re: my new ASUS RT-AC56U came in today..damn fast shipping from the Egg

Well keep in mind I'm coming from that abortion of a router, the infamous "amazon medialink" so keep this with a grain of salt.

As ILIKE can tell you, a router with big external antennas will likely extend your range, but the reviews from a LEGITIMATE site like 'smallnetbuilder' should carry WAY MORE WEIGHT than the bozos on Amazon who buy it and don't know how to set it up correctly.

Also this doesn't have the FULL AC range of the high-end ($150+) routers but that's kinda moot point right now to me because I have no AC devices and no intention on spending $50 for a USB AC dongle right now.

If you're on the fence, browse that site & read the feedback from the 'router geeks' on there...its kinda like "XDA meets Routers" over there.

Second, so far I've found it to be a good healthy strong signal (see screenshots above) all throughout my house on both floors. It actually broadcasts both 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies so you can connect to whichever one is the best.

5GHz is theoretically faster, however the distance is less than the 2.4 so devices further away might be better run over 2.4.

Also my free DDNS server isn't supported (sad clown face) which afraid.org but no big deal I went ahead & registered with NO-IP.com and I'm using that instead. took maybe 5-10 minutes to sign up for a free DDNS and key in the settings in the router.

(PS I CAN HELP WALK ANYONE THROUGH WITH THE DDNS IF NEEDED..its very easy if you've done it once or twice)

I highly recommend this if you ever want to access your network remotely. You probably already know this, but a DDNS will map Comcast's dynamic IP (meaning it can change on you) to a static name (like hu-flung-po.noip.com) so no matter what happens you can always get to your local network from any computer on the planet.

I'm incredibly impressed with the software so far. I had moved the router & the WAN (ethernet from cable modem) had pulled out slightly and the ASUS immediately told me the connection to the WAN was unplugged.



I would have probably spent 30 minutes trying to figure out why the internet was down, reseting router & modem, messing with my computer settings, etc. but because it changed any page I tried to browse to to that message, I literally had it figured out in less than 10 seconds.

VERY SWEET i'll try to get a screenshot later.

I'm still like a kid at christmas with all the new settings and widgets and dashboards i can play with in the software so expect more gushing from me shortly.

in short, this is a very solid router.