802.11ac want to give it a try

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So currently i have an ubiquiti access point running upstairs which is only 2.4ghz 802.11a/b/g and its only use is for mobile devices and PS4.

I've had a stab at installing Ethernet cable but it was such a ball ache with the amount of clutter a family collects i abandoned it. There is a chance i might still go that route as we are renovating the house and i have an unused reel of cat6 and all the crimp ends lying unused.


I've run everything to an understairs cupboard and already have the living room kitted out with x2 Ethernet by the tv (which I've never used) and a cable for the POE access point which is running.

But apart from a TV in the master bedroom and daughters room i cant really justify bashing the walls about for something that may never get used.

Currently i have just run a home made cat6 cable from router into the office simply for my pc to enable gigabit speeds from 100mb connection but thats about all its usage at the moment.

Everything else is just connected to the router in the cupboard (htpc, hue control box, TiVo box etc)

My question before i baffle anymore is will 802.11ac get me near gigabit speeds from WIFI or surpass them as I've read its capable of 7gbps but that wont translate into real world speeds currently however 1gbps will do me just fine if its a possibility

Anyone using it or have any thoughts to share?
 
bremen1874 said:
If you want Gigabit you'll need a cable.
Click to expand...

This. Not to mention ac uses the 5GHz band which from what I've noticed, dramatically decreases in speed when going past one wall. Going past 2 walls and you're better off with 2.4GHz n. ac is only worth it if the devices is close to the access point.

As the wifi is only used for mobiles and PS4, is it really worth upgrading to gigabit speeds?
 
Hmmm i read you could achieve upto 7gbps perhaps the tech isn't quite there yet then.

I wanted to do away with installing cat6 cable but it seems I'm going to have to now if i want decent speed through the network.

Oh well gives me joy knowing i'll pee the mrs off once i get my tool out :D
 
If you've read 7Gbps it was probably talking about 802.11ad rather than 802.11ac.

AFAIK 802.11ad is fast but only suitable for very short range transmissions. It isn't something you'd use for networking a PC.
 
On paper you can get 1.3 Gb/s but that'll never happen in real life. I have my router set to 40 MHz and am currently connected to at the maximum possible 867 Mb/s but file transfers are only 40 MB/s (320 Mb/s). Remember that WiFi is nowhere near as reliable a medium as Ethernet, so many packets have to be resent, restricting maximum throughput. My router doesn't seem to like being set to 80 MHz for some reason (I only seem to connect to it at 167 Mb/s or something).

As others have said, if you need reliability or constantly fast file transfers, use Ethernet.
 
OP, as bremen1874 says you're thinking of 802.11ad which is early-days. Don't worry about high bandwidth though, unless you're doing loads of file transfers. Good coverage is much more important.

DragonQ said:
On paper you can get 1.3 Gb/s but that'll never happen in real life. I have my router set to 40 MHz and am currently connected to at the maximum possible 867 Mb/s but file transfers are only 40 MB/s (320 Mb/s).
Click to expand...

Not quite true. With 802.11ac using 5 GHz you can get 433 Mbit/s per antenna with 80 MHz channels. I.e. max speeds are 433 M, 867 M, 1.27 G, 1.69 G, ..., for 1, 2, 3, and 4, ..., antennas, respectively. Note the speed is obviously determined by the side with the fewer antennas, i.e. you could have a very fancy 4x antenna hub but it's still only going to push 433 Mbit to your phone which only has one antenna.

With 40 MHz the speeds are roughly halved, about 200 Mbit/s per antenna. With 160 MHz they're roughly doubled.

With 2.4 GHz you can only get n speeds (150 Mbit/s at 40 MHz).

Then as you say it can be hard to get the peak speed once you add a few walls and some noise from the neighbours.
 
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