FINALLY Upgrading My WiFi Router

[00:00:00]The router provided by my internet service provider leaves a lot to be desired. The Wi-Fi isn't great and like most ISPs out there, they like to lock down your DNS settings, give you zero native support for isolating sketchy smart home IoT devices via VLANs, and usually lack the multi-gig ports needed to connect both a high-speed NAS and a gaming PC simultaneously. So, while in the process of deciding what router I wanted to pick, TP-Link wanted to sponsor this video for me to try out their newest gigachad router, the Archer BE9700, which is great because it helps to support the channel and I get to tinker with a pretty cool router and get paid to tear it apart if I don't like it.

[00:00:43]Total win-win. Luckily, TP-Link isn't some random no-name company. They've been around for a long time making pretty good affordable networking equipment. I've used some of their Wi-Fi devices and network switches over the years and some of them are over 10 years old and still going strong. Before plugging anything in though, let's talk about my personal needs. My house has a total of three people living in it, all with their own personal computers and wireless devices. I have a home server I use to help store all the footage from this very channel amongst other things.

[00:01:15]We do have some IoT devices around the house as well like some wireless cameras, sensors, and even our garage door. Now, our house isn't that wide, so luckily distance from our current router hasn't been an issue for us. But as we start to get more and more Wi-Fi 7 devices, I want to be covered ahead of time. I also like to have full control of my home network settings so I can include services like VLANs, DNS, and port forwarding when necessary. But I also don't want to spend $500 on a router personally. Luckily, the BE9700 is a Wi-Fi 7 router that sits right under $250, making it arguably the best value Wi-Fi 7 option on the market right now, a point even backed up by Tom's Guide. So, let's unbox this bad boy and see what you get in the box. Inside, you'll get the usual suspects, the router itself, a power cable, an ethernet cable, and a little quick start guide to show you how to get started. On the router, you get a full 10 gigabits per second WAN LAN port, a 2.5 gig WAN LAN port, and three 2.5 gig LAN ports. This means you can plug in a multi-gig modem, a high-speed NAS, or a gaming PC, and completely eliminate the hardware bottlenecks that might choke standard gigabit routers. Installing the router was fairly simple, and doing the initial setup was dirt easy. Their Tether app has a full guided wizard that basically does all the work for you, and you can fully customize any settings on your phone or computer. Security, port forwarding, VLANs, and all the juicy stuff that network nerds love in these things. I got all my wired devices plugged into it, and of course, everything ran to speed as expected.

[00:02:58]But, wired performance is only half the story. Let's see what next-gen Wi-Fi 7 actually does to wireless speeds across my house. All of these wireless tests will be done on a Wi-Fi 7-capable device, my iPhone 17. If you aren't familiar with Wi-Fi 7, it introduces massive upgrades like 320 MHz ultra-wide channels to push speeds nearly five times faster than Wi-Fi 6, theoretically, of course. A feature I'm really looking forward to on this guy is the multi-link operation, or MLO.

[00:03:29]Instead of your phone constantly dropping and swapping between the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands as you walk around, MLO combines these bands into one powerful concurrent stream, so you never have to worry about that at all. I already did a bunch of tests on my old router, so I'll throw up the old results and the current results on screen simultaneously. Right now, I'm in the living room, which is kind of dead center of my house.

[00:03:52]Let's run a speed test. And look at that, the needle instantly zooms straight to the top. That is pretty dang fast. Now, let's head upstairs to the back bedroom, which is my office.

[00:04:03][music] In a typical multi-room house, this is usually a notorious dead zone where old routers drop connections or just constant buffering. [music] The BE9700 addresses this with up to 2,600 square feet of coverage utilizing six optimally positioned antennas. Now, we are getting some great speed up here as well. Now, I wanted to test as far back on my property as I can, since I actually have a camera mounted to my fence back here that relies on Wi-Fi for full operation. Now, my camera doesn't have Wi-Fi 7 access, of course, but I can say the signal strength is already better, meaning my camera won't skip a pixel due to a dropped connection. On top of the hardware, TP-Link also includes a built-in VPN client and server support, allowing your home devices to securely route through 35+ protocols, like WireGuard or OpenVPN, without needing to install extra software on every individual phone or laptop. And if you're a home lab nerd like me, I think this router should surpass any requirements you might need, especially at this price point. As a final note for my US viewers, I wanted to talk about the recent banning of future internet devices made outside of the US.

[00:05:14]That ban doesn't affect this device or any updates it will receive in the future, since this item already exists and is still for sale, so you should be good. But overall, I'm pretty happy with the router so far. The speeds seem really good, and I personally really like all of the network settings that I'm going to tinker and toy with in the Tether app over time. I'm glad I finally got off my ISP-provided router, because now that I'm seeing what a real router operates like, I'm kind of sad I didn't do it sooner. And another quick note, if you have AT&T Fiber like me, AT&T does not allow you to fully remove their router from the equation since it's included in the price.

[00:05:52]They kind of force you to put it into pass-through mode, which essentially turns it into a big, very expensive key.

[00:06:00]But, once you get that set up, the router you use can bypass it entirely and operate normally. I'll leave a link to a guide on how to set that up in the description, as well as links to pick up a BE9700 if you're interested. Thanks to all the channel members for supporting the channel, and get subscribed for more technology content. My name is Jason.

[00:06:18]Thanks for watching.