802.11ac

Apple announced today at WWDC 2013 its next-generation AirPort Base Stations, including a new AirPort Extreme Base Station router and a new Time Capsule.

As expected, the biggest improvement of the new Base Stations, compared with previous generations, is support for the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard that offers top speeds of up to 1.3Gbps, or three times the speed of 802.11n. This new feature is a must, since a new MacBook Air with built-in support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi was also announced today. The 802.11ac routers and clients have been available from other vendors for more … Read more

Broadcom is ramping up more chips designed to support 5G Wi-Fi, aka 802.11ac.

The chipmaker today announced its first 5G Wi-Fi combo chips designed specifically for entry-level consumer devices, meaning PCs, notebooks, tablets, and smartphones. Combo chips offer Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM radio all in one package. This second generation of 5G Wi-Fi chips includes the same features as Broadcom's current lineup but integrates more components to keep costs down.

"This 1x1 design lowers cost while still delivering dramatic speed, power and performance, empowering a broad new user base to effortlessly stream HD video, and significantly increase … Read more

There's more to 802.11ac than we've seen so far.

Quantenna Communications announced today the first 802.11ac chipset, called QSR1000, with a ceiling speed of up to 1.7Gbps, which is 400Mbps faster than the current cap of any 802.11ac router, such as the Asus RT-AC66U or the Trendnet TEW-812DRU.

The QSR1000 achieves this new speed by supporting the new 4x4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac standard. In other words, it's the first quad-stream Wi-Fi chipset. Up to now, all existing Wi-Fi devices have only used a single-stream, dual-stream, or three-stream setup. (Read more about Wi-Fi standards here.) … Read more

You now can officially upgrade your Windows computer to the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard .

Trendnet announced today the availability of the AC1200 Dual-Band Wireless USB 3.0 Adapter (model TEW-805UB). This is the networking vendor's first AC adapter, and one of a very few on the market.

The TEW-805UB supports USB 3.0, which is a must if you really want to get the speed of 802.11ac. Although the device is compatible with USB 2.0 as well, that connection caps at just 480Mbps, while the new Wi-Fi standard peaks out as fast as 1,300Mbps. The TEW-805UB … Read more

Macs of the near future may be able to tap directly into high-speed 802.11ac networks.

Code for the latest OS X 10.8.4 beta includes a string with the term "802.11ac channel," according to Apple-focused blog 9to5Mac. This appears to be the first reference to 802.11ac in OS X since the term does not show up in the code for OS X 10.8.3, the current version of Apple's OS.

Past rumors have suggested that Apple would be one of the early adopters of 802.11ac, equipping its laptops and tablets with … Read more

Power users now have another option for their home Wi-Fi networks.

Trendnet announced today the availability of the AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router (model TEW-812DRU). This router was first showcased at CES 2013 and is the first from Trendnet to support the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.

The TEW-812DRU router is a true dual-band router that offers a maximum wireless speed of up to 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz frequency band, while at the same time offering up to 1,300Mbps speed on the 5GHz band. To take advantage of the new and much faster speed, the wireless clients also … Read more

LAS VEGAS--D-Link's passion for 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard is both deep and wide.

Apart from the existing DIR-865L and the recently announced DGL-5500, which is the first 802.11ac router that uses a Qualcomm chip to offer StreamBoost technology, D-Link has two more 8021.11ac routers to show off at CES 2013.

They are the AC1750 Dual-Band Gigabit Cloud Router (model DIR-868L), and the AC1200 Dual-Band Gigabit Cloud Router (model DIR-860L). Both use the same Broadcom chip as that used in the DIR-865L. And similar to the DIR-865L, they are both cloud-based routers, allowing users to remotely manage their … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Amped Wireless, maker of extra-long-range, high-power Wi-Fi products, showed off at CES 2013 the upcoming RTA15 High Power Dual Band AC 700mW Wi-Fi Router, the company's first that supports the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.

Like previous routers from Amped Wireless, such as the 600mW Gigabit Dual Band R20000G, the new RTA15 promises to offer incredible Wi-Fi coverage.

According to Amped Wireless, the new router features three high-gain, dual-band antennas and 10 total power amplifiers: four 5GHz 700mW, two-stage amplifiers, two 2.4GHz amplifiers, and four low-noise amplifiers. As the result, Amped Wireless claims it can cover up … Read more

LAS VEGAS--TP-Link today showed off its first 802.11ac router at CES 2013, the AC1750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (model TL-WDR7500).

The router supports a combined wireless speed of 1,750Mbps -- 1,300Mbps on the 5GHz band and 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz band. On top of that it also offers Gigabit Ethernet and two USB ports for storage and printer-sharing features.

Like other 802.11ac routers, the TL-WDR7500 supports all existing Wi-Fi clients on the market, but you'll need to use 802.11ac clients with it to achieve the higher speeds.

The new router comes in … Read more