From PC World: Asus is no longer the only router manufacturer offering a wave-2 model. Netgear today announced its Nighthawk X4 (aka the R7500), a 4x4 802.11ac router based on Quantenna’s 500MHz chipset. But the Nighthawk X4 could end up being a very different product than Asus’s RT-AC87U, because Netgear has paired Quantenna’s silicon with a 1.4GHz, dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.
Netgear and Qualcomm co-developed a technology Netgear director of product marketing Sandeep Harpalani described in a briefing last week as dynamic quality of service (QoS). “The router exams the data flow to optimize its performance,” said Harpalani, “giving you the best experience even with multiple applications.”
Harpalani said the router is both application aware and device aware. It can identify the type of devices operating on the network (PCs, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, etc.), and it can match each bit stream traveling through the network with the application that created it. The router will then prioritize each bit stream accordingly. Netgear has developed a database of apps and devices that will be periodically and automatically updated, independent of firmware updates.
“The Nighthawk X4 can differentiate between an adaptive video stream—such as Netflix, that changes its resolution in response to the connection speed—and a buffered video stream, such as YouTube.” If the router doesn’t recognize the type of video streams flowing through the router, a buffered video stream can consume all the available bandwidth. According to Harpalani, Netgear’s new router can deliver optimal performance with both video applications even when they’re being used by different clients on the same network.
View: Article @ Source Site
