i. For dual band router like N60, you should select Network first, select WAN Port, point to Speed/Duplex. Change the WAN Interface-Speed/Duplex to be 10M Full-duplex or 10M Half-duplex. On the face of it, it’s business as usual. Setup is no different to the other mesh networks I’ve already described and the app is easy to use and offers you a lot of control over your WiFi. As a bonus, if you have a TP-Link router that supports its OneMesh technology, you get hassle-free, seamless connectivity wherever you are in your home. Needless to say, you need a Wi-Fi 6 router and compatible devices to make the most of it, but this extender gives you the latest wireless tech at a bargain price.

You can pay a huge amount for a Wi-Fi 6E mesh, but TP-Link’s Deco XE75 brings you 6GHz wireless networking for little more than many regular Wi-Fi 6 systems. Bandwidth: The maximum rate of data that can be sent. This term can be applied to both wired and wireless data transfer. The higher the bandwidth, the faster your internet. There are some welcome software features too, including a simple firewall, a QoS setting that lets you prioritise specific devices, and time limits for kids’ devices. It’s a compact, simple and effective wireless solution and, if you shop around, you may well find it for a bargain price. The bigger brother of the lovable RE505X is another compact, plug-in Wi-Fi 6 extender, but with the speeds boosted to meet the AX3000 spec. Similar to its cheaper sibling, this model is easy to set up and configure using TP-Link’s Tether app, and it supports OneMesh technology for seamless roaming around the house. If you have a compatible TP-Link router, it can even set up the RE700X while in this mode.Modem: The vast majority of providers combine their modems and routers so you won’t have two separate devices. In short, a modem is the device which actually connects your network to the internet. Modem is a portmanteau of the words ‘modulator’ and ‘demodulator’. It turns one signal into another signal. For example, it turns digital data of a computer into the analogue signal of a telephone line. This is why you used to have to connect your internet to the phone line. When shopping for a range extender, it's important to find one that matches your router's specs. For example, if you have a dual-band AC1900 router, get a dual-band AC1900 extender (or better). If your router supports Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) data streaming, which provides enhanced performance by sending data to compatible clients simultaneously rather than sequentially, look for an extender that supports this technology if you want to extend your MU-MIMO network. Whereas range extenders communicate with the router via the 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio bands, most Wi-Fi system satellites use mesh technology to talk to the router, and to each other. Each node serves as a hop point for other nodes in the system, which helps the nodes farthest from the router to deliver a strong Wi-Fi signal as they talk to other nodes and don't rely on one-to-one communications with the router. The system acts as a wireless extender system for your existing router, connecting via a simple Gigabit Ethernet cable. This means it doesn’t mess with your network settings, and there’s very little to configure – although the system does offer a guest network facility and simple group-based parental controls. The nodes look a bit odd, standing upright like mini-satellite dishes, but their small footprint means it’s easy to find suitable places for them around the home.

A skim of the Tenda’s technical specifications revealed the explanation. Alongside lightweight Wi-Fi hardware, the MW3 nodes also use 100Mbits/sec Ethernet ports, rather than the Gigabit type we’re accustomed to. That puts a hard speed limit of around 10MB/sec on all wired resources – including your NAS drive and your internet connection. For performance testing, we connect a NAS appliance to the main mesh unit via Ethernet, and then wirelessly connect to the mesh network from a laptop equipped with an Intel Wi-Fi 6E network card, with support for 2×2 MIMO. We take this laptop to various rooms in the home, copy a series of files to and from the NAS system, and measure read and write speeds to discover the peak performance the mesh system is able to deliver, at different ranges and via different access points. Speaking of smart homes. One of the bonus features of the new Nest WiFi is that each of them have a microphone and speaker built in, so you’ve got a Google Nest smart speaker and a WiFi extender all in one. They can play music really quite well and answer any questions you might have about who is playing Wendy Torrance in The Shining or how much pasta you need to feed a group of four. Plus, you can even say “Hey Google, what’s my internet speed?” to learn immediately. Both sets of devices will be slightly different per brand or even per product, but you should be looking at an average of about 50-75ft. As a rule, we’re happy with anything over 120Mbits/sec (15MB/sec). To put that into context, Netflix recommends a connection speed of at least 5Mbits/sec for HD streaming and 25Mbits/sec for 4K video. A good, solid Wi-Fi network should easily be fast enough to cope with multiple simultaneous high-resolution video streams.However, the design isn’t great. The nodes are much bigger than Google’s cylinders or TP Link Deco’s disks. The light is also a lot brighter than the others. You can change this in the settings, but it’s annoying that it comes as default. It illuminated my bedroom to a point where I feared it would harm my chances of getting to sleep. (Admittedly, I’m someone who requires total darkness to nod off.)