Asus RT-AC68U 802.11ac Dual-Band Wireless Router Review

2.4GHz 802.11ac Performance

The 2.4GHz band is the older of the two wireless bands that are in use today. On this band we find 802.11b/g/n wireless standards with up to 600Mbps bandwidth on offer when using wireless-n compliant devices. Due to the lower operating frequency, 2.4GHz signals offer a wider level of coverage, but the lower throughput speeds are a disadvantage to this ageing band.

Fixed Block Size

To test the maximum throughput speed that a wireless connection can handle, a fixed block size of 16384 Bytes is sent from the client to the server over a period of five minutes. The higher block size will allow the transfer rate to stay as high as possible – in the same way that large files transfer from one drive to another quicker than lots of small files of the same total size.

Variable Packet Size

In a real world situation, the blocks of data that pass through a wireless adaptor are not of the same size each time, so to give a more realistic impression of how an adaptor performs, the adaptor is once again tested at each range for a period of five minutes. This time however, the block size will vary from 32 Bytes up to 16384 Bytes in increasing steps of 148.7 Bytes each time.

The 2.4GHz band, the speed of data throughput is highly consistent and strong throughout the testing process. When looking at the throughput speed when working with a fixed packet size (to give us an idea of the maximum throughput speed) the lines on the graph are virtually parallel to each other. This means that although there is a slight drop in speed as the range increases, the strength of the signal at each range is strong and consistent. This is a key area where many routers fail, consistently strong signals.