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Everything You Need to Know About 802.11ac

Are you shopping for a new WiFi router or some other device with wireless connectivity? Then you’ve probably noticed that some products support something called 802.11ac, while others don’t.
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In this article, we explain what 802.11ac is to help you make the best purchasing decision. And if you’re not shopping for a new WiFi router, then you’re more than welcome to keep reading as well.

What Is 802.11ac?

802.11ac is a wireless networking standard. More specifically, it’s the fifth generation of the IEEE 802.11 set of protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer communication.

What Is 802.11ac

The 802.11ac standard was released in 2014 to provide high-throughput wireless local area networks on the 5 GHz band. The comparison table below shows how 802.11ac WiFi stacks up against other WiFi standards that came before and after it:

Generation Wi‑Fi 7
IEEE Standard 802.11be
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 40,000
Released TBA
Frequency Band (GHz) 2.4/5/6
Generation Wi‑Fi 6E
IEEE Standard 802.11ax
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 600 to 9,608
Released 2020
Frequency Band (GHz) 2.4/5/6
Generation Wi‑Fi 6
IEEE Standard 802.11ax
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 600 to 9,608
Released 2019
Frequency Band (GHz) 2.4/5
Generation Wi‑Fi 5
IEEE Standard 802.11ac
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 433 to 6,933
Released 2014
Frequency Band (GHz) 5
Generation Wi‑Fi 4
IEEE Standard 802.11n
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 72 to 600
Released 2008
Frequency Band (GHz) 2.4/5
Generation Wi‑Fi 3
IEEE Standard 802.11g
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 6 to 54
Released 2003
Frequency Band (GHz) 2.4
Generation Wi‑Fi 2
IEEE Standard 802.11a
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 6 to 54
Released 1999
Frequency Band (GHz) 5
Generation Wi‑Fi 1
IEEE Standard 802.11b
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 1 to 11
Released 1999
Frequency Band (GHz) 2.4
Generation Wi‑Fi 0
IEEE Standard 802.11
Maximum Throughput (Mbit/s) 1 to 2
Released 1997
Frequency Band (GHz) 2.4

As you can see, 802.11ac is the successor to 802.11n. The biggest difference between the two WiFi standards as far as end-users are concerned is the fact that the newer standard supports a maximum throughput of up to 6,933 Mbit/s. That’s a huge jump from 600 Mbit/s, a maximum throughput supported by 802.11n.

802.11ac Device Support

802.11ac only works in the 5 GHz frequency band, but that doesn’t mean 2.4 GHz devices are not compatible with it. All wireless ac devices are backwards compatible with previous WiFi standards, so they can serve and be served data even in the 2.4 GHz frequency band.

However, you need to have an 802.11ac router and 802.11ac devices to achieve the benefits provided by the standard, namely superior 802.11ac speeds (more about them in the next section of this article).

802.11ac Device Support

Since 802.11ac was released back in 2014, pretty much all new devices are wireless 802.11ac-enabled and support the latest iteration of the standard, called 802.11ac Wave 2.

802.11ac Real-World Speeds

The impressive 802.11ac max speed is accomplished by combining wider WiFi channels with up to eight MIMO spatial streams and high-density modulation, among other things.

Theoretically, it should be possible to achieve a maximum throughput of up to around 7 Gbit/s (that’s with 802.11ac Wave 2 — Wave 1 supports the maximum throughput of up to 1.3 Gbit/s), but that’s only when all available channels are used at the same time, and that almost never happens in the real-world.

Why not? Because real-world performance is affected by everything from signal interference to the physical distance between wireless devices. What’s more, not all available 802.11ac routers are equally fast. Manufacturers typically specify how fast they are by assigning them different AC numbers, like this:

  • AC1200: combined throughput of 1,200 Mbit/s
  • AC1900: combined throughput of 1,900 Mbit/s
  • AC3200: combined throughput of 3,200 Mbit/s

To achieve the fastest speeds on the 802.11ac frequency band, we strongly recommend you use a WiFi analysis and troubleshooting app like NetSpot to optimize the placement and configuration of your router.

You can use NetSpot to learn everything you need to know about other WiFi networks in your area, and the tool can even create a detailed coverage map of your own network to reveal all areas of signal weakness.

NetSpot — Wi-Fi site survey

In addition to 802.11ac, NetSpot works with all standard 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax wireless network adapters, and it supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands on 20/40/80/160 MHz channels.

802.11ac vs Newer Standards

The successor to 802.11ac is called 802.11ax, and it comes in two variants: Wi‑Fi 6 and Wi‑Fi 6E. The former was released in 2019 and it supports the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, while the latter was released in 2020, and it adds support for the 6 GHz band. The maximum throughput of 802.11ax is 9,608 Mbit/s.

Again, you shouldn’t expect 802.11ax routers and devices to achieve the maximum theoretical throughput, but you can certainly expect them to be faster than their 802.11ac counterparts thanks to technical improvements such as Target Wake Time (TWT), uplink MU transmissions, and Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA).

Eventually, 802.11ax will be superseded as well, by 802.11be, the next planned amendment of the 802.11 IEEE standard. The final version of 802.11be is expected to be ready in 2024, and it will bring speeds of up to 40 Gbit/s — that’s as fast as the Thunderbolt 3 hardware interface.

Conclusion

As one of the most commonly used standards today, 802.11ac plays an important role in our increasingly connected lives, so it’s useful to know what it is and how it differs from other WiFi standards. We hope our article has helped you find the answers you were looking for.

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FAQ

What is the best WiFi standard?

The best WiFi standard that has been released so far is 802.11ax, the successor to 802.11ac. In about two years, 802.11ax is expected to be superseded by 802.11be, which should bring speeds of up to 40 Gbit/s.

What does 802.11ac stand for?

802.11ac doesn’t stand for anything — at least the two letters don’t. The first part (802.11) refers to the IEEE 802.11 set of local area network technical standards for implementing wireless local area network computer communication.

Is 802.11ac good?

Yes, 802.11ac is fast enough to make even hardcore WiFi users happy. It supports multi-gigabit speeds and technologies like MU-MIMO and beamforming. Because 802.11ac uses the 5 GHz frequency band, it’s less susceptible to interference.

Is 802.11ac WiFi fast?

The latest iteration of 802.11ac supports a maximum throughput of up to 6,933 Mbit/s. While the real-world performance of 802.11ac routers and devices is considerably slower, it’s still fast enough for online gaming, HD streaming, and other demanding tasks.

Is 802.11ac only 5 GHz?

Yes, the 802.11ac standard is limited to the 5 GHz frequency band, but the standard is backwards compatible with older standards, including those that use the 2.4 GHz frequency band.

Which is better 802.11n or 802.11ac?

802.11ac was released in 2014, six years after the release of 802.11n. It uses a host of innovative technologies to deliver superior speeds and coverage, so it’s safe to say that it’s better.

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Read next in All about Wi-Fi

If you want to dive deeper into this Wi-Fi thing, check out the following articles about Wi-Fi security, the best apps for wireless networking, inflight WiFi, etc.
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