Wi-Fi 802.11 ac

802.11ac: The 5th Generation of Wi-Fi


Many of us while buying a router or looking at the specifications of our Laptop or smartphone may have come across the term Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n. In newer devices released from last year a new term 802.11 ac is included.

IEEE 802.11 is a set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer communication in the 900 MHz and 2.4, 3.6, 5, and 60 GHz frequency bands. They are created and maintained by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) LAN/MAN Standards Committee (IEEE 802).

Now this new 802.11 ac is 3x faster than that attributed to 802.11 n.

Theoretically 802.11 n standard can reach speeds up to 450 Mbps, so the new ac standard is capable of reaching peak speed of up to 1300 Mbps.

Though the previous standard works on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Band, the newer ac standard works only at 5 GHz.
The advantages of 802.11 ac include:
  •       Higher speed
  •      ·  Better performance at longer range compared to 802.11n
  •      Five to eight spatial streams
  •      Addition of Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO)


Now the question arises whether one should invest in a new router? According to me if there are a lot of people simultaneously streaming 4k content, large Data transfer requirement then it will be a good investment. But the cost of the routers supporting this new standard is also on the higher side, it is upto 30 – 50% higher than the existing ones. For the ordinary folks, the existing router is more than enough. Also the internet speed in our country is also not that high to make any difference. Once optical fiber cable based internet in India expands, we will have to remain satisfied with existing wireless technology.
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