As said above, this works great and the range is fantastic, due to myself having a lot of questions I want to answer what I was questioning before buying... Sorry in advanced I'm going to be a bit long-winded here but I hope it helps you =)
With that said, I have FiOS gigabyte service and was having huge drops of speed with the fios wireless routers. From the box (bypassing the router and directly hardlined with a short 5e cable) I was getting (per the Verizon speed test) around 960 down and 880 up. Which is great. However when using their wireless router and literally 10 feet away from it I was getting 50/20 to my laptop. Even worst, on the other upper level of my house I would lose connection completely in the back two rooms.
We have a 2400 square foot house, 2 levels. Our internet comes into the lower level which is half below grade. For records, this is not where you want to put wireless because the signal spans out and down like an umbrella, Ideally you want to put your wireless router in the middle of your house at an upper location. Due to the way I designed the home, I put a server room in the back corner of the lower level, and ran CAT 5e to all rooms for hardwired connections (all computers and smart TV's were directly plugged in with a LAN line) I work with very data heavy projects, so hardlines have always been a requirement and the WIFI was only really used for tablets and cell phones.... however now I, and all the people in my house, are becoming more reliant on wifi connections and this slow signal was just wasn't cutting it.
Wanting to start using my laptop for work at home more, I started looking around for different options and tried a Linksys and a netgear system I had from my other office and neither were much better. Range just cut out and speeds never came anywhere near what I needed.
After quite a bit of shopping around and reading I settled on this TP-link and I am very happy I did.
The install is very straight forward and I had absolutely no connections issues. This is literally a 5 minute process from the time you open the box, till its up and running.
Pre-setup:
From the Verizon box (not their Verizon router, but the white box on the wall) I used the that CAT5E cable (LAN line) coming out of the box and tested the speed before plugging into the new router, Please note the time I tested this I was actually only getting 300/200 so I called and Verizon "reset the box" and my speed went back up to what it should be (9XXgbps/8XXgbps).
Make sure you test this line coming in before you go any farther. You need to make sure what is coming into your house is what you are supposed to be getting before moving on. The speed test for Verizon is Verizon.com/speedtest if your getting slow speed coming in... it will be multiple times slower by the time its broadcasted through wireless.
The set up:
Next, once my speeds were confirmed coming into my house with what I was supposed to be getting, I opened the TP-link box, pulled out the Wireless router and plugged that same LAN line coming out of the Verizon box into my wireless the router and plugged the router in with the supplied power cord into our UPS and surge protector. You will no longer be using the wireless router by Verizon (or comcast or cox or whatever ISP wireless device you have) Once powered up it was broadcasting signal within 30 seconds. I connected, set up admin password and updated the Network name to what I wanted and changed the password. Very straightforward and very easy to do.
Then the moment of truth, time to test the wireless internet speed.
You will always have some drop with wireless, as this is not a dedicated uninterrupted signal coming in as with a cat 5e or 6a line, but you should be able to get up to half the speed of a dedicated line. Meaning I should be able to get up to 400mgb/ps speeds on wireless.... Not the 50/20 that I was getting with Verizon's router...
Anxiously I went to Verizon's speed test, and sure enough... 400mgb speeds!
Finally I have real wireless internet in my home!
But wait, the test wasn't over, I needed to confirm the other issues...signal strength and distance... because this test was only from 3 steps away form the router. So I went to the other side of the house, great,speed was the same. Then I went upstairs, awesome, speed was the same.... then I went outside on the deck, fantastic, speed was the same.... Then I went out back and sat on the hammock... I was still getting over 300mps!!!!
It wasn't until I was 70 or so feet away from my home that I started to have signal drop, grant it... this is with this router installed on the opposite side of my home in a level partially below grade!
Once I knew everything was working well I went back to my server room and plugged my switch into the router. You have 4 plugin options here, same with most wireless routers.
My set up is this, I have a switch for all the smart tvs and kids rooms. This switch then plugs into the router taking up 1 space. Then I have three dedicated lines from my office, my master bedroom, and our family room (For when I want to work comfortably) that all take up their own line. These I can also confirm when tested individually all still get the full speeds they should be getting.
This router for the price is excellent and I am so glad we bought it... I cannot vouge for the longevity of the router, as it was just installed, but if you see no update from me, assume its still working perfectly =)
Very Very Happy with this and hope it helps you make up you!
**Update 8/8/2019:
Okay 5 months of use in, and it literally has not disconnected once or required a reset.
Literally no Wi-Fi issues at all the entire time I have owned it. I can now truly confirm this is a great 5-Star router!
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
|---|---|
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 1 |
