Are you looking for a new home router? Check out the Tenda AC7 and AC11 models

The users of routers can be divided into three types. Those who only want to “connect and forget”, care about the condition of their home networks, “specialists” who know the commands for the CISCO and Mikrotik models by heart, and those “in between” who know the term black / white list, DNS or WPS, but not they are going to go crazy on purpose. The Tenda AC7 and AC11 models should appeal to these thirds, just looking for a new home router.

A new home router in the spotlight? Check out what the Tenda AC7 and AC11 have to offer

Both the Tenda AC7 and AC11 are examples of routers that you won’t do much to. You can buy them for less than PLN 100, providing yourself with equipment that will definitely cope with the daily challenges posed by a small family, eagerly browsing social media or watching Netflix. These two models are quite interesting if we compare them with each other, because the AC11 is, in a way, a model with developed and enriched AC7 capabilities. In the boxes of both routers you will find a power supply and a traditional Ethernet cable (twisted pair), and their basic configuration can be reduced to connecting them to electricity, a wired connection and the migration of the PPPoE account from the existing router.

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Both are closed in quite sophisticated-looking, modern housings, which, although completely plastic, make a decent impression. Each of them offers the simultaneous generation of networks on the 2.4 and 5 GHz frequency, where they achieve transfer speeds of up to 300 and 867 Mb / s and transmission power at the level of <20 and 23 dBm. The AC11 is slightly better at generating Wi-Fi networks, however, using five external 6dBi antennas, while the AC7 operates at the more traditional 5dBi.

Another difference between these routers is the connectivity backbone, which comes down to the transfers and support of the IEEE802.3, IEEE802.3u and IEEE802.3u protocols. IEEE802.3ab (only for AC11). While both offer access to 1 WAN and 3 LAN ports, the AC7 can handle wired speeds down to just 100Mbps, and the AC11 can handle much more decent 1000Mbps. In other words, if you especially care about connecting computers or other routers to these routers and you have access to an efficient Internet connection, then you should definitely reach for AC11 from these two.

On the security side, they support WPA-PSK / WPA2-PSK and WPA / WPA2, and as you well know, solid Wi-Fi security is the key. Therefore, you better try not only to change the password from the standard 12345678 to something other than admin123. Reason? Imagine that someone will connect to your Wi-Fi and then enter the router’s configuration page, log in (we change the password there even less often), block ports or redirect network traffic so that it passes through its server. Then it is really easy to crash.

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Fortunately, you can protect yourself from this, and the Tenda AC7 and AC11 routers can do this not only through a solid password, but also white lists (allowing devices with a specific MAC to access Wi-Fi). Their meaning may seem unclear at first, but they constitute a second barrier to security and… control. Imagine that you give your children / household members a Wi-Fi password, but before that you set it so that only devices that you “know” (their main smartphones, laptops and computers) have access to it.

Then the smarter kid, who will have access to Wi-Fi cut off at specific times, will not get around this security by simply using the second phone. On the other hand, the black list will allow you, for example, to completely cut off a given smartphone from Wi-Fi, and the option of a guest network will cut them off from your equipment, making it easier for them to access it.

Configuring this, as well as the general configuration of these routers, including specifying a pool of DNS addresses and assigning them to specific devices in accordance with e.g. a NAS server, is also trivial, because it is available from the level of the intuitive Tenda menu.

In addition, AC11 supports the Tenda Wi-Fi application for smartphones, which makes the entire management process even easier. Many will also appreciate the support of SSID Broadcast, WPS, built-in firewall, port forwarding, setting up a demilitarized zone, or UPnP, as well as setting the Wi-Fi time frame and other energy-saving functions.

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The Tenda AC7 and Tenda AC11 routers, at least on paper, give the impression of decent devices, which are perfect for providing your apartment with Wi-Fi networks in every corner. As examples of routers with a good price-performance ratio and quality, they will allow you to manage your home network, take care of its security and control users, all for little, because you can buy both models below one hundred zlotys. You can find them in reputable electronics stores or on Amazon.pl.