In reply to a post by flipdee:

jchamier, well said.
I just find it funny that quite a number of friends have got 70Mbps FTTC (with some very suspect wireless routers - plusnet i'm looking at you) and when they run speedtest.net and don't get 70Mbps in an ipad 2 ( 25Mbps if your lucky) they are rather miffed. Obviously it's useful to have 70Mbps to share amongst several wired and wireless devices but it doesn't help when the ISP's don't even provide wireless routers capable of 78Mbps on the wireless side.

iPad 2 probably can't keep up, it's an old design now. Using a laptop with at least a core 2 and an up to date N wifi adapter is really needed for any fibre over 50Mbps. No idea if plus net router can do the speed without ruling out the iPad as being the bottleneck.

My IOS devices get nowhere close to the max I get from a wireless PC or laptop.

On the speed test we see iPhone 5 managing 120 Mbps on Virgin Media
http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/ispa

Once the ISPA testing is out of the way we will do some comparisons between the various hardware devices

RouterOS running at 95Mbps so it gives you a idea, I cant test 300Mbps as my network cards is only 100Mbps max

http://i.cubeupload.com/NhnyDT.jpg
Running on a old dell gx520, P4 HT 3ghz, 512mb ram with is broadcom onbroad and an old 3com tx card.

Edited by francisuk25 (Thu 17-Apr-14 13:31:46)

I'd like to thank rotor2k, alexatkin and others, for all the information they have dug up in this thread. None of the routers available at a reasonable price offered the kind of performance to be of any use after the next ISP speed upgrade.

I've just finished putting together the router from rotor2k's shopping list (minus the wireless parts) and I am very impressed with the performance. MikroTik's RouterOS was a very steep learning curve but after a day of fettling I've got the basics mastered.

I am soon to have 330Mbps FTTP installed and I want a reliable router which is not a speed bottleneck. I must admit, I am not entirely clear from this thread - is the Asus RT-AC68U capable of 330Mbps, are there better off-the-shelf alternatives or do I need to go down the self build route (which worries me in terms of reliability)?

The Cisco RV325 was suggested to me as an option which may be fast enough and be reliable but I don't know if anyone has tried it in a home context (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/rv325-dual-gigabit-wan-vpn-router/datasheet-c78-729726.html)

Thank you

In reply to a post by smouty:

My IOS devices get nowhere close to the max I get from a wireless PC or laptop.

iPhone 5 with the A6 chip, or iPhone 5s or iPad Air / iPad Mini Retina which all have the A7 chip should all be able to handle 100Mbps on N WiFi at 5GHz.

The iPad Air and the iPad Mini Retina have two antennas (for diversity), and usefully often show higher speeds than iPhone 5 / 5s, one of the downsides of being hand held is that hands often obstruct an antenna.

Cheers baringtech, I'm really glad you found it helpful. I can't believe this thread is still going, 18 months after I started it!

I wouldn't mind seeing some pics of your powerful new router!