The document discusses and compares three high-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi routers: the Cisco Linksys EA6500, D-Link DIR-865L, and Netgear R6300. The Cisco EA6500 provides theoretical speeds up to 1,300Mbps and had strong close-range performance but weaker performance at longer ranges. The D-Link DIR-865L had disappointing throughput test results despite its low price. The Netgear R6300 delivered the best 802.11ac performance in tests, with speeds up to 180Mbps close-range and 100Mbps at 25m, making it the most suitable for business use of the three routers.

1. High-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi Routers
Preface: Although the next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard is still under
development, several routers are available offering high throughput in the 5GHz
frequency band.
The first 802.11ac router, based on Draft 2.0 silicon from Broadcom, appeared in the
first quarter of 2012, and it's taken a while for other vendors to release their first
products. The ratification process is now up to Draft 4.0, but final approval is still
some way off. However, vendors seem confident that no major bombshells will be
dropped and that any minor tweaks in the final standard will be addressable by
firmware upgrades. Here's a quick overview of three recent launches, all designed for
cable/BT Infinity broadband services and based on the same Broadcom BCM4360
chip.
Cisco Linksys EA6500
The EA6500 is a 3-stream router with a theoretical throughput of 1,300Mbps in 5GHz
802.11ac mode.
Using similar design cues to the 802.11n EA4500 model, the EA6500 also uses the
controversial new Cisco Connect Cloud platform, a web-based interface that gives
developers access to many of the router's features and settings. However, there
seems to have been little take-up of this technology, with only a handful of free or
paid-for third-party apps available.
Cisco offers a matching 4-port Gigabit Ethernet bridge, the WUMC710, rather than a
USB adapter. This costs US$149.99, or around £90 (inc. VAT) and is much more
compact (and cheaper) than the Buffalo bridge we looked at.

2. The EA6500 is a 3-stream device, giving theoretical link speeds up to 1,300Mbps in
5GHz 802.11ac mode. It also has a 450Mbps 2.4GHz 11n radio. Performance at close
range in 802.11ac mode (using the WUMC710) was very impressive at 180Mbps —
much better than we saw from the Buffalo Airstation 1750. At 25m range,
throughput dropped to about 45Mbps. Performance was distinctly average in
802.11n mode in a noisy domestic environment: 35Mbps at close range on the
2.4GHz channel and 47Mbps at 5GHz.
The EA6500 uses the new Cisco Connect Cloud web-based platform.
Other features of the EA6500 include a Simple Tap NFC card that can be used to
configure NFC-enabled devices, and twin USB 2.0 ports for printer and storage
sharing. No ADSL version is available at the moment. The EA650 costs US$199.99, or
£155 (inc. VAT). A single guest network is supported on the 2.4GHz channel.
D-Link DIR-865L

3. D-Link's 3-stream (1,300Mbps) DIR-865L performed disappointingly in our throughput
tests.
D-Link's DIR-865L is a rather ungainly device, but with street prices from around
US$169, or £125 (inc. VAT), it's also one of the cheapest 802.11ac routers.
The DIR-865L uses D-Link's standard text-based web interface, with plenty of
advanced options available including configurable QoS settings. Like the other
routers covered here, it also has a configurable setting for 20/40MHz channel
coexistence. This can be used to force the router to use 40MHz channels in 802.11n
mode even if other 11n networks are detected — by default, Wi-Fi certification
requires fallback to 20MHz in these circumstances, as part of the 'good neighbor'
policy. The router also supports dual guest networks.
D-Link's standard text-based web interface includes configurable QoS settings.

4. For client connectivity, D-Link offers a USB adapter, the DWA-182 (from US$65, or
£50 inc. VAT), which is a 2-stream (867Mbps) device. The DIR-865L is a 3-stream
(1,300Mbps) model. We ran some performance tests using both this and the Cisco
Linksys WUMC710 bridge, and results were poor in both cases. In 802.11ac mode it
struggled to reach 60Mbps at close range, although at 25m it did manage to sustain
around 38Mbps.
Netgear R6300
Netgear's 3-stream R6300 delivers the best 802.11ac performance we've seen so
far.
Netgear's R6300 is a huge slab-shaped 3-stream router that uses the latest version of

5. the Genie graphical web interface, along with an unusual and very useful desktop
utility that gives quick access to the main settings. Printers and storage are shared via
the two USB 2.0 ports, and unusually it also supports Apple's AirPrint feature for
printing from iOS devices.
The router has a special bridge mode setting that turns it into a powerful, albeit
expensive, client adapter. Netgear supplied us with two routers, one of which we
used in this mode for our tests. We also tried the new A6200 2-stream USB adapter
(from around US$65, or £49 inc. VAT), which is a very odd-looking device with a
rotating antenna section.
The R6300 is highly configurable via Netgear's Genie interface.
Using the bridge, 802.11ac performance was outstanding. At 1m it equalled the
180Mbps of the Linksys EA6500, but at 25m it was much faster at 100Mbps — the
best result we've ever seen at this range. With the AC6200 adapter, performance was
nowhere near as good, managing 63Mbps at close range and 43Mbps at 25m.
The R6300, which costs from US$187, or £151 (inc. VAT), is highly configurable and
probably the most amenable to business use of the three products here. Like the
D-Link DIR-865L, it supports simultaneous guest networks on each radio channel.
From http://www.zdnet.com/
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Wi-Fi Alliance Announces 802.11ac Certification

6. 802.11ac Wi-Fi vs. the 802.11n