TP-Link Debuts 11ac Wave 2 Performance Routers at CES 2015

TP-Link announced at CES 2015 the Archer C2600 and Archer C3200 Wi-Fi routers utilizing advanced technologies to help meet the heavy networking demands of today's homes and small businesses. The Archer C2600 is ideal for supporting a large number of wireless devices simultaneously, while the Archer C3200 delivers the highest combined Wi-Fi speeds with two 5GHz bands for an optimized entertainment experience when gaming online or streaming 4K videos.

The Archer C2600 utilizes Qualcomm VIVE™ 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology delivering speeds of up to 2.6Gbps using the 2.4GHz band at 800Mbps and the 5GHz band at 1733Mbps. It also features Qualcomm MU | EFX - the multi-user MIMO technology designed to make Wi-Fi work more efficiently to multiply performance for all devices on increasingly crowded networks. Qualcomm VIVE and Qualcomm MU | EFX are products of Qualcomm Atheros, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated. Until now, the traditional Wi-Fi router data transmission was a point-to-point connection in which the router sends and receives data from one device at a time, while other devices in a network would wait in queue. This process obviously impacts network performance due to wait times.

The Archer C2600 employs a multi-user input and output architecture, allowing it to establish a point-to-point connection with up to three devices at once. This architecture drastically improves speeds and reduces device wait times by as much as three times in comparison to traditional "round-robin" architecture, allowing the router to serve more Wi-Fi clients simultaneously while minimizing bandwidth bottlenecks.

The Tri-Band router C3200 operates at a combined speed of up to 3.2Gbps, with two 5GHz bands that reach up to 1300Mbps each and one 2.4GHz band that reaches up to 600Mbps. The router transmits data simultaneously across its two 5GHz bands, and achieves its highest combined speeds in part by automatically balancing network demand. The Tri-Band router avoids bottlenecks that occur when multiple devices demand high amounts of bandwidth at the same time for intensive tasks like gaming online or streaming 4K videos.

The Archer C2600 and C3200 routers are planned for availability in Q3, 2015.