Linksys EA6900 AC1900 802.11ac Router Review

5GHz 802.11ac Performance

5GHz is a more recent addition to the consumer WiFi specification and on this frequency we find both 802.11n and AC standards on offer. We note that 802.11n is the only standard to run at both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies and this is the most common standard for ISP routers to feature. Unlike the 2.4GHz band, 5GHz radio waves and solid brick walls do not go that well hand in hand, so whilst it does support a much faster throughput speed, its range can be severely crippled in a dense operating environment.

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.

Unlike 2.4GHz transmissions, 5GHz transmissions and solid brick walls don’t go so well together. Beamforming technology does help to concentrate the signal path to maintain as higher link speed as possible. Fixed packet speeds see a minimum average of over 160Mbps across the test setups, whilst variable packet sizes as expected maintain a lower throughput speed of around 60-70Mbps. Looking at the performance graph for the fixed packet size we can also see that as the time goes on, the average speed of throughput gradually rises as the Beamforming signal becomes more concentrated between the router and wireless adaptor.