The Amped Wireless RTA2600, dubbed Athena, is now ready for shipping. With Athena, Amped Wireless adds another product into the home networking market's growing pool of available MU-MIMO routers.
Athena is an AC2600 router equipped with a 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, 512 MB of DDR3 memory, eight high-powered amplifiers and eight signal reception amplifiers (four each at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), and four detachable high-gain 5dBi antennas. The RTA2600 also possesses advanced security features (parental controls, SPI firewall), beamforming technology, and bandwidth optimization, and it's capable of streaming 4K content with its rated AC2600 speed (2.4 GHz 800 Mbps and 5 GHz 1733 Mbps).
Port-wise, the Athena also provides four gigabit network ports, one gigabit WAN port, one USB 2.0 port and one USB 3.0 port.
These specifications alone make the Athena appear to be a contender in today's router market, but what distinguishes Athena from traditional routers is the inclusion of MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple input and multiple output) technology. In traditional single-user MIMO routers, a data packet is sent to one device at a time. Nowadays, multiple devices are connected to a single router, and other devices must wait their turn to receive data.
MU-MIMO enabled routers, however, can send data to multiple users simultaneously, meaning connected MU-MIMO enabled devices get faster access to the wireless network. MU-MIMO capability is especially relevant in today's home environment, where HD content may be streamed from multiple devices using one router.
Few MU-MIMO devices exist at the moment, making the Athena a welcome addition to a growing list of products in the market. Available via the Amped Wireless website, the Athena RTA2600 is available for order at $279.99.
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Correction: Changed 512 GB to 512 MB.
