20 Best Wifi For Businesses (2022 Updated)

I have other TP-Link products that I have been satisfied with, so I bought this router to upgrade the speed from an older Netgear router I was using. It is pretty much an upgrade on every level. The range is much farther.

I can now get wi-fi signal out in my detached garage. It can handle network demand of three TVs, two gaming PCs and half a dozen other phones and tablets. My work PC’s wireless connection speed went up 157 Mbps after upgrading from a wireless N adapter (Wi-Fi 4).

And it cost me about $70 as of Feb. 2022, so it definitely didn’t break the bank. The reason I didn’t give it five stars, despite being a pretty great upgrade, is the fact that it just would not work well with a previously 100% reliable and working TP-Link Wireless N USB adapter.

All the other devices in my house use 5 GHz, but this older adapter could only connect at 2. 4 GHz. On Win10 64, it would connect and say it had internet, but then pages wouldn’t load and apps that needed internet wouldn’t work.

Sometimes it would reconnect itself somehow, other times I had to manually disconnect and reconnect to get it working again. This would happen every two to five minutes. The adapter was for my work computer, so I need consistent and reliable connection, and this was obviously unacceptable.

Router has latest firmware, turned on/off OneMesh, changed 2. 4 GHz channel, relocated router and adapter. nothing would stop the adapter from losing connection every two to five minutes. A quick google search shows that it’s not just me with this problem.

pretty common issue with their 2. 4 GHz support with newer routers. The next day I went out and bought an ASUS AC1200 USB Wi-Fi adapter (another $30) that has 5 GHz support. It works great and it’s way faster, but I was mainly concerned about a reliable connection, which it also has no problems.

I’m just a little ticked because it feels like I was “forced” into upgrading because something that previously worked fine with LESSER hardware was made non-functional because of this “upgrade. ” So my main point is that if you are planning on upgrading to this router from a wireless N or older model router, you might have to plan on upgrading your wireless adapters, too, if they can’t use 5 GHz.

Otherwise, a very good value for the upgrade to Wi-Fi 6.

I bought this as a replacement for my Telstra router and despite some initial hiccups I’m glad I did. Pros: * Speeds, WiFi 6 and WPA3 support are great. * Can actually change the DNS settings to whatever you like.

* Has support for static routes and WPA2-Enterprise which is a nice bonus. * Has a decent advanced config page with a good amount of settings to mess around with * Has an app that lets you configure your network from your phone, however I haven’t used it Cons: * Setup OOTB was a bit of a pain.

It pays to read the manual even if you’re technically inclined as the settings required for a HFC NBN connection are different than FTTN and FTTP. Namely I had to set the MAC address to “Clone current device address” for a connection to a cable modem (i.

e HFC NBN) to work. I wish this was documented in the setup wizard as well. * IPv6 support: Furthermore, this was also difficult. TP-Link’s terminology doesn’t seem match up with the documentation that most Aussie ISPs provide for v6 support.

In particular on my HFC setup I had to set the IPv6 WAN to Dynamic with the “Get IPv6 Address” set to “Non-address” and the LAN set to “SLAAC+RDNSS” for it to work. Failing to do the former would seem to generate IPv6 addresses on the LAN side but prevent routing out to the internet.

* WiFi range is a bit less than I’d like, however this may the result of “Smart Connect” (band steering) being enabled. Overall I’m extremely satisfied with this router even with the above issues.

I purchased this router a few weeks ago, it has exceeded my expectations. I bought this to replace an existing Archer 1750 router, as we needed something that could keep up with 20+ devices and 4k streaming with minimal issues.

This router handles the demands of my household with no issues. Some of the reviews mentioned the lack of customizing the settings. This router has the ability to modify down to granular settings, by default the Admin site is set to basic, you’ll need to toggle to advanced to open up all the settings.

For example, I wanted a dedicated SSID for my bedroom TV so that it would be the only item connected to ensure seamless streaming. I went into advanced, turned off the tri-band and now have three SSIDs available to connect to, the 2.

4, 5g, and the secondary 5g. This router is also mesh ready, I paired it with a TP Link extender that was mesh compatible and now have a solid connection throughout my home without having to switch between router and extender.

TP-Link customer support is solid as well. I have fiber internet and wanted to use the router directly from my ethernet wall outlet, without the use of a modem. After receiving my PPPoE credentials from my internet provider, I called TP-Link and they talked me through the settings to configure this router saving me a modem rental fee.

I purchased this product in hopes of increasing my wifi speeds in my home and it did not. It is a good product that produces fast wifi speeds but not any better than my xfinity gateway and netgear extender.

In the same room as my gateway, speeds range from 800-850mbps from my xfinity gateway. The eero produced speeds of 750-800mbps so not better and just a bit slower. Downstairs from my gateway and next to the mesh eero unit, i would get very similar test speeds from 350-450mbps and received no improvement even though the eero 2nd and 3rd satellite units were just 2-3 feet away from me.

The Eero app is far advanced vs the nighthawk app. It is extremely easy to setup and use. Being able to edit and name each device connected to the unit was very nice. The one extreme negative I thought is that no one at Eero support (I talked to 3 different people) could tell me exactly what speed each frequency runs at.

So the unit is sold & marketed as AX5400 but what is the speed of each frequency? Like netgear/linksys/asus tell you that 2. 4ghz runs up to 600mbps or 1. 2gbps and 5ghz runs up to 2. 4gbps or 3. 6gpbs, whatever the rating may be, well eero only states that you receive 1.

3gbps at wireless speeds and no one at support can tell you any better. Well how do you know you are getting the 5400? I find that strange that no one knows how fast each frequency is running. Overall, good product that produces good speeds but just did not improve my speeds as I had hoped so decided to just not spend the extra money and stay with the xfinity gateway.

I’ve seen a lot of 4 star reviews that leave no cons. Don’t be fooled by the lack of 5 star reviews, this is a 5 star product. The units are very fast, and if you are within the 50 foot line of sight, you’ll be getting the rated multigigabit speeds “wired” but wireless through a node.

I’ve been using 3 original Eero WiFi 5 units for the past few years and have had no complaints. The customer service is exceptional, and when I picked up a few extra Eero Pro 5 units, they didn’t come with power adapters (i got them pre-owned) and Eero replaced them free of charge.

Unfortunately now, the standard Eero 6 does not have ethernet ports, only the Pro models do. These are fast, and it was easy to “replace” units one by one, including the gateway, slowly upgrading from WiFi 5 to WiFi 6.

We’re now getting 400mbps downlink and when accessing local servers, full gigabit speeds over hardwired mesh. However, I don’t recommend this over the 6 Pro if you want the Tri band and you don’t have WiFi 6 devices.

I purchased it for link aggregation but I’d have much preferred the tri band with 2 5GHz connections rather than this one in that regard. The 6E model has a 2. 4/5/6GHz system. I have one device that support that extra 6GHz band and it’s a phone, so it’s not worth the extra for wireless connectivity.

If you are invested in Zigbee and use Alexa, this system supports up to 150 Zigbee or Thread devices, 50 per node. All in all, excellent system. The 2 wireless nodes apart from the gateway both have 16 port switches and i have 0 drops.

The performance difference between wired and wired mesh is negligible, and the convenience of not needing to run ethernet cables is excellent. Great product. Great customer service. TL;DR; but the Pro or 6 or 6+ if you don’t need 6GHz or certain niche features.

I’ve had multiple routers, from differing brands throughout the years of WiFi. The coming of WiFi6 was a blessing to accommodate an only growing number of connected devices to my network. There are so many smart devices and brands that make them, you’re bound to have compatibility issues.

I’ve had issues with my household’s security cameras just not showing up as available to connect on hubs that were promised to make managing all of them seamless. The eero Pro 6E tri-band mesh Wi-Fi 6E system (3-pack) has been surprisingly seamless the short time I’ve been using them.

The app is dummy proof, set up was simple, and I have not had any issues requiring a customer support yet. The package of 3 was a nice size to cover my home’s square footage, and I was grateful for the technology that supported 8K streaming.

I hope to never have 100 devices connected to my network, but eero claims to support them all if the situation should arise. A truly wireless home is becoming more real with this mesh network system, with a WiFi speed that exceeds CAT5e, so I am impressed with this eero Pro 6E system.

Unit works ok as a router , nothing special. Wifi is also ok but not the best for distance. ~ Big problem is using the router and its coax/Moca as it requires another part for it to work (Arris MEB1100).

Once you have the add-on moca bridge ( connected “directly” to the NVG468MQ) then it works for coax/moca ; however if you want to use your own Moca 2. 0 bridge for the coax directly connected to the router that too is a no go as it seems to work ONLY with the Arris MEB1100.

~ Once the Arris MEB1100 is installed directly to the router any other Moca device down the coax line will then work and not before. ~ Does work for Frontier Fios in Calif. ~ Would not recommend and ONLY if you need this to bypass the $10 monthly router fee.

I have a Verizon / Frontier MOCA ONT (white box on the wall of garage) and coax to the interior wall of my house by the desktop computer. I also bought the Arris MEB 1100 from the same seller on Ebay.

I followed the instructions here: frontier (dot) com/~/media/HelpCenter/Documents/internet/installation-setup/fios-router-self- install-guide. ashx?icid=18may20_fios_hc_si_landing_router_guide&la=en I connected everything with an Eclipse brand Two Way CATV Splitter 5–1000 MHz splitter and two RG-6 Coax cables from my local Fry’s Electronics.

For me it was really plug and play. The router rebooted a couple of times and then everything was good to go. After reconfiguring all of my devices to the new router I was up and running!.

This router works perfectly for replacing your current FIOS router supplied by Frontier/Verizon. It’s really plug-n-play. I did it within 5 minutes (including power down old unit, unplug, plug, and power up new unit).

Now, Frontier may not remove your monthly rental fees. But that’s a separate issue. This is a very decent router on its own for a moderate size (3,000 to 4,000 sqft) home. Any larger, go with a stronger router or mesh (Orbi, Velop, etc).

My wireless router is in my office/workshop, a separate building about 100 feet away from my house. I had 2 wireless repeaters in the house to provide connectivity there, but was losing throughput speed.

I have an existing buried telecom cable between the two buildings with unused conductors, enough to accommodate an ethernet connection, so I purchased the WAC510 in order to improve speed and throughput in the house.

Installation and setup was quick and easy, and the speed improvement is remarkable. Best $60 I’ve spent in a long time. Recommend this solution to anyone needing to have better wifi coverage and speed.

This device just works! It just plain works, PERIOD! I had Cisco WAP’s, and had numerous issues with IoT and multicast devices. I could never find the right combination of settings that would make everything work.

Some settings would make the IoT devices work, other settings and the MultiCast devices would work, but not the IoT devices. I bought two of these Netgear WAC510’s, registered them with Insight, and in 10 minutes I was up with every wireless device working perfectly.

Plus, these were a fraction of the cost of the Cisco’s. I can’t recommend them highly enough. Well worth the <$100 each!.

Full disclosure. I purchased NETGEAR Orbi 753S from Costco not Amazon, because Costco offered 1 year of Free Technical Support not NETGEAR’s 90 Day standard Technical Support contract. After Unboxing and setting up, I already had my first call into Technical Support, as the product was not plug and play like advertised.

Many devices that use 2. 4G not 5G had issues trying to connect to system. Trying to get help from Tech. Support is impossible! After long wait times on hold (30 minutes to over 1 hour) you will hit a call center based in a foreign country, so language barriers exist and are quite prevalent.

The system seems to be very quirky, as it may work for multiple days and weeks flawlessly, but then for no reason, quite working altogether or have satellites drop in and out causing your wi-fi connected devices to stop functioning properly.

The system is set up with warning lights on the router and the satellites to warn you of issues with the system, but unfortunately ghost lights do occur according to Tech. Support, and they have no solutions to fix the issue.

Costco 1 year Technical Support is not worth the paper (Box) it is written on, because after the 90 days I have spoken with multiple technicians who want to charge you on a per call basis to fix the issue, which never really seems to get resolved.

Unless you are a programmer, or no something about programming, Technical support often leads you through going to a login, and completing multiple steps (writing code) which is supposed to fix the issues, but never does.

NETGEAR is interested in the initial sale of the Orbi, and then signing you up for a service contract after the free 90 days of support that can cost anywhere from $140 to $220. That may work for you, but when you have a product that is warranted for 1 year, try getting your product repaired or replaced for free when Technical support won’t even talk to you because you have not signed up for their service contract.

This is pure extortion on NETGEARS part because they know that they have a product that will need Technical help at some point, and if you are unwilling to pay for it, you basically have a paperweight not a router with Wi-Fi extenders.

DO NOT BUY! This issue seems to be prevelant on all NETGEAR Routers and Extenders!.

I bought this system to provide wifi for our small church. We have roughly 5000 sq. ft. of space, so I purchased the 2 satellite version, but one may have been enough. I was getting pretty good coverage before plugging in the second unit.

Setup is not complicated, but it is helpful to read the instructions to understand how the system is designed. The units all look the same. The router is identifiable only by the stickers on it. Each unit has its own set of LAN ports.

By default, it comes with profiles for each of the 4 SSIDs that indicate how each might be used: Administration, employee devices, Internet of Things (IOT), and guest. The guest setup assumes you will want to obtain and agreement for terms of use before proceeding.

The network shows as unsecured. The password you set it taken as part of the agreement process. There does not seem to be a way to change this behavior, but it may be that I missed it. The Virtual LAN (VLAN) profiles can be changed for each SSID, and that determines the level of access each client has and whether it can see other clients on the network.

Since I did not want to use the agreement process at this time and we don’t really need a separate employee network, I applied the guest profile to the employee SSID to create the standard wifi password connection I was looking for.

The routers interface is easy enough to use, but one should be aware that when configuring the wifi profiles changes must be applied before leaving the tab for that network, and the process of saving the changes seems to take much longer than it should, apparently due to the way that the router shares it’s configuration with the satellites.

The router does have features for virtual DNS and remote management if desired, as well as facility for creating a DMZ for Internet facing servers. We have not yet put any real stress on the network, but throughput seems to be good.

I may need to update this after we’ve had more time with it, but so far it seems like a solid system. I will be considering a Netgear product the next time I need a new router for my home.

We have subscribed to Gigabit internet service for a couple of years and since my home office is the furthest distance away from the wifi router, I would struggle with much slower speeds and internet stability/connectivity issues during video calls.

I started researching mesh wifi router systems which led me to the Orbi WiFi 6 system (RBK750 series). Initially, because we live in an older home with plaster walls and other physical obstacles (i. e.

the plumbing, tile and porcelain in bathrooms all likely add some interference), the wifi mesh did help my internet reliability, but it did not help my download speeds. After two cable company visits and more research, it became clear the solution was putting a wifi mesh satellite in my home office and then using an ethernet cable to connect my laptop directly to the satellite.

Even though the signal to the satellite is still coming over the mesh wifi wirelessly, the speeds coming directly out of the satellite via the ethernet cable are VASTLY improved! Before this solution, I was averaging 100Mbps to 150Mbps and a ping of 14 to 18 (using speedtest.

net) to now averaging 500Mbps to 600Mbps and a ping of 9 to 12!! The other satellite in our system with a more direct site line to the main wifi router is averaging 800 Mbps using this same connection setup!! Now that everything is set up, it is working flawlessly and I am very happy with the results!.

Recently purchased this as an open box unit and so far seems to be working fine. We had a very similar modem / router that must have been its predecessor with one in between and the one that was similar to this worked excellent until we knocked it over and it smashed and it didn’t work anymore.

So hopefully this one will not have that happen. Netgear makes really good routers and the one that we had in between was given to us and it was actually a more expensive model with the two antennas and cable company was doing an upgrade in the area and as far as we are concerned, they fried it.

Could never get it to reboot after they did whatever they did. I prefer to own my own equipment than to give them money to rent it each month and on a modem like this, wherever you buy it, it would be yours and once you pay for it there’s no monthly gateway charges.

I bought this modems and it literally never worked. My other Netgear modem/router works fine on the same connection (although it is old now and overheats and cuts out, but I got a good many years out of it) and I worked with my internet provider to update the MAC number and everything so it is not from that end.

I talked to customer service at Netgear and they said they could not help me because it has been more than three months, even though I have literally never used it. It definitely appears to be a hardwear problem, which you think would be covered under the 1 year hardware warranty but apparently not.

I was happy with my other Netgear product but this customer service experience leaves a bad taste in my mouth, now I need to buy a new modem/router even though the last one never worked?.

Pros: It works fine as a portable lte router. Battery life is about 2h. Cons: It does not support vpn client. The specs are misleading about it. So fundamentally not suitable for travel if vpn cient is needed to connect to business network.

I have been using the Orbi 4g router for almost a year now and have to say that I love it, the security is amazing. The functionality is incredibly user friendly and the best part is I can take it anywhere in my bag with my laptop and have 4g high speed internet anywhere I go.

The user interface is very easy to manage and understand. I would recommend this 4g router over every other on the market based on my knowledge of most of the others out there solely because of how secure it actually is, and it’s useability user friendliness.

I have been repairing electronics for about 20 years now and I highly recommend this router to anyone who wants the ability to have high speed internet where you might otherwise not be able to get it, or simply because you travel and this can be used in a vehicle quite easily with only an inverter.

I use this product daily and for streaming music nonstop as well as using it for movies and tv occasionally. Highly recommend product.

I bought this for a friend who had an AT&T LTE hotspot. The hotspot barely could reach 8MB download and upload was abysmal. He had it inside his house and placed it everywhere he could, but to no avail.

The AT&T hotspot also had poor in-house coverage in his 1200 square foot house once connected. I bought the AC2200 router and an additional outdoor antenna, coax, etc as we thought the issue was building penetration and antenna gain on the AT&T hotspot.

We received the AC2200 and proceded to install it with the Orbi app as instructed (took a while to download over the AT&T hotspot but we perservered). We installed the AT&T SIM into the AC2200, followed the instructions and crossed our fingers.

The AC2200 recognized the SIM and connected to the AT&T network immediately. We answered a few questions on the app and were up and running with a WiFi connection via LTE before we knew it. Using the Oribi app, one can see the “number of signal bars” that the AC2200 “sees” for signal strength from the AT&T tower.

We hadn’t installed any outdoor antenna at this point. Inside the living room, without a clear view to a window, etc, we had 2 bars of signal strength and the OOKLA speed test came back at 8MB. My friend was estatic as the AT&T modem had spotty coverage there.

I then placed the AC2200 near a window in clear “view” of the AT&T tower (there are web pages on line which show you where the towers are, what LTE bands they use, and their coverage so I knew where to “point” the AC2200).

Immediately, after a reboot, the AC2200 showed 4 bars of signal strength! We ran a few OOKLA speed tests and they consistently showed downlink speed at 50 MB or higher and uplink speed at 8 to 10 MB.

I told my friend my cable supplied internet only does a bit better. Smiles all around. We chose to not install an external antenna as the performance was outstanding without one. Kudo’s to the Netgear antenna and radio engineers (I design wireless systems and antennas for a living) for an incredible job well done.

LTE antennas have to cover a large frequency range and be small enough to fit inside the AC2200 package. Awesome performance. I would, in a heartbeat, buy this product again. (I did actually, and two of my friends neighbors have placed their orders after seeing the performance.

) You may not have the experience I had if you live far from an AT&T tower. My friend is at least 5 miles from his tower and the land is flat. I do think that using an outdoor antenna in places with poor coverage will help a bunch (put the antenna above your roofline so it can see all around).

The antenna I was going to use is a Wilson 4G Omni Plus Building Antenna (they sell on Amazon for about 50 bucks, well worth it, great antenna). We didn’t need it, but I’m keeping the antenna for another day when the AC2200 needs help and we have to install an outdoor antenna on someone else’s house.

I’m a big Netgear fan. I’ve bought a lot of Netgear products over many years and have always been a happy customer. The AC2200 is a great product, well designed, and a great performer. The best part of the whole experience this time was seeing my friend’s wife’s face light up when she said, “WE HAVE WiFi?”.

Priceless. Several days have passed and each day I get a thank you email from either my friend or his wife. BTW. The WiFi coverage of the router is incredible. They have a 1200 square foot house. The AC2200 is placed in one corner of the house (so it “sees” the AT&T antenna the best) and my friends wife’s computer room is in the opposite corner of the house.

The WiFi on her MAC shows 4 bars, and she is getting high LTE data speeds on her MAC. The AT&T hotspot would WiFi would barely cover one room when connected to LTE. Again, your mileage will vary with the LTE experience, but if you want to try an LTE connected WiFi router (and you have AT&T or one of the providers Netgear’s AC2200 has been approved for) you can do no better than the AC2200.

It may cost a little bit more than some of the others out there, believe me, it’s worth it.

Easy set up, and a decent looking unit. I’m using it in a caravan for when phone signal is poor (I’ve put a different Network Sim in it). My only experience so far has been very poor, my phone on 4G was Speed testing at over 50Mbps, Router only 3Mb.

Certainly could have been an issue with the area and lack of signal, only time will tell! I was bit surprised its WiFi was only the 2. 4Ghz service rather than including the faster 5Ghz band as well, but to be fair, it never.

Pros: Easy plug & play SIM card set-up, no user input required. Connection for analogue phone as alternative to a land line connection. Cons: Minor issue, VoLTE operation for external analogue phone was not plug & play but required to be switched on within router internal set-up.

Pros: Flexible and not reliant on a service provider Cons: More about modem and type of telephone to use

Worst-ever Mobile Routed. Don’t buy it, Don’!!! It keeps disconnecting again and again. No speed, hangs all the time. Don’t waste your money!!!

It is a small Router that you can carry in your pocket. Battery doesn’t last very long

If you are in a situation where you cannot run wiring and are in a medium/larger home that is filled with lots of walls, this is the absolute best non-commercial system you can buy. Pros: -SUPER fast speeds.

On a Fiber 1000/1000 connection and was able to get up to 850Mbps at the base router, about 600Mbps on the mesh points, all tested using an iPhone 13 Pro Max. I’ve used/tested many brands and this one is cannot be beat outside of buying a much more expensive commercial grade system.

-5Ghz dedicated backhaul ensures amazing connection between mesh points and router. Most other systems do NOT have a dedicated backhaul, meaning the mesh points connect using the same channel and frequency as Wi-Fi-devices, meaning this can create slow downs in many situations.

-This system penetrates walls better than other systems, but do not expect night and day difference either. -Simple controls and interface -Aesthetically pleasing router and mesh points that can usually blend in most places visually -2.

5G WAN port will help support faster speeds when available -House is hurricane proof with lots of concrete and and metal studded walls. This system seems to better penetrate walls vs other systems. -Simple setup.

Bridge mode or router mode offer the same performance. Cons: -Price is hard to justify for most. I did it because my house was extremely tough to connect throughout, but it was a fraction of what it would cost to wire the house with Ethernet.

-The moment you try to start doing advanced stuff, such as VLAN, IPv6, or parental controls, it becomes extremely buggy. So keep it simple with this system -Hate the cash grab they do from the subscriptions they want you to pay for extra parental controls or internet security.

It’s pretty insulting for a system of this price. -VPN Access requires some extra work -While the general interface is good, the app needs further work.

We live in a three-story 1780-square-foot townhouse, so this product might be overkill for most people in our situation, but I was telecommuting even before the pandemic and I will be continuing to do so afterwards, and that means a rock-solid Internet connection is critical.

Meanwhile, we stream all our TV via wifi and my wife is retired, so she watches a fair amount of TV during the day when I’m working. I had generally been satisfied with our old Linksys Velop router and satellite, but the satellite would randomly seem to slow to a crawl, causing the TV signal to buffer, and we had two noticeable wifi dead spots in the house.

That became an even bigger problem when I got my wife a new laptop for Christmas and it simply refused to connect from downstairs where she uses it most often. I decided to get a Netgear Orbi system based on very positive reviews my brother-in-law gave his.

My reason for choosing this one is that the router has four jacks for wired devices, which matched what I had before and meant I didn’t have to reconfigure anything (I very much prefer a wired connection for work purposes).

Some of the other less-expensive Orbi products have only three jacks. We’ve been exceptionally satisfied. No more dead spots, no more TV buffering. I would recommend this in a heartbeat. I docked one star because, let’s face it, the product is extremely expensive.

I decided that for our needs, the price was relatively unimportant—we depend so heavily on a reliable connection that in the scheme of things, the cost was not a problem. But I can see why it would be off-putting to some people.

My suggestion is that you look at your current setup to see how many wired devices you have—if you don’t need as many wired connections and you want to spend a little less, consider trying one of the other Orbi products.

A year ago I ordered a Linksys Velop AX4200 mesh wifi system to replace my 10 year old wifi setup. Without a long diatribe – the LINKSYS system initially worked fine, but over the period of 12 months progressively degraded and malfunctioned to the point of being almost useless, making me long for my old fashioned WiFi router.

I had heard from several different sources that Orbi was a great system, and I really wanted to stay with WiFi 6 and a mesh network so I rolled the dice. Orbi has been operational now for a month and I feel that I can give some initial impressions.

Setup was pretty smooth – some strange hiccups with the app required multiple resets of the nodes and a complete reset of the base node once. It took me about an hour to sort through the setup which gave me some trepidation.

However, once setup was complete – done. It has worked flawlessly ever since. Extremely high bandwidth, great coverage, excellent performance through walls and across two stories in an old house with very dense construction materials.

I have not needed to reset Orbi (Linksys needed to be reset 1-2 times a week or it would completely shut down) since I installed it. We run multiple devices across the house simultaneously to include video streaming, multiple web applications, work computers, home security and monitoring devices, etc.

Can’t say enough good things about Orbi. Well worth the switch and deserved of it’s great reputation.

Synology RT6600ax initial Review and Rating The Good: – Excellent software packages (Network Center, Safe Access, Control Panel Package Center, Threat Prevention, Security Advisor and Network Tools) with straight forward menu interfaces – Solid OS platform SRM (much like Synology DSM for NAS), that stays up, has logging, alerting and excellent email support by a technical team that knows the product and answers the questions that most other router mfct don’t answer.

– VLANs are simple and work across many VLAN aware switches. I literally just tagged all VLANs to every port and used the switches to segregate ports to VLANs. Netgear bus switch much easier than DLink.

So cool to manage each port to VLANs. – Use 2. 5g LAN connection for the Netgear bus switch which has 2. 5, 5g and even 10g ports. That is used for select few users. – Firewall rules and routing across VLANs, I had to add VLAN IP network addresses to my system32\drivers\etc\networks.

file. I also manually added the routes using Route Add (VLAN3 IP address) MASK 255. 255. 255. 0 (primary Gate IP) metric [some number]. Worked for everything device on VLANs except for netgear router turned Access Point, but that was an exception even with other routers converted to access points.

– Packages such as Safe Access and Threat Prevention have extensive functionality that I am still coming up to speed on. – Priority traffic control and custom speed allocated to gaming PC connected to 2.

5g interface. – Enjoy the DHCP server configurations and DHCP reservations, which updates the name once saved. – Threat Prevention has some excellent details in statistics and events. The negatives – Requires USB as storage instead of utilizing a synology (or other mfct) NAS if present – Menu interface is slow on saving changes.

– No logging on firewall rules – Firewall rules is only allow or deny – Threat Prevention logging is cumbersome with no intelligent controls or export capability. – USB 3. 2 Gen 1 Type A Port and compatibility is a misnomer, purchased compatible SanDisk 64g Extreme Go and it reported reverting to USB 2 due to potential interference with antennas.

The Ugly – For WAN cable modem configuration, manual informs you to contact ISP. If you have comcast, this is notorious on something that should be simple. Comcast just kept telling me to reboot or contact netgear for the netgear cable modem specifications.

Netgear support is even worse. The answer was for me: copy the MAC ID of the original netgear router into the Internet ISP Settings (MAC Address on bottom – don’t use Clone button). Then it worked with no issues.

Overall, this router blows away Netgear, Asus and DLink consumer wireless routers with real VLAN operation. More time intensive in trying to learn, but provides insights into what is actually occurring on the router and home network.

The router app on the phone is quite useful and receives alerts from the Threat Prevention app. Unlike Netgear (even with Armor subscription), I have much better visibility into my network, threats and what each device connected to the network is doing.

Is it as good as PFSense or Ubiquiti routers? No, but the user interface is more straight forward, has one 2. 5g port and works with no issues. And the technical support is excellent.

Let’s get the end of my story out of the way first. this was a massive upgrade over my Synology RT2600ac-based network. What was *NO* fun was getting the rest of my network devices (an MR2200ac unit or two) into the new network and then repurposing my 2600ac as yet another mesh station.

It can be done (once everyone is on the same SRM version) but there’s *NO* documentation in the box or on the Synology web about how you make that happen. Finally figured it out. You reset each device, unplug your computer/laptop from the net and attach to the synology network for each device as it comes out of reset mode.

then (assuming you planned ahead and have already downloaded the SRM update for the device you’re now connected to) you update the SRM software on the device. Reset it again (to wipe whatever was there.

the SRM update persists) and you attach and connect it as a mesh device on the net. Leaving the hassle of that undocumented process aside, once I was done, I saw that my old RT2600AC unit was connecting–wirelessly–to the new base station with a faster throughput than I had when it was a 2600AC based network with a WIRED connection to the MESH outpost.

That’s amazing. So, if this is your first Synology router, go for it. It’s amazing. If you have an existing Synology network with mesh add-ons and you want this to take over the management of your network, get ready for about 2 hours of pain (but in a good way considering the end state).

I had a nex air router that uses the verizon air card, its a usb plug in that looks like a flashdrive. Verizon repeatly interups the signal dur8ng the day and with the nexair i have to unplug the aircard, count to 5 then replug it to get back on line.

I heard the Cradlepoint was good router and found it here used at aout 1/2 cost. it has no software so its a hook up and use, the manual is found online. It went right to work after setting the numbers up at the website, http://192.

168. 1 these numbers may be different for others. Verizon still interups but this one resets by itself, most of the time fast enough that it only slows down, it stays connected. I am happy now, vierizon is still slow, but better than dial up and now i dont have to reset 5 times a day.

so the cradlepoint gets my vote. The nexair may have been the problem, but the verizon air card is a problem too, i wouldnt ever have nexair again, no support and when it wont work , Sorry Charley.

This is my 3rd Cradlepoint router, MBR1000, MBR1100 and this one. Although they have all provided pretty good service. I am getting tired of Cradlepoint’s propriety hardware. The MBR1000 did not have removable antennas.

I bought the 1100 because I’d read it did, NOT! My bad. I bought the MBR1200 so I could use external antennas. The connectors although perhaps not proprietary, don’t seem to be standard. I figured I would make lemons out of lemonade and use the MBR1100 to extend my network with WDS.

Come to find out, WDS was not available with the 1200.

The Cradlepoint MBR1200 is as reliable as my older MBR1000 router. I mostly needed the 1000Gbps network option and that was available on the MBR1200. Once I discovered Cradlepoint, I never could use anything else.

I definitely recommend this one because you will not be disappointed.