801.11ac

[holy god of nil]

I'm about to get sky fibre, by all accounts their hub is terrible and my place is big and old with thick walls so I want decent wifi. Thinking about buying a better router and considering 801.11ac, what are people's thoughts on this?
How long until it becomes more mainstream and would buying an ac router now be a waste of money or just a decent bit of futureproofing (assuming I buy something good like an asus ac66u)?

[DanceswithUnix]

You don't have to use a router for your WiFi.

The router needs to be close to the phone line, your WiFi probably wants to be somewhere else.

I use Homeplug AV 500Mbps mains ethernet boxes to get broadband upstairs, and then a WiFi access point to actually provide the WiFi. That gives me two WiFi sources. In reality the proper access point tends to be good enough that nothing ever connects to the NetGear router.

The main advantage seems to be multipath antennas. Best router I have owned has two antennas, the cheap AP has three. It sounds like a gimmick, but in this case it really seems to help.

[TheDutyPaid]

Does Sky fibre use a two box system? With a cable from wall to a modem, then from that to router, like BT.

So as I found having BT fibre you just can not go out and buy a better router.

[Dutchjonsey]

You can I'm on BT, I've swapped out the homehub for a netgear router, the white box plugs into the back of it. Far less hassle for me, the homehub was a bit limiting ^^

[TheDutyPaid]

You can I'm on BT, I've swapped out the homehub for a netgear router, the white box plugs into the back of it. Far less hassle for me, the homehub was a bit limiting ^^

I must say the last time I looked was two years ago, I know you can not do it with any router? Where would the red cable go?

[Dutchjonsey]

As far as I know it has to be a cable router, phone line goes into the white box (modem), the red Ethernet goes into the WAN port on the router, you set up the router to use the BT username (from the home hub, username is bthomehub@btbroadband.com, password is left blank) over PPPoE and you're away (or at least, I was )

[BobF64]

Far less hassle for me, the homehub was a bit limiting ^^

Not to mention that BT are a bit nosey too, all in the name of "support" though.

[holy god of nil]

It's doable with sky, requires a little jiggery pokery but doable. Anyone know if the Bt openreach box has gigabit ethernet or only 100mb? The sky box only being 100mb is a bit crap.

[noodles2k]

It's doable with sky, requires a little jiggery pokery but doable. Anyone know if the Bt openreach box has gigabit ethernet or only 100mb? The sky box only being 100mb is a bit crap.

Assuming it's the HG612 it's only 10/100, but its vdsl side only does 100 down max so it doesn't really matter.