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The best modems for fibre

Without a doubt, getting the fastest internet connection available in South Africa today means going with fibre. At its fastest, it’s five times faster than the fastest DSL connection, and even gives LTE-Advanced wireless internet a run for its money: LTE-A tops out at 150mbps under ideal conditions, whereas fibre’s maximum speed is 200mbps and it’s not affected by the weather.

And it’s getting cheaper than ever to connect homes and businesses with fibre, thanks to plummeting fibre prices that are the result of the ongoing price war between an ever-increasing number of providers.

How it works

Once you’ve established that your home or business is in an area covered by a fibre network, you’ll make a call to your internet service provider of choice, who will dispatch technicians to set you up. They’ll install the physical fibre cable into your home or business, which will connect to a special box called a CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) which will be screwed in place on a handy wall.

Depending on your location, the fibre will either be placed in the ground which will require digging, or it will enter your premises via overhead cabling, as old-timey phone cables used to.

That CPE is then connected to a router with a network cable, and it’s this router that all of your devices then connect to. The router is supplied by your fibre internet provider, and you’ll usually have a selection of models across various price ranges to choose from.

While you can simply go with your provider’s router recommendation, you could also provide your own. Knowing what you need from a router, however, can be a bit tricky. And that’s where this roundup comes in.

Some things to remember

Before fibre, wired internet entered homes and businesses via a phone line and connected to routers equipped with ADSL modems. Fibre, on the other hand, just needs a router with a “Wide Area Network” (WAN) port.

But since fibre is so much faster than ADSL, to make the most of it you’ll need to get yourself a router that can properly handle it. If your WiFi connection can’t keep up with the data coming in, you won’t enjoy the full speed of your fibre connection, and that’s a waste.

So we’ve rounded up four routers whose performance dovetails quite nicely with the incredible internet speeds offered by fibre connections.

Enjoy!

[su_box title=”Dual-Channel WiFi Primer” box_color=”#f37021″]

In this feature you’ll see reference to “dual-band WiFi”, a technology that uses two different radio frequencies to achieve faster performance and to cover a bigger area with WiFi signal. To get the full benefit of that superior speed and coverage, however, your devices need to support something called “AC-class WiFi” – the fastest consumer-grade WiFi technology available today. Should your current phones/tablets/laptops not yet support AC-class WiFi, perhaps consider looking at devices that do the next time you need to upgrade. In the meantime, your N-class WiFi devices will still function, but they won’t necessarily download data as fast as your fibre connection is pushing it out.

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TP-Link Archer C7 AC1750_nobox

TP-Link Archer C7 AC1750

R2 199

To handle internet data fast enough to take full advantage of the huge amount of internet data pouring in through a fibre connection, you’ll need a router capable of AC-class WiFi. AC basically means “Gigabit”, which is 1000mbps and higher. In bandwidth terms, that’s very fast indeed – five times faster, in fact, than the maximum fibre speed of 200mbps.

TP-Link’s Archer C7 AC1750 router is exactly equipped for those sorts of speeds. Its AC-class WiFi radio supports speeds of up to 1300mbps, and its N-class radio supports up to 450mbps. Thanks to the fact that the C7 is a dual-band router – i.e. it operates on both the 2.4GHz and 5Ghz radio channels at the same time – these can be combined into a total supported speed of up to 1750mbps for devices that support it.

Gigabit LAN ports output the fibre internet to wired devices at a maximum speed of 1000mbps as well, plus there are two USB 2.0 ports in case you wish to add external storage or 3G/4G dongles as a backup in case your fibre goes down.

In all, TP-Link’s Archer C7 is a feature-rich, high-performance router that’s perfectly suited to distributing high-speed fibre connections via WiFi throughout your home and business premises.

[su_box title=”Techie Bits” box_color=”#f37021″]

  • AC-class WiFi up to 1300mbps
  • 11b/g/n WiFi up to 450mbps
  • Dual-band 2.4GHz and 5Ghz supported
  • Maximum supported bandwidth of 1750mbps
  • 1 x Gigabit WAN port
  • 4 x Gigabit LAN ports
  • 2 x USB ports

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Zyxel SBG3300-N

Zyxel SBG3300-N

R1 799

Should you be looking for a router that can move with you, and support all of the available methods of connecting to the internet with a cable, ZyXel’s SBG3300-N is a fantastic option. Not only does it have the WAN port needed to connect to your fibre CPE, but it supports ADSL and VDSL as well, and even mobile internet via a USB plug on the back.

Its WiFi capabilities aren’t quite as impressive as the Archer C7’s, however, but its b/g/n WiFi radio should be more than fast enough to distribute fibre internet running at speeds of up to 100mbps. There is no dual-band magic here, though, and you’re thus limited to “just” the 2.4Ghz band, meaning it won’t blanket quite as large an area with WiFi signal or transfer data as fast as the C7 does.

Its remaining features are on par with the C7: One Gigabit WAN and four Gigabit Ethernet ports.

This router’s appeal lies in its versatility rather than its raw speed or the size of the area it can cover with WiFi signal. Grab it for the number of connectivity options it supports, keep it for the sub-100mbps fibre connections in small to medium-sized homes and business premises it’s capable of handling.

[su_box title=”Techie Bits” box_color=”#f37021″]

  • WAN, VDSL, ADSL ports
  • 11b/g/n WiFi up to 450mbps
  • Single-band 2.4GHz WiFi Radio
  • 1 x Gigabit WAN port
  • 1 x ADSL/VDSL port
  • 4 x Gigabit LAN ports
  • 2 x USB ports (storage, printers, 3G dongles)

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Netgear AC1600

Netgear AC1600 Fibre/DSL router

R3 399

Netgear went all out when they designed this particular router: it’s stuffed with every bit of networking tech available that caters to just about every use-case imaginable by consumers.

So to that end you have a dual-band WiFi radio with beamforming technology, a port for an ADSL/VDSL connection, four Gigabit Ethernet ports for maximum wired data transfer speeds and a dedicated Gigabit WAN port for connecting to fibre CPEs. It even has DLNA support baked in that allows media players to use any portable hard drives connected to the router via USB as a media source.

That dual-band WiFi with beamforming tech is how the AC1600 router can deliver super-fast WiFi performance that will follow you around your home or business. Beamforming boosts the signal when the router detects a need for it, and by combining 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi, the AC1600 is rated at a very impressive 1600mbps.

As with the other routers, actual performance will vary based on where the router is set up, but it’s all but assured that you’ll get faster than 200mbps from it, making this ideal for homes and businesses interested in getting the fastest fibre connections SA ISPs offer.

Sure, the price is a bit steep, but if you want a high-performance wireless network your home or business capable of keeping up with fibre speeds as they inevitably increase, this is the router to go for.

[su_box title=”Techie Bits” box_color=”#f37021″]

  • AC-class WiFi up to 1300mbps
  • 11b/g/n WiFi up to 300mbps
  • Dual-band 2.4GHz and 5Ghz supported
  • Maximum supported bandwidth of 1600mbps
  • DLNA support
  • 1 x Gigabit WAN port
  • 1 x ADSL/VDSL port
  • 4 x Gigabit LAN ports
  • 2 x USB ports (storage, printers)

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ASUS DSL-N17U

ASUS DSL-N17U N-300

R1 899

Here’s another router that wants to give you more connectivity options, while also giving you something to look at and enjoy using. It supports three connection types: ADSL and VDSL which come in via a regular telephone line, and connections that use a WAN port.

A WAN port is what you need when hooking any router up to a CPE, and the N17U has you covered in that regard.

The bit that’s important in this roundup, though, is the quality and speed of the router’s WiFi connection; fortunately, it’s here that the N17U does a decent job. Its radio has just one channel – 2.4Ghz – and it’s only an N-class router, meaning it has a maximum WiFi speed under ideal conditions of just 300mbps. But thanks to its use of beamforming technology, the router intelligently increases power to the WiFi radio when it detects a weakening signal, which keeps wireless connections stable and performing.

Realistically, in homes and businesses with walls and clutter, it’s not going to perform at that level all the time, so if you are eyeing that 200mbps fibre connection, perhaps go with one with AC-class WiFi. For speeds of 100mbs and lower, absolutely no problem – the N17U will distribute that signal at full speed with ease.

In addition to really good looks, this router from ASUS features one of the very nicest interfaces we’ve ever used – it’s neat, boasts a clean design and as such there’s no digging needed to find the settings you need. If that’s what you are looking for, this is a great choice.

[su_box title=”Techie Bits” box_color=”#f37021″]

  • WAN, VDSL, ADSL ports
  • 11b/g/n WiFi up to 300mbps
  • Single-band 2.4GHz WiFi Radio with Beamforming
  • 1 x Gigabit WAN port
  • 1 x ADSL/VDSL port
  • 4 x Gigabit LAN ports
  • 2 x USB ports (storage, printers, 3G dongles)

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DSL-G225-TK_Back

D-Link DSL-G225 N300 Modem Router

R999

Should your budget be closer to the R1000 side, D-Link has a solid option for you in its DSL-G225. It has the right blend of features for the price – DSL, VDSL and WAN connectivity coupled with single-band N-class WiFi and a USB port – plus it looks quite nice.

D-Link rates the WiFi speed at “up to 300mbps”, and as the router doesn’t feature a dual-band WiFi radio which would lead to higher speeds, it comes with the caveat that its WiFi performance is going to be affected by where it’s set up, and what sort of objects are in its immediate vicinity. Walls, appliances and certain electronics are known to interfere with WiFi signal quality, thus the router’s location is vital.

This combination of factors means average speeds not quite as fast as 300mbps, making this not the best option if you’re counting on full line speed from your 200mbps fibre connection to your wireless devices. The four LAN ports are also only rated at 100mbps (i.e. they aren’t Gigabit ports), so fibre performance to wired devices won’t reach that magical 200mbps mark either.

For 100mbps fibre and down, though, this router will serve you quite well.

Still, with its VDSL and ADSL port it gives you options; if fibre isn’t what you’re after you can always use it for connectivity delivered by a copper telephone cable instead, and the presence of the WAN port means you can always upgrade to fibre at a later date without shelling out for a new router.

[su_box title=”Techie Bits” box_color=”#f37021″]

  • WAN, VDSL, ADSL ports
  • 11b/g/n WiFi up to 300mbps
  • Single-band 2.4GHz WiFi Radio
  • 1 x Gigabit WAN port
  • 1 x ADSL/VDSL port
  • 4 x 10/100 LAN ports
  • 2 x USB ports (storage, printers, 3G dongles

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Wrapping up

You can always just go with the router recommended or supplied for free from your fibre provider, but should you find it not performing as you’d like it to, or you thought it would, replacing it will be a priority.

Take the above into consideration when shopping, but of course there are other routers out there that we can’t cover. So here are some general tips to keep in mind when you go looking:

  • AC WiFi is really fast, and highly desirable, but your devices need to support it.
  • Beamforming technology is very handy to have as it maintains good WiFi signal quality and performance by boosting it when necessary.
  • All WiFi connections will be affected by the objects in the router’s immediate environment, and thus router performance will vary. Electric garage door openers, microwaves and wireless landline telephones are known to interfere with WiFi as well, so place your router carefully.
  • For fibre, your router needs a WAN port that allows it to connect to the CPE your fibre provider installed in your home/business.

Keep those tips in mind, and no matter which router you ultimately settle on, you should be happy with its performance.

 

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