ASUS Announces the RT-AC66U (802.11ac) Dual-Band Router

[Cristian_25H]

The ASUS RT-AC66U router integrates dual-band Gigabit wireless with fifth generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology, also known as 5G WiFi, which enables speeds up to three times faster than existing 802.11n. As one of the first routers to achieve this, it tops Gigabit wireless requirements with a combined 2.4 GHz/5 GHz bandwidth of 1.75 Gbps. This massive data rate makes it an excellent high speed router for demanding online applications, coupled with exclusive ASUS AiRadar signal amplification and shaping technology. Easy ASUSWRT setup, multiple SSIDs, and IPv6 support further enhance networking, while strong USB-based capabilities turn the RT-AC66U into a 3G, FTP, DLNA, and printer server for genuine multi-role functionality.





Going beyond Gigabit Wi-Fi to triple wireless-N speeds
The RT-AC66U goes even further than the successful high speed RT-N66U dual-band router. Working in both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, it is one of the world's first dual-band wireless routers to support the advanced 802.11ac wireless protocol, enabling 5 GHz operation at up to 1.3 Gbps. These new capabilities are made possible by the inclusion of Broadcom's powerful 5G WiFi chips. As the 2.4 GHz band can work at 450 Mbps on its own, the concurrent combined bandwidth of the RT-AC66U is 1.75 Gbps. It uses sophisticated ASUS AiRadar technology to strengthen signals to devices, amplifying transmission in all directions to better overcome environmental obstructions and improve data rates. The inclusion of 5G WiFi makes the RT-AC66U one of the most future-proof routers on the market, ready for the next generation of high speed networks.

Extensive feature list enhances networking experiences
The RT-AC66U maintains the tradition of networking excellence established by previous ASUS high speed routers. It allows for easy and fast setup in just three steps with the ASUSWRT dashboard, and upholds strict QoS standards for the most reliable networking and download multitasking available. With QoS, the RT-AC66U has better bandwidth optimization, and offers Download Master capabilities, which mean fast background downloading even post-shutdown. Up to eight SSIDs are supported, so users can easily setup distinct networks with different access privileges and levels of security without having to compromise passwords. The RT-AC66U supports the new IPv6 standard for better packet transmission and addressing.

USB applications extend router versatility
With its twin USB ports, the RT-AC66U becomes a true multi-role device. Attaching a 3G dongle allows it to share 3G connections among several users on different devices, while full DLNA compatibility affords smooth connectivity with a variety of entertainment platforms, including game consoles, Blu-ray players, smart TVs, and set-top boxes. The RT-AC66U can also serve as a dedicated FTP server and printer server, letting users share resources for greater productivity while reducing costs as there is no need to buy standalone server hardware.

Full 802.11ac product lineup
In addition to the RT-AC66U router, ASUS has also released the PCE-AC66 and USB-AC53 clients, both capable of 802.11ac speeds. The dual-band PCE-AC66 offers a PCI Express client card for desktops, with 3 x 3 high-powered transmission. It can sustain 1.3 Gbps in 5 GHz and up to 450 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band. For easy USB upgrades to 802.11ac, the USB-AC53 compact dongle plugs into any USB port, with 2 x 2 802.11ac. In 5 GHz, the attachment can maintain 867 Mbps, while in 2.4 GHz it works at 300 Mbps, achieving a total throughput of around 1.3 Gbps. The PCE-AC66 and USB-AC53 are enabled by Broadcom's 5G WiFi chips, and demonstrate ASUS technology leadership in bringing an 802.11ac ecosystem to consumers.

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[Deleted member 3]

How about improving wired speed first?

 

[Prima.Vera]

How about improving wired speed first?

Why do you need more than 1 Gbps? Your HDD cannot even couple with that transfer speed anyways. And besides, you can count the countries that provide wire at 200Mbps with 1 hand finger only.
Btw, 10Gbps adapters are for some time now. To bad they cost 1 kidney to have them..and useless for average user anyway..

The question is, where are the 802.11ac adapters?

 

[JTF195]

Why do you need more than 1 Gbps? Your HDD cannot even couple with that transfer speed anyways. And besides, you can count the countries that provide wire at 200Mbps with 1 hand finger only.
Btw, 10Gbps adapters are for some time now. To bad they cost 1 kidney to have them..and useless for average user anyway..

The question is, where are the 802.11ac adapters?

1 bit is only 1/8 of a byte, so 1 Gbps is actually only about 125 MB/s. SATA II is 3 Gbps, and SATA III is 6 Gbps.

Many newer HDDs and nearly ALL SSDs are capable of exceeding 1 Gbps. (Most SATA II SSDs were capable of at least 200 MB/s)

Not to mention, RAM is capable of speeds anywhere from 25 to 50 GB/s, and with DMA, the NIC and the RAM can communicate without even touching the hard drive.

This is mostly targeting people who want to transfer files between local pcs, as gigabit internet service is still pretty far off.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Yes, I know that. I was talking about speeds above 1Gbps. And besides, not to many people are using SSD for file storage. What's the point of your comment?

 

[nemesis.ie]

I agree with JTF195 and DTBM - we do need 10Gbit wired.

As mentioned pretty much any SSD is able to provide nearly double the speed of gigabit ethernet. I have 2 Gbit ports in my server to help things along, but the server (RAID array) can feed 300MB/sec (~3x what gigabit does) and the SSD in the PC can write at 400MB/sec but a copy operation only manages about 90MB/sec over the gigabit meaning transfers take over twice as long as they would with faster ethernet.

I think that was the general point of the posts, we need faster wired connections - and lets face it, most of the time these WiFi boxes are being fed from a wired network/computers so having them (WiFi A/P) faster than the wired port is often pointless.

 

[Prima.Vera]

nemesis.ie, I still don't understand what are you asking for? 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters are already available for a couple of years now, but they are a little expensive. Why don't you buy those for your servers?? You mean are expensive? Well, yeah...

 

[Disparia]

Adapters and switches are cheap... if you're outfitting a large-ist business. 64-port 10Gb switches at $10K, and dual-port adapters for $350. Great deal considering some of the first adapters were $8K upon release

The first companies that can put out small-scale 10Gb solutions for data enthusiasts will reap the early adopter money. Say... under $1,000 to outfit four computers with 10Gb and a router or switch to connect them all.

Simply, we're waiting for 10Gb to drop to just within reach.

 

[JTF195]

My point was that, while you're always going to have a bottleneck somewhere, it shouldn't have to be your Ethernet/LAN, because we have the technology to make that better.

 

[xvi]

I agree with JTF195 and DTBM - we do need 10Gbit wired.

As mentioned pretty much any SSD is able to provide nearly double the speed of gigabit ethernet. I have 2 Gbit ports in my server to help things along, but the server (RAID array) can feed 300MB/sec (~3x what gigabit does) and the SSD in the PC can write at 400MB/sec but a copy operation only manages about 90MB/sec over the gigabit meaning transfers take over twice as long as they would with faster ethernet.

I think that was the general point of the posts, we need faster wired connections - and lets face it, most of the time these WiFi boxes are being fed from a wired network/computers so having them (WiFi A/P) faster than the wired port is often pointless.

Don't forget that SATA only recently did 6Gbps to a maximum of one meter. You're asking an Ethernet line to do 10Gbps. To the maximum of 100 meters. For cheap.

The higher WiFi bandwidth is probably just to bring latency down. I doubt you'd see the full 1.3Gbps even between two wireless clients.

With both wired and wireless, the rated speed isn't so much for cramming maximum speed from computer X to computer Y, it's to provide a higher available bandwidth for all users on a network. The only reason why you should want 10Gbps on a router is if it's providing a link to a switch with a whole heck of a lot of 1Gbps clients. How often are people going to use that on a residential all-in-one router like this?

 

[Disparia]

Don't forget that SATA only recently did 6Gbps to a maximum of one meter. You're asking an Ethernet line to do 10Gbps. To the maximum of 100 meters. For cheap.

10Gb has around for 10 years now. It's time to start trickling down

With both wired and wireless, the rated speed isn't so much for cramming maximum speed from computer X to computer Y, it's to provide a higher available bandwidth for all users on a network. The only reason why you should want 10Gbps on a router is if it's providing a link to a switch with a whole heck of a lot of 1Gbps clients. How often are people going to use that on a residential all-in-one router like this?

The reason to want 10Gb is that we've been hitting that ~100-115MB/s wall for years now. Can't* increase with link aggregation and Infiniband is a solution for only a few. That leaves moving to 10Gb Ethernet.

It's not like we think 10Gb will become the new 1Gb overnight. It certainly didn't happen overnight when 1Gb became the new 100Mb. All it takes is a couple vendors to start offering entry-level adapters and switches/routers to take off. Like I said earlier, prices are at $156/port. It's not too much of a stretch to believe that some of the lower-tier network vendors could offer entry-level equipment at $100/port.

 

[xvi]

10Gb has around for 10 years now. It's time to start trickling down

True, but so have things like Blu-ray and it's still not a standard in manufactured PCs (or even Apple, who likes to adopt emerging technologies earlier than other manufacturers). On the subject of Apple, they're pushing their Thunderbolt port which does 10Gbps, but that's a maximum of 3 meters. 97 meters short.

The reason to want 10Gb is that we've been hitting that ~100-115MB/s wall for years now. Can't* increase with link aggregation and Infiniband is a solution for only a few. That leaves moving to 10Gb Ethernet.

It's not like we think 10Gb will become the new 1Gb overnight. It certainly didn't happen overnight when 1Gb became the new 100Mb. All it takes is a couple vendors to start offering entry-level adapters and switches/routers to take off. Like I said earlier, prices are at $156/port. It's not too much of a stretch to believe that some of the lower-tier network vendors could offer entry-level equipment at $100/port.

It seems that most technologies rely on early adopters to take the financial brunt of the initial cost to develop and manufacture early versions of said technology. Essentially, the easiest way to make 10Gbps cheap is for everyone to go out and buy the expensive versions available now.

I've experimented with IP over FireWire (bridged with the rest of the network on one of the machines) back in the 100Mbps days. It was fun for a few tests, but impractical unless the machines lived next to each other. Thunderbolt would probably be similar, assuming you can push IP over it.

 

[Disparia]

That's the problem though, I would be tempted to buy in... if I could find any switches under 24 ports. I've seen 8 and 10 porters before in the early days of 10Gb, but not really any more.

As for Thunderbolt, possible. Products like the one below exist:

Adapter to adapter is also possible, as well as multi-port adapter to cards. But it's all pretty niche (expensive, proprietary) at the moment.

Maybe if motherboards shipping with TB increase, someone might work up a TB to TB solution. Optical TB will certainly help with increasing the distance.

 

[Prima.Vera]

tnks. good read.

 

[nemesis.ie]

nemesis.ie, I still don't understand what are you asking for? 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters are already available for a couple of years now, but they are a little expensive. Why don't you buy those for your servers?? You mean are expensive? Well, yeah...

The point is these faster ports need to be built into these routers so we can take advantage of the faster WiFi speed. And yes, it's high time the price of 10Gbe came down.

I do like the idea of the PCIe external switch. My server is PCI-X though. Maybe if they put link aggregation on the routers it would help things along for now - a lot of the smaller NAS boxes are now sporting 2 x 1Gbit ports. How about link aggregation on all 4 ports.