PC World - USA (2020-10)

OCTOBER 2020 PCWorld 105

bugs to fix, but the fact that Asus is actively
pushing out firmware for a five-year-old
router (when other vendors might ask you to
buy a new one) is overall a strength rather
than a weakness.
One other advantage of AiMesh and a
mesh system is the single SSID, which in theory
means more seamless roaming between
nodes. I say in theory because depending on
the firmware, roaming has sometimes meant a
3- to 4-second disconnect as the hand-off is
done. Other systems have a better reputation
for handling it more seamlessly, but I wasn’t
expecting commercial-grade Wi-Fi.
This setup got us through spring and
summer, but with virtual
schooling the likely plan for the
fall, it was time to get more
bandwidth.
I called my provider and
asked what could be done to
keep me from defecting to
cable (my only alternative). My
ISP cut the price in half and
doubled our speed. The
speed, though far from gigabit
fiber or coaxial cable, should
be enough to get us through
the next hump.

WHEN DUAL-BAND
IS NOT ENOUGH
With double the broadband
performance, my cheap-skate

router setup was no longer up to the job for

our laptops. While our wired desktops were

fine, the laptops farther out on the RT-1900P

node did not benefit as much.

The reason? In AiMesh, as with many

mesh systems built on dual-band nodes,

some of the wireless speed is provisioned for

the “backhaul”—the conduit through which

the routers pass network traffic to each other.

With just two bands—2.4GHz and 5GHz—

and some of it congested by passing traffic

between the routers, we definitely had poor

broadband throughput in the 15 to 30Mbps

range, even with our very moderate broadband.

In more expensive systems from Asus and

Using a 125-foot Cable Matters CAT6 cable run as your wired

backhaul, is far cheaper than buying a new router setup.