When you plan to purchase a new WiFi router, you will see number-packed names at the back. If you want to know what that means, you can decode it.
Decoding Router Names
Several tech products tend to have complicated names as tech manufacturers try to pack in as much information about the product as possible to both entice customers and make it easier to look for products in the market.
Router naming conventions are prone to this type of name.
For example, Best Buy's popular routers yield product names like Linksys Hydra Pro AXE6600 WiFi 6E Tri-Band Router, eero 6+ AX3000 Dual-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System, and NETGEAR Nighthawk R7000 AC1900 WiFi Router.
Although manufacturers are trying to get as much information in front of customers as possible to help their products stand out from their rivals, it is not exactly an intuitive system if you do not know how to decode it, according to HowtoGeek.
The number of designations is not going away anytime soon, but the confusion over them and the confusion the designations is why there has been a push towards simpler designations like WiFi 6 and WiFi 7 to make it better and easier for customers to identify.
If you are not someone that loves crunching numbers, the breakdown of what the router designations mean can get a bit fiddly. Start with the basics of the letters and numbers, and break it down with the examples below.
The Letters on the Routers Indicate WiFi Generation
The letters that you find in WiFi router advertisements, on the router boxes, and packed into the names of the products indicate the highest generation of the WiFi standard the product supports, according to Mediianews.
The full name of a given WiFi generation is IEEE 802.11. The IEEE part indicates that it is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It is in the 802 family that governs computer networks, in the subcategory .11 with the generation indicated by the x letter designation.
The letters mean the following: AC means WiFi 5, AX means WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E, AXE means Unofficial and is used by companies to indicate WiFi 6E, and BE means candidate for WiFi 7, so you won't see the letter on the boxes yet.
Numbers Indicate the Maximum Speed
Now that you have an idea of what the letters stand for, it is time to unpack what the numbers stand for. If you thought that the whole letters thing was unnecessarily opaque, you will love unpacking the meaning behind the numbers.
The number after the letter designation shows you the maximum theoretical speed of the router, or Maximum Linkrate, expressed in megabits per second or Mbps, according to One How To.
For example, if a router shows AC1900, that tells you that the router is using the WiFi 5 standard and has a theoretical maximum speed of 1900 Mbps.
If the router shows AX3000, it uses the WiFi 6 standard and has a maximum speed of 3000 Mbps.
Remember, this is only the estimated maximum speed you could experience using a single device. This is the speed that the router can achieve under ideal laboratory conditions when all of the radios in the router are active.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Sophie Webster
