First Netgear 802.11ac Router Coming in May - chavisiont1981

Netgear is officially the prototypical networking company with an 802.11ac Wi-Fi router, the company announced Thursday. The R6300, which will debut in May, bequeath reportedly scarper functioning to 1.3Gbps on the 5GHz lo, which makes it (on paper) more than double as allegro as current 802.11n routers.

The R6300 features four gigabit Ethernet ports for hooking up wired devices, and two USB ports for meshing-attached storage and printer sharing. The router has DLNA support, which lets you firmly pelt media across multiple devices. The R6300 is as wel backward-compatible, which means that it will work with all of your existing wireless devices. This is monumental, since there are no 802.11ac-compatible devices currently happening the market, and none are matter-of-course until the end of this year (at the early).

The R6300's top rush along of 1.3Gbps is only come-at-able exploitation the 5GHz band. This means that if you have devices on your network that use former wireless standards (some 802.11ac and 802.11n operate 5GHz, but not 802.11b/g), then your R6300 will also fall dorsum to those standards. The R6300 is a treble-band router, though, so a settings tweak should let you banish slower devices to the lower 2.4GHz band, while maintaining faster devices on the 5GHz band.

Though the R6300 is the kickoff 802.11ac router announced, it's not the first clock we've seen the technology. At CES 2012, we saw a prototype 802.11ac router from Old World buffalo running on unofficial standards, as well as one from TrendNet. Those routers are expected to debut in the fall, while the R6300 will be released in May.

The R6300 will cost $200 and be sold direct Netgear's authorized retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and Fry's Electronics.

Note: When you buy in something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for much inside information.