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DEC 30, 2014 @ 10:12 AM 871,024

The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets

802.11ac vs 802.11n WiFi:

What's The Difference?
Gordon Kelly , CONTRIBUTOR
I write about technology's biggest companies
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Dazzling users with specification sheets is nothing new:
screen sizes, resolutions, megapixels, memory sizes and
processor speeds are just a few, but one of the most
neglected and important is WiFi and its latest and greatest
standard ‘802.11ac’.
802.11ac was finalised in 2013 and you will find it in every
major smartphone, laptop and desktop computer and smart
television. It succeeds the equally-badly named ‘802.11n’
which has been around since 2007 and brings some major
benefits.
The good news is by the end of this post you will not only
understand 802.11ac, but also how to get the best from your
existing wireless signal.
Compatibility - Everything Works Together
I’ll start with the good news: chipsets featuring 802.11ac are
fully backwards compatible with previous WiFi standards.
WiFi official logo and accepted standards

This means it works perfectly with 802.11a (introduced in

1999), 802.11b (2000), 802.11g (2003) and 802.11n (2007).
The bad news is you will be limited to the performance of
the older standard and will only get the full benefits of
‘Wireless AC’ or ‘AC WiFi’, as it is also known, if you are
connecting from 802.11ac to 802.11ac. That means an
802.11ac router and an 802.11ac device.
So that out the way, what are the benefits?
802.aac theoretical speeds versus 802.11n and 802.11g - image credit Asus
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802.11ac vs 802.11n Speed

You may have noticed there has been a six year gap between
802.11n and 802.11ac. This is an eternity in technology
terms and the big benefit 802.11ac brings from its time in
development is speed.
WiFi is always promoted using ‘theoretical’ speeds and by
this standard 802.11ac is capable of 1300 megabits per
second (Mbps) which is the equivalent of 162.5 megabytes
per second (MBps). This is 3x faster than the typical
450Mbps speed attributed to 802.11n.
The problem is these speeds are garbage. In the real world
no-one ever gets close to theoretical speeds and the fastest
802.11ac real world speeds recorded in testing are around
720Mbps (90MBps). By contrast 802.11n tops out at about
240Mbps (30MBps) so the 3x estimate is still true, just
much lower.
But there is one more crucial part to understand for your
real world experience: antennas.
Long term 802.11ac has the headroom to support up to eight
antennas each running at over 400Mbps each, but the
fastest router to date only has four antennas. The reason is
because antennas add cost and take up space and the
smaller the device the less antennas they can fit so it
becomes pointless adding more to a router. Typically:
Smartphones: 1 antenna
USB Adaptors: 1 or 2 antennas
Tablets: 2 antennas
Laptops: 2 antennas (occasionally 3 on desktop
replacements)
Desktops: 3 or 4 antennas (PCI Express EXPR +3.28%
cards)
This is another bottleneck. If your glorious four antenna
802.11ac router is connecting to your single antenna
802.11ac smartphone then 400Mbps (50Mbps) is your
theoretical maximum and 200Mbps (25MBps) is the more
realistic one.
This is something of a downer, but these speeds are still
faster than nearly all home broadband connections and only
become a limitation for transferring files wirelessly between
devices on your local network (say laptop to laptop or
desktop to NAS).
Furthermore 802.11n only supports up to four antennas at
roughly 100Mbps (12.5MBps) each so when you do the
maths for devices using 802.11n antennas the gap begins to
widen. Especially when it comes to the next big benefit of
802.11ac…

Beamforming 'Smart WiFi' - image credit Netgear

802.11ac vs 802.11n Range
So AC WiFi is much faster, but its peak speeds are not really
the selling point. It’s speeds at long range are.
First the bad news: 802.11ac WiFi doesn’t really reach any
further than 802.11n WiFi. In fact 802.11ac uses the 5GHz
band while 802.11n uses 5GHz and 2.4GHz. Higher bands
are faster but lower bands travel further.
That said my experience testing both standards finds very
little difference in signal strength between 802.11ac over
5GHz and 802.11n over 5GHz and 2.4GHz.
Why? Firstly because 2.4GHz is used for everything from
cordless home phones to microwaves and 5GHz remains
relatively interference free for a cleaner signal.
The second key factor is ‘Beamforming’. Typically wireless
signal is simply thrown out from your router equally in all
directions, like ripples when throwing a stone into a pond.
This is why you should place your router as close to the
centre of your home or office and as high up as possible.
Beamforming is different. It is built into the 802.11ac
specification and is ‘smart signal’ which detects where
connected devices are and increases signal strength
specifically in their direction. Yes it is still a good idea to
position your router centrally, but it helps make it less vital.
All this means the performance of 802.11ac is maintained
far better at long range than 802.11n. Peak performance
may be tripled, but at range 5-10x the speed benefits are not
unusual and this is where 802.11ac comes into its own.
Some numbers for example:
802.11ac at one metre: 90MBps, 10 metres:
70MBps and at 20 metres behind two solid walls:
50MBps
802.11n at one metre: 30MBps, 10 metres:
20MBps and at 20 metres behind two solid walls: 5-
10MBps
Of course these figures are a general guide and I’ll get into
examples of more specific top 802.11ac devices to buy next.
802.11ac ns 802.11n Availability and Price
Technology is a wonderful thing. 12 months ago 802.11ac
equipment was hard to find and extremely expensive. Now it
is built into every premium smartphone, tablet, laptop and
smart TV and is increasingly found in midrange devices as
well.
The reason for this is threefold. Firstly there are obvious
performance benefits, particularly for single antenna devices
like smartphones. Secondly it is more battery efficient
because WiFi needs to be active for less time when data
transfers can complete more quickly. Thirdly with
proliferation comes scales of economy which bring down the
price.
One caveat: make sure you find officially certified devices
(using the official WiFi logo). Some devices are still use
‘Draft’ 802.11ac and while they tend to work fine and should
eventually update, it isn’t guaranteed.
When it comes to pricing most devices you buy have already
integrated 802.11ac so you won’t be consciously paying
more for it.
Where there is still a jump in price, however, is routers.
Wireless AC routers still tend to have a 20-50% premium
(depending on model), but as ageing routers risk becoming
the speed and range bottleneck for every Internet connected
item in your home these much neglected devices are worth a
little more investment.
D-Link DIR-880L - image credit D-Link
Recommended 802.11ac Kit
Like any area of technology the market is always changing,
but at the time of writing these are my top 802.11ac kit
recommendations.
Best Value Router
D-Link DIR-880L - $180 - The current price/performance
champ. It lacks an integrated modem, but has the potential
to supercharge your WiFi network for a fraction of the cost
of rivals
Best Performing Router
Netgear R7500 Nighthawk X4 - $280 - The first of the next
wave of so-called ‘AC2350’ routers (1300Mbps AC WiFi
combined boosted 600Mbps N WiFi and rounded up!).
You’ll need a fat wallet and proprietary desktop PCI adaptor
(more below) to get the best from it.
Best Peripheral
Asus PCE-AC68 PCI Adaptor - $99 - If you want your
desktop PC to have the fastest possible wireless experience
this is the beast to get. Watch out for the PCE-AC87 which
Asus will launch soon for the ‘AC2350’ routers, but this
should be more than enough for most.
Best USB Adaptor
D-Link DWA-171 - $24 - there are faster dual antenna
AC1200 USB dongles, but they are huge whereas the slower
DWA-171 is so small you can leave it in a laptop at all times
and it still delivers strong performance.
___
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