Question on 802.11AC WiFi

[OldDutch]

I was wondering if anyone here had experience in getting their router to play nice with 802.11ac wifi.

I have an Asus AC66U router, and I bought a AC dongle to plug into my MacBook Air as a test to see if AC lives up to the hype.

Problem is my router only does "N+AC" as an option on the 5 Ghz band. I can't force AC only. So when I see my 5 Ghz network in windows, the radio type always says "802.11 N". I named my 5Ghz to a special name so I know I am not choosing the 2.4 Ghz band.

I can't seem to get a straight answer online on how to force AC only. Anyone else have this issue, or know how to fix it so I can try AC wifi out?

EDIT: The adapter I am using is Linksys AE6000

[Finger Cookin]

What's your router? You probably need a newer one to force AC only.

EDIT: After looking at the Linksys adapters, I would return the one you have for a WUSB6300.

[OldDutch]

Asus AC66U, I agree that probably isn't the issue.

It could be the adapter. I got it refurb for $20 so at that price it was worth it to experiment. Maybe I will wait for the one you mention to go on sale. Thanks!

[ericschand]

I too just made the change to wireless AC.

All the laptops I have, when they connect to AC say they are N connections in the status. However, if I go right next to the router and connect, my status says 875Mbps. If I move away, two walls, it says 390Mbps.

AFAIK, both those speeds are faster than wireless N, rated at 300Mbps, but rarely connecting at more than 150Mbps in my experience.

I would say the 875 and 390 are wireless AC connections, even though the status says N.

Another similar problem we face is that I also bought a $20 Trendnet AC adapter, because...$20! It functions like a $20 in that it drops connections and doesn't seem to like high transfers. I'm assuming it's the adapter because I bought an Asus AC56U router, and Asus >> Trendnet.

One other thing is that on one laptop that I have tried it from, with wireless N I get about 6MB/sec transfer. Using the same program to transfer files, connecting on what I think is wireless AC, it jumps to about 18MB/sec. Another reason I think that although status says wireless N, it's actually wireless AC.

ers