TP-Link Archer AX23 AX1800 Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 wireless router

I decided that I needed a new wireless router. I have three routers in my house now. My Linksys EA8100, my Linksys E1200 and finally, my old Asus RT-N12. I decided to buy this new TP-Link Archer AX23 AX1800 that I saw advertised for a pretty fair price. I bought it a couple of days back for $85. If this router turns out to be good, I will start decommissioning all the older routers and just use this one. I had read some review online and the reviews were all positive. These are the features of this router:

• Super-Fast 1.8 Gbps Wi-Fi – Enjoy smooth 4K streaming and downloading with super-fast Wi-Fi speeds of 1.8 Gbps.^†
• Connect More Devices – Communicates with more devices using OFDMA while simultaneously reducing lag.^‡
• Broader Coverage – Improved algorithm, beamforming, and high-performance antennas enhance the Wi-Fi coverage performance.^§ 
• Next-Gen Platform – The Next-Gen High-Efficiency Chipset provides fast and stable Wi-Fi while saving power consumption.
• Parental Controls – Enjoy the most versatile yet free parental controls features among all routers, including URL blocking, profile management, pausing, and more.
• Works with Most ISPs – Compatible with most ISPs with extra L2TP/PPTP support. IPTV support works with your existing TV over the Internet contract.
• OneMesh – Use with OneMesh extenders to get whole-home coverage and enjoy smooth roaming between signals.
• Easy Setup – Set up your router in minutes with the powerful TP-Link Tether App.
• Backward Compatible – Supports all previous 802.11 standards Wi-Fi devices.

For the OneMesh, what this means is that I can connect more than a few of these routers and they will all start to act like one big mesh network. I might choose to do that later when I save up enough to get another router. So far, this router has been excellent. The coverage is good but I may need to do something about the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz sharing a common SSID. It works but there is almost no flexibility. I cannot set and choose the channel on the 2.4Ghz band for example.

But as I said, let me play with this router. Early days yet. I think it will be a router that will serve me well. Oh and for once, TP-Link are not using 9V DC adapters but fully-fledged 12V ones.

Turning a Linksys E1200 router into a Wireless Access Point

I have a couple of these Linksys E1200 routers that I took off some decommissioned AV racks at a client’s place. What I did was to deploy them in my house, providing Internet access for all. A couple of days back, I decided to turn them into WAPs, instead of them working as routers. The reason is because I wanted to see if there was any truth to the fact that NAT or Network Address Translation would lead to  lag times. I have an Ubiquiti Edgerouter X as the main router and all the other routers like these E1200s connect to it in a start topology. So what I did was to go into each of these E1200s and perform two tasks: disable the DHCP server and give it a static IP address. Then I unplugged the cable going to the WAN port of these routers and connected it to the LAN ports. A reboot later and these E1200s were functioning as APs. They seemed to be OK I guess and the lag? I honestly did not notice it. I will try this config for a week and if I do not find any issues, I will revert them back to being routers.

My home network with the Linksys E1200s

i have a few of these Linksys E1200 routers in my home acting as WAPs. While they work, I find that they can be a bit slow for use. These routers are Wireless-N routers I believe. I am thinking of upgrading to a newer router like the TP-Link AX10 that supports MU-MIMO. These E1200s do not support MU-MINO so when one person is connected to it, another person connected to it will have slow Wi-Fi speeds. I am still weighing my options about getting a new router that supports MU-MIMO. I will update if I do get one

D-Link DWR-921 4G LTE Router

These past couple of months, I have been involved in a project at a customer’s place where I have had to use my TP-Link mifi router on a daily basis when I do my work. The excellent TPG 50Gb a month broadband plan is what I am using with this mini router. Now in the same “office” with me is the main contractor. They have their own 4G WiFi too but they are using this D-Link DWR-921. The reason they use this router for all their office people is the fact that one of the LAN ports is connected to a network printer that they use for their general printing. The features of this router are listed below:

• Integrated SIM card slot
• High-speed 4G LTE/3G connections with downlink speeds up to 150 Mbps and uplink speeds up to 50 Mbps
• Wi-Fi speeds up to 300 Mbps
• Fast Ethernet WAN port and four Fast Ethernet LAN ports

I do not know what Internet Service Provider they are using for their 4G connection. But I like this router. It has its uses especially with the 4 LAN ports where you can connect various devices to it.

Found a Linksys WRT54GL router

A few days back, my team and I were decommissioning some old AV equipment at a client’s place. This old equipment was in three racks that were just not required anymore as it was old and outdated. In one of the racks, I came upon the old Linksys WRT54GL router. Now, these routers are very highly prized as they run a variant of the Linux operating system, which makes them stable as anything. In any case, I took it home and put it through its paces. I found it to be very good and still working great. I just noticed that the firmware was old so I upgraded it to the latest firmware 4.30.18 and did a reboot. All was great and I really felt good about this router because it was functioning flawlessly. Believe it or not, I read somewhere that Linksys still makes this router. Its stability is second-to-none and it is still used in many applications. This router will become part of my stable of spare routers and I am sure that it will serve me well. Gotta love these Linux-based routers!

TP-Link Archer A10

Yesterday, at a client’s place, I saw that they were using this new TP-Link AC2600 Archer A10 wireless router, hooked up to their Soundcraft mixer. They did so because they wanted to control the mixer by remote, using an Apple iPad. When I tried the iPad from a distance away, I was impressed as to how far this router was able to throw the signal. So I decided to do a little research on the router and this is what I found.

According to TP-Link, This Archer A10 delivers dual-band Wi-Fi with speeds of up to 1733 Mbps on the 5 GHz band and 800 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band. Not only that, this router is equipped with three external antennas and one internal antenna for stronger and more reliable networks, according to them. It utilises beamforming technology which apparently concentrates the Wi-Fi signal towards your connected devices, providing better Wi-Fi range and network performance. I can attest to that. Connection from this router to the iPad was superb at great distances. Also, this router is equipped with MU-MIMO technology. What is that? Well, MU-MIMO (which stands for multi-user, multiple input, multiple output) was created to support environments where multiple users are trying to access a wireless network at the same time. So with this, this Archer A10 provides four simultaneous data streams, allowing all connected devices to enjoy speeds up to 4X faster than traditional routers.

So what do I think of it? To be honest, I like it. It costs on average about $150 dollars here in Singapore. It is a shame that I just bought an ASUS router for my home or else, I would definitely buy this!

ASUS RT-AC53 AC750 Dual Band WiFi Router

I bought this new router yesterday to replace my older Asus  RT-N12D1. The RT-N12D1 was getting it’s RAM maxed out and it was pretty slow. I ordered this new RT-AC53 on Amazon and got it for a pretty good price. Also, I have always liked Asus routers and their built-in software. But other than that, what is so great about this new router?

Firstly, it is powered by 5th generation Wi-Fi (5G Wi-Fi). I know that Wi-Fi 6 is the buzzword now but hell, that can wait. I am not a gamer so I do not need fast wifi like that yet. But apparently, the 802.11ac chipset gives the RT-AC53 faster wireless speeds than N technology. And that is true. It certainly felt faster after I hooked it up and tested it with my mobile phone. At 2.4 GHz, it reaches 300 Mbps, while on the 5GHz band it reaches a a speed of 433 Mbps. And that is what was different from the older router…we now have the 5Ghz band.

This router has only a two port switch behind it but honestly? That is more than enough. The reason why it only has two ports instead of four is probably because of the third antenna mounted dead-centre. But that is of no concern to me really. Also this baby has 64Mb of RAM. It is not like the older router with only 32 and was almost always maxed out. That was another reason to get this router.

I love this new router. Looks like I have to spend some time in the administration page and harden it up. Thanks Asus…you made a winner with this one!

TP-Link TL-WR702n router in use during a project

I have posted a couple of articles in the past about how great the TP-Link MR3020 mini router in use in hotel rooms. That MR3020 was setup as a WAP or wireless access point. What that meant was that the PC that is connected to it will show up on the DHCP server lease list of the host network. But what if you want to use the MR3020 as a router? Well, you can change the status of the device or you can use the younger brother, the TL-WR702n. I bought one of these some time back for a very good price and this was used in many instances as a WAP, which was its default config out of the box. Unfortunately (and I cannot explain why) this device as an access point always screws up the network as it wrestles control of the DHCP server from the host network and makes itself the default DHCP server. Now this just will not do because we do not want to cause issues for the host network. So what do I do with this rogue TL-WR702n? Simple. I change its status to a router instead of an AP and it works just fine.

I took this picture a couple of days back when I used this router in a project to test the network I was setting up. It worked very well and I was very happy with it.

TP-Link TL-WN321 wireless dongle does not work with new Linksys router

As I posted yesterday, I have upgraded my cable-connection to fibre and a new router was given to me to use, the Linksys EA8100. While i find this to be a pretty good router, I also found out that my old TP-Link TL-WN321 cannot work with it. I do not know why this is the case to be honest. I checked the wireless configuration in the router and the wireless does have backward compatibility with wireless G networks, like the one this dongle supports. Strange indeed but this dongle is pretty old. Time to update to newer ones!

 

Linksys EA8100 wireless router

A couple of days back, I converted my cable broadband to fibre broadband. When the technicians came down to my house, they connected up my fibre modem and this Linksys EA8100 router. I was pleasantly surprised. Looks like my provider provided one helluva good router. According to the Linksys website:

The Linksys MAX-STREAM AC2600 features MU-MIMO, the latest advance toward uninterrupted, simultaneous Wi-Fi connections. Devices such as HD streaming media players, 4K TVs, tablets, and game consoles use a lot of bandwidth. But with MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) technology, the MAX-STREAM AC2600 sends advanced Wi-Fi to multiple devices at the same time and same speed. Your whole family can play, stream, and work at once, without experiencing lag or buffering–at up to 2x the speed of a non-MU-MIMO router. The EA8100 operates in a clear airspace denied to traditional routers thanks to Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) certification. This certification triples the number of channels available at 80MHz.

It does seem faster. I connected my phone to the 5Ghz band and it was very zippy. Looks like this DFS technology that they have incorporated in this browser really works, so it is not snake-oil. You can read about DFS on their website here.