Wi-Fi is improving steadily. The move from 802.11n to 802.11ac is well underway, and we may soon see 802.11ad (much faster) and 802.11ax (advanced bandwidth management) become mainstream. Right now, your best option is still 802.11ac, but not all AC routers are created equal.
Summary What the number seems to mean What the number really means How theoretical is the theoretical maximum? Higher numbers equal more computers, not more speed Conclusion:It's a pretty confusing numberThere are numbers attached to the end that tell you the theoretical maximum speeds – AC1200, AC1900, AC5300, etc. These numbers purport to refer to how many megabits per second (Mbps) you can get from the router, but in practice, you want to take the "theoretical" part of the "theoretical maximum" pretty seriously.
If you look at the model number of your router, you will always see a term like "AC 1200", "AC 1900", etc., regardless of the router brand. What does that mean? The number behind the "AC" actually refers to bandwidth.
The number after AC actually refers to the sum of all the bandwidth that can theoretically be delivered by each band/frequency used by the router. If a router has two bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, which are the standard bands used for Wi-Fi), one of the bands can claim a maximum of 450 Mbps and the other 1300 Mbps – 1750 total . You can get higher AC numbers by having bands with higher throughput rates (1733 Mbps is quite popular) or by adding more bands.
Here's the catch though:your devices can probably only connect to the signal from one band at a time. If your computer is connected to the 1300 Mbps band, the other band will not give you an additional 450 Mbps. It will simply remain unused. Getting a router with more bands (and therefore a higher sum of theoretical maximums) won't do much for speed.
So you're limited to one band per device, but still, if a router advertises 1300 Mbps on one of its bands, that's impressive. Unfortunately, you won't get that speed either, as these numbers are collected under ideal test conditions, not the real world.
The hardware and software they use is top of the line and fully optimized for testing, with only one device connected at a time and over short distances. In short, normal people will probably never see the advertised theoretical maximum appear on their own speed tests.
Because setups and environments vary so much, there's no surefire way to tell how fast you can really expect from a router, but in general, even under ideal conditions, getting over 70% of the advertised speed, or up to 6 – 700 Mbps is unlikely.
More realistically, a mid-range AC1200 router will deliver around 300 or 400 Mbps on good days, and upgrading to something fancier will likely offer marginal speed gains at best.
But just because higher AC numbers don't make your connection faster doesn't mean they're useless. A model with a large number will usually have more antennas and bands (but not necessarily faster) and possibly better features, with newer technology like MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) allowing more users to connect to a router without experiencing speed losses.
A four-antenna AC5300 router could handle four bandwidth-hungry users without the slowdown that conventional routers might experience. Also, the higher the number on the band you are connected to, the more data it can handle from multiple devices. If you only have a few devices using a bit of bandwidth, a low-power AC router will handle your traffic just fine.
In the end, the number you see after the AC is almost meaningless. It's the sum of the very theoretical maximum speeds of multiple bands that you can't connect to simultaneously, and it really only gives you a hint as to how it could handle more computers at once.
>To get an idea of how fast a router really is, buyers are better off checking reviews and looking for real-world test data. Since gigabit-speed internet is still pretty rare, not being able to go above 500 Mbps isn't much of a problem for most people – and if it is, there's always the old Ethernet cable. standby, and we get closer to gig the Wi-Fi all the time.
