as suggested something must have been wrong esp with the ea9500

cause i can assure you there is not 1/3 more signal out of the synology than the ea9500

um no they all have to play in the same airwave and technology space

I wouldn't call the EA9500 faulty as it's better than the EA6700.

Not necessarily 1/3 more signal, but enough to make a difference between the 1/3 and the 2/3 threshold. The most prominent difference is not regarding signal bars, but about being able to continue to transmit data without dropping package when the devices are in these "dead spots".

You could see other posts like this to get an idea where end-users find real-world difference regarding range.

 

[melodies]

What generally happens is that once devices transition into the falloff part of the curve, they maintain the same slope.

If this is true, then what a prominent difference among routers when we estimate past 45dB!

 

[pete y testing]

real-world difference regarding range.

i can assure you that in my real world testing and i have the rt2600ac , the asus rt-ac88u , the netgear r8500 and quite a few more and in my testing none of them outshine each other as far as coverage goes as physics and eirp just dont permit it

 

[melodies]

i can assure you that in my real world testing and i have the rt2600ac , the asus rt-ac88u , the netgear r8500 and quite a few more and in my testing none of them outshine each other as far as coverage goes as physics and eirp just dont permit it

Then they should all have the identical curve for the 2.4GHz Downlink throughput vs Attenuation plots.

 

[pete y testing]

look at how minute the differences are , , its not anything massive , its not a game changer , the difference in first to 4th are small differences , small differences in the curve come down to very slight differences in ether coding and or antenna spec or simply differences in production materials

 

[melodies]

look at how minute the differences are , , its not anything massive , its not a game changer , the difference in first to 4th are small differences , small differences in the curve come down to very slight differences in ether coding and or antenna spec or simply differences in production materials

So you'd call it "a small difference" between the RT-AC88U and the Netgear R7800 at 45dB (as thiggins just clarified to be trusty)?

ASUS RT-AC88U: 48MBps
Netgear R7800: 28MBps

That looks like one is 71% faster than the other, and it's not really a slight difference for me. It could well be a difference between being able to complete a video call and keeping dropping off video calls at 63dB.

I already mentioned that different router may deal with clutter differently, with their own noise reduction algorithms. The antennas may also carry different lobe patterns. Different walls (wooden/brick/concrete etc) may also absorb different parts of the spectrum.

Whether you admit it or not, I just got a very obvious improvement, and be it leakage errors or not, the rankers tool at SNB unintentionally helped me choose the RT2600ac.

 

[vsweeney]

Hi Tom, can you find out if Synology will finally sell their RT2600ac in Canada? So far, this router is not available to us. The response to an inquiry I sent them was less than satisfying...

 

[thiggins]

Hi Tom, can you find out if Synology will finally sell their RT2600ac in Canada? So far, this router is not available to us. The response to an inquiry I sent them was less than satisfying...

The RT2600ac does not have IC Certification, so is not legal for use in Canada. Synology said it has no plans to apply for IC Certification.
(For you non-Loonies, IC is the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. FCC.)

 

[sfx2000]

The RT2600ac does not have IC Certification, so is not legal for use in Canada. Synology said it has no plans to apply for IC Certification.

IC is not a rubber stamp - they mirror FCC in many ways for requirement, however, they do require their own submissions for products entering the country.

Makes it tough for many vendors, as the costs for IC are similar to FCC - not that FCC is expensive relatively speaking...

 

[pete y testing]

why would they not get the cert for canada ? , you guys have a far greater population that here in OZ right and they got it cert for here

 

[thiggins]

why would they not get the cert for canada ? , you guys have a far greater population that here in OZ right and they got it cert for here

Maybe Canadian import restrictions aren't as tight as OZ's?

 

[RMerlin]

Or their marketing department deemed that this product wasn't worth the effort to marketize in Canada. Sometimes, it's also a matter of production volume - you might want to focus distributing what you can produce into more lucrative markets.

I suspect that the small Canadian market is already quite crowded by Netgear/Asus/Linksys/DLink.

 

[pete y testing]

I suspect that the small Canadian market is already quite crowded by Netgear/Asus/Linksys/DLink.

the population of canada is about 50 million , here its 24 million and we have all those as well , we do miss out on a lot here though like no eero , dont even have google wifi yet , as you say just must be a marketing decision

i will admit the synology isnt moving stock quickly here , its pretty much a small unknown expensive brand ( for the average punter ) in a big pond , there is nothing wrong with the product its just only comes into consideration for those that know the brand and its srm

 

[RMerlin]

i will admit the synology isnt moving stock quickly here , its pretty much a small unknown expensive brand ( for the average punter ) in a big pond , there is nothing wrong with the product its just only comes into consideration for those that know the brand and its srm

That's what I meant when I mentioned those companies: I've never encountered a single Synology device myself yet. It's all about QNAP and Seagate in the NAS market. Synology has very little market presence in Canada, so for them it's a small market.

 

[sfx2000]

Or their marketing department deemed that this product wasn't worth the effort to marketize in Canada. Sometimes, it's also a matter of production volume - you might want to focus distributing what you can produce into more lucrative markets.

I suspect that the small Canadian market is already quite crowded by Netgear/Asus/Linksys/DLink.

It's a small, but crazy thing - back in the day - working to get stuff into CA - I had to support two languages - English and French - so it was a product decision to update the User Interface and User Guides. It's not cheap there, so we didn't pursue it.

Going into AU/NZ - we just had to do regulatory approvals for the US models - which already had english/spanish UI's - but we didn't have to add another language to the UI...

At the end of the day - we shipped much more product to Telstra and TelecomNZ than we did for Bell Canada and Telus - and the numbers suggested that we needed to have a fair amount of volume before going into the Canadian market..

Had the same issue with Brazil - new UI translations and User docs there...