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802.11ac Phone - New Time Capsule Time?

J

jmxp69

macrumors 6502
Original poster
We've upgraded one 4s to 5s, my 5 to a 6, plus a couple of MacBooks this year. I think we've hit critical mass. Time to upgrade the old TC. Anybody else? Don't think it'll matter for the phones, but I hope it speeds up backups.

Is the 5s 802.11ac?
 
It could be slightly faster….lol. The new Aiport's are amazing! I love mine. Much better reach etc, which could equal better speeds in different parts of the house. 😀
 
ac is one of the nicer surprises with the new iPhone. Just upgraded my router at home to ac (old n router died, decided to take ac for future-proofing)
 
jmxp69 said:
We've upgraded one 4s to 5s, my 5 to a 6, plus a couple of MacBooks this year. I think we've hit critical mass. Time to upgrade the old TC. Anybody else? Don't think it'll matter for the phones, but I hope it speeds up backups.

Is the 5s 802.11ac?
Click to expand...

I guess the real question is whether or not you need 802.11AC.

If you have a strong connection, an "N" router is most likely going to be much faster than your internet connection (unless you have Google Fiber), so a faster router won't really help much.

If you find that your signal degrades in parts of your house, the AC router might help since it has "beam forming" which will concentrate the signal in the direction of your device.

However, if your WiFi is generally faster than your internet connection, the only reason to upgrade would be if you were doing a lot of internal transfers (such as copying files from your laptop to your iMac over WiFi).
 
PaythePiper said:
Sorry boys, but the apple routers are garbage. The new updated netgear and asus DESTROY everything else on the market
Click to expand...

They might be better technically, but those things are always a PITA to set up, troubleshoot, upgrade firmware, and maintain (especially if you are giving one to say your parents in a remote location). So easy to set up and monitor Airports from a Mac or iOS device.

Yeah, I know you are gonna say you've never had a problem with yours, but that is b.s.. I have dealt with dozens of these Netgear, Belkin, Linksys type routers and they are always total pieces of crap that have annoying issues. Tried it so many times and I am done with them. Airports are maybe not perfect, but they are by far the easiest to just get things working.
 
HiRez said:
They might be better technically, but those things are always a PITA to set up, troubleshoot, upgrade firmware, and maintain (especially if you are giving one to say your parents in a remote location). So easy to set up and monitor Airports from a Mac or iOS device.

Yeah, I know you are gonna say you've never had a problem with yours, but that is b.s.. I have dealt with dozens of these Netgear, Belkin, Linksys type routers and they are always total pieces of crap that have annoying issues. Tried it so many times and I am done with them. Airports are maybe not perfect, but they are by far the easiest to just get things working.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I have had dozens of routers. Apple Air Port Extremes are the best overall experience - specifically if you are fully invested end to end in the Apple ecosphere. If you are a PC and android user, that would be a different story.
 
ronm99 said:
I guess the real question is whether or not you need 802.11AC.

If you have a strong connection, an "N" router is most likely going to be much faster than your internet connection (unless you have Google Fiber), so a faster router won't really help much.

If you find that your signal degrades in parts of your house, the AC router might help since it has "beam forming" which will concentrate the signal in the direction of your device.

However, if your WiFi is generally faster than your internet connection, the only reason to upgrade would be if you were doing a lot of internal transfers (such as copying files from your laptop to your iMac over WiFi).
Click to expand...

3.7tb on a whole home Plex server. Yup, lots of big files moving around on LAN. I GoPro a lot too so....
 
I am using my ipad air (5.0ghz N) on my R7000 Netgear router and now getting 120mb/s internet speed (Comcast, south NJ). I also now get just under 50 mb/s on my iPhone 4S (2.4 GHZ N).

I have a hackintosh that I built (dell e6320) that I put the dell 1550W (AC) card in and I get ridiculous connection speeds between my desktop and my dell.

The Netgear router is much less than the airport extreme and I also get amazing distance on my wifi signal (my shed is 300' or so feet from my house and at least 400' from my router location and I get > 80mb/s on my ipad over near it).

I would not hesitate to recommend an AC router to anyone. Pricey, yes. Fast, absolutely!

iPhone: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/931719111
iPad: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/949303488
 
ronm99 said:
If you have a strong connection, an "N" router is most likely going to be much faster than your internet connection (unless you have Google Fiber), so a faster router won't really help much.
Click to expand...

For those who can't understand why ac is in the mix, yeah, i'm in that camp of less than .01% of households mentioned above. For me ac really is a necessity due to 1 Gbps Symmetrical to the home. With 802.11n on the iPhone i'm getting a max of 70 Mbps. Getting a 14 (theoretical) fold increase in speed would really help cloud based transactions such as iCloud backup directly from the phone (if we decided to use it). WAN speeds aside, there are a lot of advantages AC brings that help with a my local area's congested spectrum.

image.php
 
Hopefully apple fixed the garbage wifi antennas in these phones. All my I devices suck for wifi.
$300 router and my devices only are horridly slow
 
yes. I have to use an old mac pro as a firewall since most of the commercial solutions that run at wire speed are disgustingly expensive.
 
HiRez said:
They might be better technically, but those things are always a PITA to set up, troubleshoot, upgrade firmware, and maintain (especially if you are giving one to say your parents in a remote location). So easy to set up and monitor Airports from a Mac or iOS device.

Yeah, I know you are gonna say you've never had a problem with yours, but that is b.s.. I have dealt with dozens of these Netgear, Belkin, Linksys type routers and they are always total pieces of crap that have annoying issues. Tried it so many times and I am done with them. Airports are maybe not perfect, but they are by far the easiest to just get things working.
Click to expand...

They're not bad with aftermarket firmware (DD-WRT or OpenWRT). I like the configuration options they give me. Being able to use non-US channels was a godsend when I was in college, since the "legal" channels were all completely saturated.

I do agree the stock firmware is awful with almost everything though.
 
killawat said:
For those who can't understand why ac is in the mix, yeah, i'm in that camp of less than .01% of households mentioned above. For me ac really is a necessity due to 1 Gbps Symmetrical to the home. With 802.11n on the iPhone i'm getting a max of 70 Mbps. Getting a 14 (theoretical) fold increase in speed would really help cloud based transactions such as iCloud backup directly from the phone (if we decided to use it). WAN speeds aside, there are a lot of advantages AC brings that help with a my local area's congested spectrum.

Image
Click to expand...

I'm jealous of your connection! My city is on the list of potential expansion for google fiber next year, so my fingers are crossed!
 
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