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I see the new 802.11ac wireless standard can transfer to speeds up to 1000 gbps. Obviously this is theoretical but I still Imagine that it is exponentially faster than a typical 10 - 20 mbps WAN link.

With these slower lan speeds, why is everyone smoothing their jollys out over 802.11ac? Until WAN speeds catch up, there is no way we will ever come close to saturating this standard unless we increase the WAN speed.

Is there any reason at all to upgrade my Wireless G network if I am the only person using it and my internet connection smooths in at a solid 5 mbps?

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  • 802.11ac theoretical speed is 1.3Gbps not 1000 Gbps
    – jhcaiced
    Jan 6, 2014 at 1:35
  • Ever need to transfer a gigabyte of information over your wireless network from one home computer to another?
    – kobaltz
    Jan 6, 2014 at 1:39
  • Jesus, no way. External hard drive all the way. But I see your point, this process would be much faster with a 802.11ac.
    – Scandalist
    Jan 6, 2014 at 1:41

2 Answers 2

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You are correct: upgrading your external facing network connection makes no since if the external connection will only reach a certain max for an extended time. In other words, I've got a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem that can 'theoretically' reach 384 MBit, yet my internal router only has a 100 Mbit connection to my cable modem, so I'll never be able to get my full 384 MBit (at least until I upgrade my router to a 1000 Mbit connection to my cable modem). Of course this is all moot since my cable connection tops out at 20 Mbit anyways.

So why upgrade anything? I upgraded my modem to take advantage of the future speeds and when those speeds start being delivered I'll upgrade my router to handle the faster speeds. Internally I'll ALWAYS have the fastest possible WiFi/Wired setup because I share files amongst my internal devices as well as stream (movies/music), so as long as my internal network is as fast as it can be, the only bottle neck is my provider.

TLDR; upgrade if it makes since; it's just you with a 5 MBit connection .. you could do with a 1990's 802.11b WiFi setup and be ok until you're external connection is upgraded.

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Personally, I would definitely see the upgrade. Not so much for the WAN side of things, but rather for within my local network. I have several TVs around the house, each have a small device hooked to them via HDMI. Each one of these devices acts as a streaming portal for my Ceton quad tuner TV card. If these devices were to support 802.11ac then I wouldn't have to run ethernet cables throughout my house since they would have enough bandwidth to stream off of my media server. The 802.11ac specification is really a big boost (currently) for local network file transfers. However, more and more cities are starting to get gigabit internet connections in which case it would also serve as a WAN benefit.

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  • This makes sense, I think there are applications for home use if you stream local media to multiple devices or transfer large amounts of data around the network. I think the majority of consumers are getting jipped into upgrading their network under the assumption this new standard will make their "Internet" faster.
    – Scandalist
    Jan 6, 2014 at 1:43
  • Also a worthy upgrade if you believe the beam forming feature is worth anything.
    – Scandalist
    Jan 6, 2014 at 1:47

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