Take control of your WiFi and double your bandwidth with Linksys WRT3200ACM router

“Dad is the WiFi down?”

“This darn movie is buffering again”

“I get an error when I try to load a website”

“Why is the internet so slow?!?”

“Great. I now got killed because of this dodgy connection”

This is what I have to deal with. These tech complaints from various household members seem to be getting more frequent and since I have had my Internet checked for faults, it means that the issue resides inside my house. In fact, the cause of all these family-support-tech-queries comes due to one little box that we don’t give a thought to after we purchase it –  The internet router.

Connectivity seems to have become sluggish

In today’s modern home, it is common to find a combination of phones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles, security cameras, streaming media players and even smart appliances. These devices receive their Internet access by connecting to the home WiFi, which is supplied by the router. The router then connects via a Cable/Fiber/ ADSL to the Internet Service Provider which provides access to the internet. Pretty straight forward.

So why is it that the home our connectivity seems to have become sluggish and laggy ?

Our internet habits have changed. We no longer just browse various websites and send some emails but from each of these devices we are now streaming video from Netflix and Hulu, listening to podcasts and music from Spotify, we are video conferencing with friends and relatives via Skype and FaceTime, and we are playing online games from our consoles. All of these require high-intensity bandwidth.

Just like heading home at 5pm. It’s rush hour. There are so many cars on the road which means that all the cars travel at a slow speed. The router has to manage each device’s request to send and receive data from the internet. The more devices requesting data at the same time means that the router can’t handle it all and things start to buffer and slow down.

With older routers, referred to as single-user (SU-MIMO) routers, each device waits its turn to send and receive data from the Internet, so when a new device connects, the line becomes a little longer. You might not notice it as first especially when all your devices are not working at the same time however when you have a family event, or a school vacation when everyone is accessing the WiFi, then you feel it.

The solution – Linksys WRT3200ACM router

How much faster would your commute home be if instead of sharing the same stretch of road with other cars, you would be given your own highway? This is what the Linksys WRT3200ACM does for your data. Each device is given its own dedicated data stream so it no longer has to wait in line and fight for the internet’s attention. Linksys does this by not only having a high spec router  (1.8 GHz CPU with 256MB Flash and 512MB of RAM Memory ) which ensures that data is managed efficiently, but it is based on the new concept of Multi-user, multiple-input, multiple-output technology (MU-MIMO). Therefore the router is designed to handle bandwidth-intensive environments so that choppy buffering videos is a thing of the past.

What’s the difference between a 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi network ?

When you set up the Linksys WRT3200ACM  router, it launches a simple step-by-step wizard which allows you to easily set up your own network. You will be asked to name your two WiFi networks – a 2.5 GHz WiFi network as well as a 5 GHz WiFi network.

What’s the difference?

The “normal” WiFi runs at 2.5Ghz and that is what most laptops and tablets connect to. The problem that can occur is that once again like a road, it can get pretty congested. Therefore a second “highway” is created at a higher frequency of 5 GHz which is what you would connect your data intense devices to. While technically, the 5 GHz is a “better” WiFi  its downside is that it struggles to penetrate through walls. So if you are indoors and have a stationary device such as a media streamer or gaming console that has the 5GHz WiFi capability, connect to the 5Ghz network. However, if you are wondering around the house with your phone, then you might lose signal as you walk away from the router.

The Linksys WRT3200ACM Router is powered by Tri-Stream 160 technology, which doubles the bandwidth on all spatial streams for the fastest dual-band router on the market. There was literally no way for me to test this router’s limitation – I had the PlayStation stream Netflix, the iPad Mini streaming YouTube, two laptops streaming video and music, phones updating applications and browsing the web. All at the exact same time and not a single complaint from anyone.

So in Summary:

If you are experiencing slow sluggish network and you have checked with your service provider that there is nothing wrong on their end, then it’s time future proof your internet router and check out the Linksys WRT3200ACM router. It has so many more features I didn’t discuss such as the ability to prioritize devices and even apps on the network, the ability to create guest WiFi, the fact that is has a cool app to manage the router settings and it’s Open Source Ready so the geeks can program their own interfaces and configuration.

Finally, what I really like is being able to visually see my entire network so I know what is connected and most importantly, I can now see which device is using the most amount of bandwidth.

Using Parental Controls, I can block internet access during times when my kids are supposed to be studying (or doing their chores)!

For more info about this Linksys WRT3200ACM router, head over to http://bby.me/lf3h

Disclaimer:  As with everything on the site, the opinions are 100% my own. The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free