It's almost like companies that manufacture WiFi devices have decided to compete with one another at being the company that makes a product look most like an upside down spider with all those silly looking antennae. TRENDnet isn't the only company that goes into the realm of the absurdly antenna-endowed, but is it really necessary to play follow the leader on that particularly goofy feature?
Has anyone actually gotten 2.4GHz 256 QAM extension (the 200Mbps/channel mode vs 150 in standard compliant mode) to work in the real world? IIRC the reason why QAM was only bumped at 5ghz in 802.11ac was that outside of lab conditions the noise floor at 2.4GHz was almost always too high to take advantage of the higher density encoding.
Well prior to the previous generation (circa 2011-2013 routers) it seemed like internal antennae designs were in vogue. But there were complaints about this and it looks like things have now have changed to much more prominent external antennae designs.
Standard dipole antennas for wifi are sticks a few inches long (the ones in your phone are a smaller but more complex/expensive design). Since they radiate to their sides but not the top or bottom they need to be vertically oriented. If you have 1 or 2 antennas (common until a few years ago), you can put them internal to the router; but it needs to be stood on edge. If you put it down flat instead you'll have reception problems because the antenna patterns nulls will be oriented on the plane of the floor. External antennas can be pointed correctly with the router in either orientation; and even if they don't know why most people know the antennas should be pointed up and down.
I'm not sure if the antennae shape is actually designed from a functional stand point or not in those but purely in terms of aesthetics notice how they aren't just the old fashioned cylinder poles but really stand out visually as part of "curb appeal." Much like how antennae less designs were likely also visually designed to sell on how they looked (just in a different way).
The thing I don't get is who is buying all these insane routers. I have an AC1700 and it streams HD video on 5GHz fine, and 2.4GHz I mainly only use for devices that don't have 5GHz radios. I can't think of a case where a home user would really get any benefit for a crazy fast single router vs. an AC1200 or AC1700 router + a range extender to cover weak spots. I mean how many home users can actually saturate the 1733 Mbps this router can provide? You need to be coming from an SSD or a RAID to produce that kind of bandwidth or you need to be servicing like 10+ pretty heavy wifi users from multiple servers.
I keep seeing more and more of these AC2000+ routers coming out. People must be buying them, but who? They can't all be businesses.
netflix 4k is max 25 Mbit... AC 1700 is 1300 Mbit on 3x3 5GHz, multiple times your need... Your 4k streaming does not require this class of router at all.
4k BDs are something like 125 Mbps. Still easily covered by AC1700. For something like this, more important than a REALLY fast router is to have a strong wifi signal where you need it, which is why I said that most home users are better covered by an AC1700 plus a range extender to make sure you have good signal where you need it.
On the consumer side, people upgrading from G/N going for the current state of the art to delay the next upgrade as long as possible, and people who have to own the newest and shiniest everything.
MU-MIMO offers potentially much higher network throughput if you have a lot of devices connected at once. Having the router being able to talk to their phone, their kids tablet, and their spouses laptop concurrently instead of round robin is probably driving a fair amount of buying among techies. People operating wifi in commercial venues could benefit a lot more than all but the most geeked out households. (You probably don't have to worry about 100 users connecting to your network in a single room - they do). However since it needs client support as well, even with a new router it'll be a mostly aspirational feature for the next few years.
If I was buying a new router today, I'd be tempted since I'd be hoping for a 4-5 year useful lifespan, and would probably benefit before the end of that period. However I have a year old AC1700(?) router; and unless it breaks have no plans to replace it anytime soon.
I have an ages old D-Link dual band N300 router, which - for now - does the job with my 30mbps connection (considering that the current use case has all heavy usage clients (game consoles, HTPC) on ethernet, and WiFi is relegated to lighter duties like Web browsing). Still, it's getting mighty long in the tooth, and I've held off upgrading for a couple of years due mainly to two things: waiting for the arrival of MU-MIMO, and pricing. While my router was high end when I bought it (from what I can remember, just as the N spec was being finalized, so it was pretty cutting edge), it cost less than half of what even 1st wave AC1900 routers cost today - not to mention the ludicrously overpriced spiderhulks in the classes above that.
I get that this is new tech, and that these routers pack far more power and hardware (even relative to when they are launched) compared to anything made five years ago. Still, router makers have seen an opportunity to cash in, and all of a sudden we have routers designed as attention-grabbing design pieces priced like low end laptops. I'll be waiting a good while still, I think, for an affordable priced (sub-$200) MU-MIMO AC1900 (or more) router that I can keep for at least another five years.
I'm actually more aggressive then you even in terms of the price point. I'm waiting for something in the <$100 range. Archer C7 was released more than 2.5 years ago now but doesn't seem like anything yet to make another leap in this price category.
Obviously I don't have any data to support this but I'm wondering if the majority of router consumers are falling into two categories. The as long as it works group which either uses what their ISP provides (likely a modem combo) or whatever is cheapest (<$50). Or those that buy the highest end.
It isn't all about speed. For some people, new routers definitely aren't needed.
For a lot of other people the upgrade in the cpu, memory, and features are very helpful. For instance, speed of VPN, QOS, monitoring, external storage, etc.
These sometimes, but not always, seem to get a little better with each model released.
To answer your question on who can saturate a router? It's not that hard if you are heavy into multi-media being streamed to many devices. You can't look at the AC number as an actual number to saturate. It has a lot to do with number and type of devices that can cause problems. If you look at what happens to bandwidth when more devices are added, you will realize that each device can easily have interruptions.
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BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
It's almost like companies that manufacture WiFi devices have decided to compete with one another at being the company that makes a product look most like an upside down spider with all those silly looking antennae. TRENDnet isn't the only company that goes into the realm of the absurdly antenna-endowed, but is it really necessary to play follow the leader on that particularly goofy feature?DanNeely - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
Has anyone actually gotten 2.4GHz 256 QAM extension (the 200Mbps/channel mode vs 150 in standard compliant mode) to work in the real world? IIRC the reason why QAM was only bumped at 5ghz in 802.11ac was that outside of lab conditions the noise floor at 2.4GHz was almost always too high to take advantage of the higher density encoding.extide - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
Well with multiple 4x4 radios, you actually need 8 antennas to make it work optimally.limitedaccess - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
Well prior to the previous generation (circa 2011-2013 routers) it seemed like internal antennae designs were in vogue. But there were complaints about this and it looks like things have now have changed to much more prominent external antennae designs.DanNeely - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
Standard dipole antennas for wifi are sticks a few inches long (the ones in your phone are a smaller but more complex/expensive design). Since they radiate to their sides but not the top or bottom they need to be vertically oriented. If you have 1 or 2 antennas (common until a few years ago), you can put them internal to the router; but it needs to be stood on edge. If you put it down flat instead you'll have reception problems because the antenna patterns nulls will be oriented on the plane of the floor. External antennas can be pointed correctly with the router in either orientation; and even if they don't know why most people know the antennas should be pointed up and down.limitedaccess - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
I was really just referring to design aesthetics. For example I think these are all 3 antennae dual band designs -Linksys went from -
http://content.hwigroup.net/images/products_xl/162...
http://cache-www.linksys.com/resources/img/feature...
Netgear -
http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/00002335f/2e49...
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81eJtdiuKyL....
D-link-
http://ca.dlink.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/DIR...
http://content.us.dlink.com/wp-content/uploads/201...
and etc.
I'm not sure if the antennae shape is actually designed from a functional stand point or not in those but purely in terms of aesthetics notice how they aren't just the old fashioned cylinder poles but really stand out visually as part of "curb appeal." Much like how antennae less designs were likely also visually designed to sell on how they looked (just in a different way).
Concillian - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
The thing I don't get is who is buying all these insane routers. I have an AC1700 and it streams HD video on 5GHz fine, and 2.4GHz I mainly only use for devices that don't have 5GHz radios. I can't think of a case where a home user would really get any benefit for a crazy fast single router vs. an AC1200 or AC1700 router + a range extender to cover weak spots. I mean how many home users can actually saturate the 1733 Mbps this router can provide? You need to be coming from an SSD or a RAID to produce that kind of bandwidth or you need to be servicing like 10+ pretty heavy wifi users from multiple servers.I keep seeing more and more of these AC2000+ routers coming out. People must be buying them, but who? They can't all be businesses.
estarkey7 - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
Me, because I stream 4K from Netflix and Amazon all the time!Concillian - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
netflix 4k is max 25 Mbit... AC 1700 is 1300 Mbit on 3x3 5GHz, multiple times your need... Your 4k streaming does not require this class of router at all.jasonelmore - Sunday, January 17, 2016 - link
netflix 4k is watered down man. What about streaming .mkv's or .mp5's ripsConcillian - Sunday, January 17, 2016 - link
4k BDs are something like 125 Mbps. Still easily covered by AC1700. For something like this, more important than a REALLY fast router is to have a strong wifi signal where you need it, which is why I said that most home users are better covered by an AC1700 plus a range extender to make sure you have good signal where you need it.Dug - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link
Only if what is showing netflix has a 3x3 connection, which I'm fairly positive it doesn't.DanNeely - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
On the consumer side, people upgrading from G/N going for the current state of the art to delay the next upgrade as long as possible, and people who have to own the newest and shiniest everything.MU-MIMO offers potentially much higher network throughput if you have a lot of devices connected at once. Having the router being able to talk to their phone, their kids tablet, and their spouses laptop concurrently instead of round robin is probably driving a fair amount of buying among techies. People operating wifi in commercial venues could benefit a lot more than all but the most geeked out households. (You probably don't have to worry about 100 users connecting to your network in a single room - they do). However since it needs client support as well, even with a new router it'll be a mostly aspirational feature for the next few years.
If I was buying a new router today, I'd be tempted since I'd be hoping for a 4-5 year useful lifespan, and would probably benefit before the end of that period. However I have a year old AC1700(?) router; and unless it breaks have no plans to replace it anytime soon.
Valantar - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
I have an ages old D-Link dual band N300 router, which - for now - does the job with my 30mbps connection (considering that the current use case has all heavy usage clients (game consoles, HTPC) on ethernet, and WiFi is relegated to lighter duties like Web browsing). Still, it's getting mighty long in the tooth, and I've held off upgrading for a couple of years due mainly to two things: waiting for the arrival of MU-MIMO, and pricing. While my router was high end when I bought it (from what I can remember, just as the N spec was being finalized, so it was pretty cutting edge), it cost less than half of what even 1st wave AC1900 routers cost today - not to mention the ludicrously overpriced spiderhulks in the classes above that.I get that this is new tech, and that these routers pack far more power and hardware (even relative to when they are launched) compared to anything made five years ago. Still, router makers have seen an opportunity to cash in, and all of a sudden we have routers designed as attention-grabbing design pieces priced like low end laptops. I'll be waiting a good while still, I think, for an affordable priced (sub-$200) MU-MIMO AC1900 (or more) router that I can keep for at least another five years.
limitedaccess - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
I'm actually more aggressive then you even in terms of the price point. I'm waiting for something in the <$100 range. Archer C7 was released more than 2.5 years ago now but doesn't seem like anything yet to make another leap in this price category.Obviously I don't have any data to support this but I'm wondering if the majority of router consumers are falling into two categories. The as long as it works group which either uses what their ISP provides (likely a modem combo) or whatever is cheapest (<$50). Or those that buy the highest end.
Dug - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link
It isn't all about speed.For some people, new routers definitely aren't needed.
For a lot of other people the upgrade in the cpu, memory, and features are very helpful.
For instance, speed of VPN, QOS, monitoring, external storage, etc.
These sometimes, but not always, seem to get a little better with each model released.
To answer your question on who can saturate a router? It's not that hard if you are heavy into multi-media being streamed to many devices. You can't look at the AC number as an actual number to saturate. It has a lot to do with number and type of devices that can cause problems. If you look at what happens to bandwidth when more devices are added, you will realize that each device can easily have interruptions.