MAY 2020 PCWorld 109just because of
the easy setup
and maintenance.
On my porch,
where I was
barely getting
throughput of
20Mbps, I’m now
getting around
100Mbps. I even
tested it by
putting the client
in a closet with
the door closed
and I still topped
100Mbps.
I’ll be honest,
I didn’t expect such a boost, as my previous
Wi-Fi system was plenty good. I had
Netgear’s Orbi RBK40 with an extra satellite,
and I had no complaints. Quite frankly, I
planned to return the Wi-Fi 6 system if my
benchmarks showed that it wasn’t a lot faster
than what I had. Suffice to say, I’m keeping it.
For the first time since I’ve been hooking up
Wi-Fi routers in my home, I’m confident that I
won’t need to replace this system for many
years to come, even if I opt to upgrade my
internet plan (both Netgear models are
equipped with 2.5Gbps WAN ports).
Note that I’m a router hobbyist and not
an expert, so I’m using the Speedtest app
to measure my connection to the internet.
That means the speed between a server
and a client on my home network—which is
how we more typically benchmark Wi-Fi
routers—could be even faster. If you have a
slow internet connection, your own
Speedtest results might be artificially low,
because they can’t be higher than what
your ISP is providing.SUPERCHARGED
EVERYTHING
As with previous generations of Wi-Fi, your
client devices will need to have Wi-Fi 6
adapters to squeeze the most benefit from a
Wi-Fi 6 router. But I experienced tremendous
speed increases even with clients that had
older (Wi-Fi 5) adapters onboard. I’m talking
doubling—and in some cases—triplingThe difference between my new Wi-Fi 6 Orbi (the numbers inside the yellow
boxes) and the Wi-Fi 5 model is crystal clear.