A review of TP-Link’s first router with 802.11ad – the successor to 802.11ac – which asks whether the world is ready for the next generation of Wi-Fi.
By
Mark Pickavance
| 3 hours ago
£359.99, US$349.99
Price comparision from , and manufacturers
Not everyone has migrated to 802.11ac Wi-Fi yet, but the pace of technological change is sufficiently relentless that 802.11ad is already upon us.
First out of the starting blocks is TP-Link with the Talon AD7200 router, a design that is backwards compatible with the existing 802.11ac technology that you’ll find in our round-up of the best routers , but also supporting the new ultra-high speed 802.11ad mode.
Before we get into the details of the TP-Link Talon AD7200, it’s important to understand what 802.11ad offers above and beyond existing 802.11ac.
Where its predecessor delivered dual channel operations on 2.4GHz and 5GHz, 802.11ad now adds the 60GHz frequency range, enabling potentially triple channel connections along with MU-MIMO .
What you, the owner of a dual-band router, may have already realised is that where 5GHz gives you speed, 2.4GHz has greater range. Continuing that trend graph, 60GHz delivers even greater speeds than 5GHz, sacrificing even more range to do so.
So here’s the bad news: 802.11ad’s range is just 30ft and you need to be much closer than that if you want the very best speeds.
The signal doesn’t like travelling through solid objects (or air, to be honest), so this is a technology that’s essentially bound to a single room.
That limitation makes home use a better fit than the office, where distance and obstructions are a more commonplace challenge.
The most often quoted use is to stream 4K video to an 802.11ad enabled TV. Though, it’s worth pointing out that very few TV have it, and unless it’s uncompressed 4K video (there isn’t much of that around unless you recorded it yourself) the bandwidth available in 802.11ac is more than enough to achieve that feat at short range.
In this tortoise-and-hare race, 802.11ad is blinding quick at the start, but utterly exhausted before the first bend.
Being the first 802.11ad router has made the Talon very desirable. The pricing strongly reflects that, being high and likely to remain so until those with a new technology obsession have been fully satiated.
You can buy the Talon for £329.99 from Amazon UK , and from Amazon US for $349.99 .
On the outside the Talon AD7200 is almost identical to TP-Link’s AC5400 model, resembling Darth Vader’s favourite coat hanger.
There are no fewer than eight folding antennae positioned around its edge. Being 23cm square and 4.5cm high, this isn’t a router you can easily hide or even have the option to try.
Along the front are a series of blue LEDs that indicate what services are functional along with WPS and Wi-Fi disable buttons.
