14 DAY TRIAL // It wasn't too long ago that transfer speeds of 750 Mbps were considered high-end for wireless routers, but things have come a long way since then, regardless of the relatively short time. In fact, ASUS has just launched what may very well be the fastest router ever.
Called ASUS RT-AC87U, the router has a total concurrent data throughput of 2,334 Mbps, which is the result of combining 600 Mbps over 2.4 GHz with 1,734 Mbps via 5 GHz band.
Normally, even the best dual-band routers wouldn't be able to attain more than 1,900 Mbps, but it's obvious this limit isn't going to fly anymore.
Indeed, since the 1,900 Mbps data rate was the best showcased at last year's IFA trade show in Berlin, Germany, it makes sense that something better would be developed for this year's edition of the same event.
After all, IFA isn't that far off now. It will occur in the first and second weeks of September, 2014, next month.
There are several factors that contribute to the speed of the ASUS RT-AC87U AC2400-class dual-band 802.11ac wireless router.
The Wi-Fi technology itself is the main star here, but we have to take into account the four-transmit, four-receive (4×4) antenna configuration as well.
Then there's the universal beamforming ability (enhances precision and range), adaptive Quality-of-Service (QoS), and AiProtection with exclusive Trend Micro security.
At the end of the day, the new product offers speeds greater than anything available through physical, wired Ethernet just through the 5 GHz band. Kind of makes the “amazing” Gigabit Ethernet technology seem lackluster at best and sluggish at worst.
Add to that the range and signal strength high enough to go through walls, and you can use the ASUS RT-AC87U to provide Internet access and PC interconnect capabilities to several floors at once, even without range extenders.
The ASUS AC2400-class RT-AC87U router, with its Broadcom TurboQAM chip (boosts 2.4 Ghz speed from 450 Mbps to 600 Mbps) and MU-MIMO technology (connect to multiple MU-MIMO-compatible clients at max speed, simultaneously), should be put up for order soon, either this month or the next.
Unfortunately, we don't know the price, and we may have to wait until IFA for it. Given the use of the latest Quantenna system-on-a-chip (SoC with dual-core processor) and the 1GHz dual-core main CPU, however, you shouldn't expect anything too affordable. Well, provided the absolutely overpowered specifications didn’t already make that much clear.
