Asus ASUS RT-AC68U Dual-Band Wireless-AC 1900 The Super-Fast Asus RT-AC68U Wi-Fi Router Gives You Combined Dual-Band Data Rates Of Up To 1900Mbps For A First-Class Online Experience.Was £149 save £50 Next best price Currys £109 Please expire as deal is now ended.I got mine
Top comments
demosn
28 May 177#4
it adds a magician named Merlyn
ddaann_99
27 May 175#2
Slap Merlin firmware on that bad boy and you've got a formidable piece of networking kit for your dollar.
frownbreaker
28 May 173#20
SKY Q is a mesh based Wifi system. It sends the streaming TV data over 5gHz to the Sky units around the house.
This is done to avoid the likely more congested 2.4 gHz signals. This unit would NOT be a drop in replacement for SKY Q.
Having said that this is one of the best mid range APs around. It will beat most any other cable modem at this price point for reliable connection, throughput and speeds with many connected clients. It will outperform the Virgin, Sky and BT units for range and coverage.
I'd recommend buying this and using it in conjunction with your Sky / Virgin / BT modem you can disable the Wifi on the ISPs modem and link the modem to this via cable. Its best to place this unit not on the ground floor but on the first or second floor of a typical house near the middle. This will increase the range / coverage. I used to have 3 Access points around the house using a 5gHz mesh for internet and 2.4gHz for client. I replaced that setup with this SINGLE unit. Performance is incomparable, fast, robust and reliable for >4 years.
Its worth noting 5gHz does not have the same range (it's less) than 2.4gHz. Its worth doing a site survey of your house / flat / accommodation using a tablet / smartphone with Wifi Analyzer (Android). Apple phones cannot run this type of software. Then use the least congested channel (the software will recommend one for you)
If you live in a build up area then it might be worth doing this survey every 6 months or so in case you have someone nearby with a new router. Also some folk turn off their routers when not in use so its worth running the survey a few times, weekday, weekend and nights.
You could keep the Sky Q kit and just use this unit for 2.4gHz. Again the best solution depends on how you will use the network in your home. Which depends on your devices and when you / others will use them for what type of use.
One other feature this unit has that is overlooked is the high speed connections it supports to ASUS PCI Wifi cards. This does beamforming and I've used it and got very fast performance. I've sold my ASUS PCI card as I cabled the whole house.
If you are not familiar with ASUS they are a top end brand and OEM. Their radio kit is superb (open this up an look and the thermal engineering) also the design offloads most tasks to hardware and unlike many companies they keep shipping updated firmware. My unit is >4 years old and I got a firmware update only last week! They also take some of the Merlin patches and add them to the official firmware,
Hot. I have the DSL version if this to work with my BT / Plusnet Fibre Broadband and it is a fantastic piece of hardware and software. Highly recommended for the device. The retailer though is a different story.......
ddaann_99
27 May 175#2
Slap Merlin firmware on that bad boy and you've got a formidable piece of networking kit for your dollar.
Bucky4321 to ddaann_99
27 May 171#3
what does Merlin add over the stock firmware as I have this router and think it's grest
demosn
28 May 177#4
it adds a magician named Merlyn
akashi
28 May 17#5
Same price on Amazon but currently OOS. Can still order now and dispatched when back in stock.
Walgeon
28 May 17#6
i have this exact one. It works great and has great features.
You can get it cheaper when Amazon do sales... but its worth this price
DrManhattan
28 May 171#7
VPN at router. You need a modem though.
Mikeygolfgt
28 May 17#8
What does the custom firmware offer that the stock doesn't as stock fw offers vpn too.
paulsmithlove
28 May 171#9
Can someone tell me why would I need this? What will this do that my free modem won't.
iwanthisdeal to paulsmithlove
28 May 171#10
Assuming you have sky or bt hub, this would allow more control over your devices connected. For example QoS to prioritise bandwidth (if you have a lot of devices connected, this will allow you to select your pc or phone to have a faster connection than say a wemo plug), access control (prevent access to your network even when plugging directly into the Ethernet port), readyshare (allows a printer without internet access become available within your network or plug in an external hard drive for access within your network)
frownbreaker to paulsmithlove
7 Jun 17#43
1) Range is much better. I replaced 3 AP around the house with this one unit. Signal now cover whole house and garden and works 3 houses away! This is down to radio design on the PCB, real antenna Vs the "bent paperclip or PCB track stuff on the ISP modems"
2) Speed (concurrent Wifi usage >1 device stream HD. Unlike the cheap units from ISP this units performs lots of tasks in hardware. Take a look at what's inside the box: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/63686-asus-rt-ac68u-pce-ac68-802-11ac-review-2.html
3) Less CPU load on your modem so improved upload / download speed on your modem.
4) No need to change your home network when you move ISP (e.g. I jump from BT/Plusnet and back again whenever I can to get the cheapest rate / max cashback) when this happens I do not need to change ANY hardware just one config page on the ASUS for my username / password for PN/BT
5) Reliability is much better as the unit has more memory / CPU
6) Fast Gigabit Ethernet switch and high capacity internal buses to carry content at wire speed. The ISP modems often use USB2 as the internal bus!
7) USB3 support :sunglasses: On board applications (e.g. Torrent, Anti Virus, etc)
9) Set up and manage QoS
10) LAN IP DHCP independent of ISP hardware making it EASIER to switch ISP
11) Power supply is high quality and will last running 24x7x365 mine has been operating for years often the ISP PSU go bad after a couple of years
12) Real world gigabit speed over WiFi e.g. ASUS PCI card if you need high speed PC access without cables.
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Opening post
The Super-Fast Asus RT-AC68U Wi-Fi Router Gives You Combined Dual-Band Data Rates Of Up To 1900Mbps For A First-Class Online Experience.Was £149 save £50
Next best price Currys £109
Please expire as deal is now ended.I got mine
Top comments
This is done to avoid the likely more congested 2.4 gHz signals. This unit would NOT be a drop in replacement for SKY Q.
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tvs-entertainment/pvrs/1404726/how-to-fix-sky-q-connectivity-problems
Having said that this is one of the best mid range APs around. It will beat most any other cable modem at this price point for reliable connection, throughput and speeds with many connected clients. It will outperform the Virgin, Sky and BT units for range and coverage.
I'd recommend buying this and using it in conjunction with your Sky / Virgin / BT modem you can disable the Wifi on the ISPs modem and link the modem to this via cable. Its best to place this unit not on the ground floor but on the first or second floor of a typical house near the middle. This will increase the range / coverage. I used to have 3 Access points around the house using a 5gHz mesh for internet and 2.4gHz for client. I replaced that setup with this SINGLE unit. Performance is incomparable, fast, robust and reliable for >4 years.
Its worth noting 5gHz does not have the same range (it's less) than 2.4gHz. Its worth doing a site survey of your house / flat / accommodation using a tablet / smartphone with Wifi Analyzer (Android). Apple phones cannot run this type of software. Then use the least congested channel (the software will recommend one for you)
If you live in a build up area then it might be worth doing this survey every 6 months or so in case you have someone nearby with a new router. Also some folk turn off their routers when not in use so its worth running the survey a few times, weekday, weekend and nights.
You could keep the Sky Q kit and just use this unit for 2.4gHz. Again the best solution depends on how you will use the network in your home. Which depends on your devices and when you / others will use them for what type of use.
One other feature this unit has that is overlooked is the high speed connections it supports to ASUS PCI Wifi cards. This does beamforming and I've used it and got very fast performance. I've sold my ASUS PCI card as I cabled the whole house.
If you are not familiar with ASUS they are a top end brand and OEM. Their radio kit is superb (open this up an look and the thermal engineering) also the design offloads most tasks to hardware and unlike many companies they keep shipping updated firmware. My unit is >4 years old and I got a firmware update only last week! They also take some of the Merlin patches and add them to the official firmware,
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tvs-entertainment/pvrs/1404726/how-to-fix-sky-q-connectivity-problems
All comments (43)
You can get it cheaper when Amazon do sales... but its worth this price
2) Speed (concurrent Wifi usage >1 device stream HD. Unlike the cheap units from ISP this units performs lots of tasks in hardware. Take a look at what's inside the box: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/63686-asus-rt-ac68u-pce-ac68-802-11ac-review-2.html
3) Less CPU load on your modem so improved upload / download speed on your modem.
4) No need to change your home network when you move ISP (e.g. I jump from BT/Plusnet and back again whenever I can to get the cheapest rate / max cashback) when this happens I do not need to change ANY hardware just one config page on the ASUS for my username / password for PN/BT
5) Reliability is much better as the unit has more memory / CPU
6) Fast Gigabit Ethernet switch and high capacity internal buses to carry content at wire speed. The ISP modems often use USB2 as the internal bus!
7) USB3 support
:sunglasses: On board applications (e.g. Torrent, Anti Virus, etc)
9) Set up and manage QoS
10) LAN IP DHCP independent of ISP hardware making it EASIER to switch ISP
11) Power supply is high quality and will last running 24x7x365 mine has been operating for years often the ISP PSU go bad after a couple of years
12) Real world gigabit speed over WiFi e.g. ASUS PCI card if you need high speed PC access without cables.