The cheapest Wi-Fi 7 router is this $99 TP-Link one

TP-Link has debuted the Archer BE3600, a $99 Wi-Fi 7 router that is the cheapest 1 we’ve seen released successful the US truthful acold since the archetypal routers supporting the caller modular started arriving past year.

It doesn’t person the caller 6GHz set similar its pricier cousins oregon adjacent galore of the Wi-Fi 6E routers already connected the market, though. As a result, for galore people, TP-Link’s caller router astir apt won’t get you your downloads a batch faster — if astatine each — than would a overmuch older router.

The caller tricks tin mean a small throughput boost oregon a much unchangeable transportation than routers built to older specs successful congested areas, though, acknowledgment to the mode Wi-Fi 7 handles its information streams. But without the one-two 6GHz punch of wider information channels and overmuch much unoccupied space, you simply won’t spot galore of the multi-gigabit benefits hyped successful Wi-Fi 7 marketing, and if you person a multi-gig net connection, you should astir apt link it to thing a small much upmarket.

There are things to similar here, though. Two of its 5 ethernet ports connection 2.5Gbps connections, which is uncommon astatine this price. It besides supports Multi-Link Operation, which won’t beryllium truthful overmuch a throughput payment (again: nary 6GHz band) but could mean a much unchangeable transportation for a Wi-Fi 7-capable telephone oregon VR headset — if 1 set fails oregon is excessively busy, your aboriginal instrumentality tin autumn backmost onto the different one. And it supports the Wi-Fi Alliance’s EasyMesh standard, meaning it tin marque mesh netwok with routers from different brands that besides enactment the standard.

The astir important happening astir this router seems to beryllium that it offers Wi-Fi 7 for little than $100. That’s a first, and by a just magnitude — the debased extremity close present is different mostly astir $300 (see TP-Link’s Deco BE63 oregon Archer BE550).