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This WiFi router will let you download a 4K movie in 5 minutes, but don't buy it just yet

A new standard of WiFi called "AD" is already upon us.

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AD has some clear advantages over the previous standard, called "AC," which was just released in 2012. 

But there's no reason for most of us to start placing orders for AD routers.

Networking hardware company TP Link introduced the first WiFi router that supports AD at CES 2016 in Las Vegas. It's called the TP AD7200 Talon, and it lets you download a 4K movie in under five minutes. That's four times as fast as an AC router.

tp link ad wifi router
Antonio Villas-Boas/Tech Insider

To deliver those insane speeds, the new AD standard uses the 60GHz "band" alongside the conventional 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands to transmit a WiFi signal to your Internet connected devices up to 7 gigabits per second (Gbps). To compare, AC routers max out at around 2.5 Gbps.

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The benefits of the 60GHz band is it can carry more data than the next best band, which is 5GHz. It's also pretty much unused at the moment, which means no congestion whatsoever. It's like driving the fastest car in the world on your own personal highway with no other cars or speed limits.

The tradeoff is that AD has a much shorter range than AC. You'd only be able to use it in the same room the router is in. But if you're out of range of AD, the Talon router will switch over to an the conventional AC.

The real problem is that internet service providers (ISP) in the United States don't offer Internet speeds anywhere as fast as AD can support. In fact, they're barely able to offer the speeds that AC can provide. The fastest Internet you can get in the United States at the moment is Google Fiber, which maxes out at 1 Gbps, and is only available in a limited number of locations.

tp link ad router
Antonio Villas-Boas/Tech Insider

The AD routers are best for people who connect a hard drive to their WiFi routers to use as their personal clouds. It'll let them upload and download anything they want into that hard drive, like documents, pictures, and videos at AD's the blistering 7 Gbps speeds, which means less waiting around when you want to store or access your stuff.

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The Talon's release date and price have yet to be announced.

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