Western Digital offers AC Wi-Fi to
break into the router market
The My Net AC1300 is the second toe Western
Digital has dipped into the fast router market's murky waters, following after
the excellent N900 it released last year. This is a pre-802.11AC box, and so
utilizes a standard that isn't yet officially defined for dual bandwidth
wireless networking.
Western
Digital My Net AC1300 Router
A cursory examination reveals that this is
a black plastic box that has five Ethernet ports on the rear - four of which
are 1 Gbit LAN, and the other for connection to your cable modem. It also has a
couple of USB ports, the usual collection of reset holes and a WPS button on
the front. For anyone who has previously configured a router there is nothing
especially radical here, and on the first powering it automatically guides you
through first configuration with a web wizard. The list of features is long and
tempting, including FasTrack QoS, Parental Controls, a Network diagnostic tool
and the ability to make your own personal cloud by attaching a My Book Live to
it. These aren't the real reason to buy this, though. That's the promise of AC
Wi-Fi mode, and the speeds it can achieve. That's where things started to
unravel for the AC1300.
A
cursory examination reveals that this is a black plastic box that has five
Ethernet ports on the rear - four of which are 1 Gbit LAN, and the other for
connection to your cable modem
There are some claims by WD as to how fast
this router is that just don't hold any water when properly considered. One is
that they claim 1300Mbps transfer on the 5GHz band. How, exactly? Yes, 802.1
1AC can theoretically deliver those speeds, but this router has only 1Gbit
network ports, and the onboard USB ports are 2.0 giving them a maximum, in
theory, speed of 480Mbps. My estimation is that it might do half that, with a
very quick data source and the client sat alongside the router. Therefore there
isn't any place for data to come or go that quickly, even if the router could
do that hypothetical speed. Digging deeper into Western Digital's own resources
they present a Tolly report test that this router can actually throughput
345.4Mbps under ideal conditions using a Ixia Ix Chariot Bridge at 75ft, which
seems much more realistic.
I
generally liked what the AC1300 had to offer, and it worked well enough in N
mode with my existing Wi-Fi equipment, but AC mode on in the AC1300 isn't
something that's ready for public consumption or the existing Wi-Fi
infrastructure of most homes
Then there's the other sticking point, who
has AC compatible Wi-Fi hardware? One answer to that is that nobody does,
because it's not a finished standard. The other is that there is only one USB
adaptor commercially available: D-Link's DWA-182 USB adaptor. You could also
use one of the other pre-AC routers to connect, or another of these, but that
seems to miss the point entirely. There's a truth here that is the same one
that blighted 'n' class adoption; which is that a meal is best served when it's
actually cooked. AC isn't finished yet, and making outrageous performance
claims that the user can't reasonably expect to experience doesn't help.
I generally liked what the AC1300 had to
offer, and it worked well enough in N mode with my existing Wi-Fi equipment,
but AC mode on in the AC1300 isn't something that's ready for public
consumption or the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure of most homes.
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Details
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Price: $195 (Saverstore)
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Manufacturer: Western Digital
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Website: www.wdc.com
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Required Spec: Cable broadband or BT Infinity
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