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[Alex Atkin UK]

You can still get full 5Ghz AC WiFi speeds on a router with 100Mb Ethernet ports.
It's only wired traffic that would be limited by the 100Mb/s ports.

I'd argue you can't, as typically they will have skimped on the CPU too and it will hugely bottleneck.

[Bowdon]

It seems to be the general case when it comes to these subjects that technical information is written down with a certain level of experience assumption.

I can understand it when we were back in the old days and the main people using computers were those who took an interest. But these days I've met a lot of people who use computers, usb, wifi, and routers with no clue, or interest, in how these items work.

I wonder how many complaints come from people not understanding what the real life expectation should be.

[kitz]

>>>  so you can get over 100Mbit.

On dual band yes, but ~5/6 years ago there were an awful lot of devices that weren't able to I dont think I ever got above 40Mbps on my old ipad and even that was after tweaking settings. At around that time few phones/tablets had 2 wifi antennas.  It's also not really that long ago that few fttc modem routers had dual band 802.11ac and at first even those were in short supply and carried a hefty price premium. Most of the ISP supplied ones were rubbish.
I think ISPs must have eventually cottoned on that a large amount of speed complaints were down to wireless limitations and not the actual connection so it was in their benefit to supply 802.11ac which should at least support the fttc connection speed.

>>> But that highlights the point, there are a LOT of supposed AC routers that can't get close

Agreed.  Speedguide net says

Below is a breakdown of actual real-life average speeds you can expect from wireless routers within a reasonable distance, with low interference and small number of simultaneous clients:
802.11n - 40-50 Mbps typical, varying greatly depending on configuration, whether it is mixed or N-only network, the number of bonded channels, etc. Specifying a channel, and using 40MHz channels can help achieve 70-80Mbps with some newer routers. Up to 100 Mbps achievable with more expensive commercial equipment with 8x8 arrays, gigabit ports, etc.
802.11ac - 100+ Mbps typical, higher speeds (300+ Mbps) possible over short distances without many obstacles, with newer generation 802.11ac routers, and client adapters capable of multiple streams.

These real life figures are a long way from "up to 600 Mbps & 1300 Mbps" defined in the standards which some manufacturers were printing on the boxes.  The average consumer wouldn't have a clue and as Chenks says it is misleading when you purchase something that doesn't really have a chance of hitting the speed advertised.    I guess its reminiscent of "up to" DSL speeds.

I'm conscious that Chenk's thread is about USB Ethernet and I don't really want to veer any further off topic other than to say that wireless also suffers unclear and speeds where Ive seen on the box it would say eg "up to 600 Mbps" but in real life is incapable of anything more than 50Mbps. 

Possibly the industry needs an overhaul of showing more realistic achievable speeds when it comes to network speed through put too - be that Ethernet, USB or wifi ? 

[Alex Atkin UK]

When it comes to the iPad on 802.11n, mobile devices sucked for a long time because they only had one antenna so couldn't do MIMO. 

Possibly the industry needs an overhaul of showing more realistic achievable speeds when it comes to network speed through put too - be that Ethernet, USB or wifi ? 

Trouble is you'd need both, as you need to know the technical ability and real-world realistic throughput.  Which is basically what I was saying they should tell you with ethernet adapters that are bottlenecked by the USB bus, give a realistic real-world speed on the front to set expectation. eg My 5Gbit adapter can do 3.5Gbit.

WiFi is a whole different ball game though as they quote completely unrealistic borderline lies with 802.11n 2.4Ghz particularly bad as they would claim 300Mbit when that required 40Mhz channel width which in 99% of cases you can't use due to neighbouring networks.  Although, technically, it was true - in early days of WiFi I DID used to get 100Mbit on 2.4Ghz with 40Mhz channel width, as nobody else had WiFi nearby.