Recently we’ve been hearing an uproar of praise for the newest Wi-Fi advance – 802.11ac wireless routers.  This week we set our minds to finding out whether we need to be recommending this new upgrade and what advantages it may have to our clients.

802.11 is nothing new.  Pretty much every model of router made within the last 5 years will be part of this family and most routers support 802.11n.  This wireless standard was introduced in 2007 as an upgrade on the 802.11g which was standard at the time.  It can transfer around 56 Megabytes per second and has long been considered the sufficient standard.  Until now.

802.11ac looks to be the newest contender providing double the throughput of the 802.11n.  Of course, on paper is seems like a better deal offering much speedier access.  However, we’ve been doing some research and we’re not so sure that it’s essential to buy a 802.11ac router just yet.

For starters, most people simply don’t need the speed and throughput that it provides.  The 56 megabytes of the 802.11n is sufficient for most households and we think in most cases the upgrade to an 802.11ac is a little excessive.  Not to mention, most devices don’t support the latest model yet so you could struggle to see the benefits unless you upgrade your device as well which can be expensive and as we mentioned before, pretty pointless.

Overall, the upgrade is an exciting moment for the world of Wi-Fi however we’re not so sure you need to be ditching the classic 802.11n routers just yet!