Comments on: CES 2013: TRENDnet Announces First USB 3.0 802.11ac Adapter

By: Rob Williams

Rob Williams — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:06:00 +0000

I’ll get one of these in an test for that. If I hit 867Mbit/s over a wireless connection, I’d be hella surprised, even if i’m right beside the router.

By: Brett Thomas

Brett Thomas — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:58:00 +0000

Exactly what I was thinking. I read this and was like, “Yes…yes…YES…oh wait, what’s the range going to be?!” Higher frequency and throughput means much lower range. :(

By: Rob Williams

Rob Williams — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 19:28:00 +0000

With overhead, the best that can be achieved through USB 2.0 is 33.3MB/s (not 60MB/s like the 480Mbit/s would imply). USB 3.0 is 5Gbit/s, which far exceeds what this adapter, at 867Mbit/s (108.375MB/s), can muster.

By: madmatTG

madmatTG — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 19:19:00 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac

“Theoretically, this specification will enable multi-station WLAN throughput of at least 1 gigabit per second and a maximum single link throughput of at least 500 megabits per second (500 Mbit/s).”

I’m seeing a total network bandwidth of 1000Mb/s and single link of 500Mb/s. USB 2.0 is 480Mb/s so that’s a loss of 20Mb/s by my math.

By: Jamie Fletcher

Jamie Fletcher — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:29:00 +0000

It’s just a shame that we are likely to only see 1/3 of that 867Mbit/s at any meaningful distance. 11n was supposed to be 300Mbps, but barely saw much above 11g realistically. Can’t complain too much though, 11ac will at least make wireless transfers practical for larger files.