At last year’s CES, 802.11ac was hardly prevalent on the show floor. Though other companies were still showing off their 802.11n capable routers, only Texas-based Buffalo had a prototype router set up at its booth for attendees to see. This year, the tables seemed to have turned, as the show floor was rampant with 802.11ac products, including varying routers from competing companies.
Interestingly enough, all of the routers featured here claim to be able to dial in a hearty 1300Mbps on their 5GHz band. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen—we haven’t used any of them just yet—but one thing is for sure: if you’re buying a new router this year, you may want to consider making the switch to 802.11ac after all. Fortunately, there were plenty of choices on display at CES, so here are a few of the models worth looking out for later this year.
Buffalo AirStation AC1750 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router – WZR-1750DHP

The AirStation AC1750 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router (or, more simply, model WZR-1750DHP) will cost $179 and feature speeds up to 1300Mbps on the 5GHz band and 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz band. It also contains a dual-core chip for Buffalo’s Beamforming technology, which provides faster Wi-Fi speeds and longer ranges. Additionally, it will ship with four gigabit Ethernet ports, as well as USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports for NAS-like functionality and printer sharing. It’s expected to ship late this year.
Netgear D6200 Wi-Fi DSL Modem Router

Netgear announced a slew of products at its official CES 2013 press conference, one of which was the 802.11ac-compatible, dual-band gigabit D6200 Wi-Fi router. The router features built-in ADSL2+ model and Gigabit WAN with support for fiber-optic connections. It also comes with a proprietary featured dubbed Netgear ReadySHARE cloud that allows users to remotely access hard drives, printers, and flash drives that are tethered to the monitor. It will be available in April.
Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC1750 HD Video Pro, EA6700

The Smart Wi-Fi Router AC1750 HD Video Pro, EA 6700 is one of the beefier router models the company showed off at CES. The dual-band EA 6700 supports up to 10 or more connected devices and can support streaming HD video, as well as Wi-Fi speeds of up to 1300Mbps on the 5GHz band and up to 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz band. As an added bonus, it also syncs up with Linksys’s iOS and Android apps and features SmartMap, which offers a virtual representation of every device connected within the network. No word yet on its availability.
D-link AC1750 Dual-Band Gigabit Cloud Router, DIR-868L
D-link debuted a couple of new 802.11ac routers on the show floor, one of which is the DIR-868L: a dual-band gigabit, cloud-capable router with the ability to control its settings via a mobile app or the Web. The cylindrical shaped router is a nice change of pace from the standard “skinny box” model and features a Broadcom-based processor inside to facilitate StreamBoost, which helps designate the appropriate amount of bandwidth for all of the devices connected to the router. The router should be available later this year.
via http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/the-best-802-11ac-routers-featured-at-ces/