Asus DSL-AC55U

ROUTER ❘ £80 from Currys www.snipca.com/24582

As Asus router doesn’t break speed limits

These days, signing up for super-fast broadband with one of the major internetet service providers gets you a decent Wi-fi router as part of the deal. If you have an older model, though, it may be holding back your connection speeds around the house. A budget 802.11ac router could be the cost-effective fix you need.

Some routers have no built-in modem, and must connect to an existing cable modem or switchable modem/router, while others support ADSL2+ (for copperer phone lines) or VDSL2 (for fibre). The Asus DSL-AC55U caters for all these, which simplifies your choice. As you’d expect for the very reasonable price, it’s not the world’s most advanced router, but it has a broad set of features.

Alongside the WAN (modem) and ADSL2+/VDSL2 ports, there are four Gigabit Ethernet sockets for top-speed wired networking and a single USB 2.0 socket. This can be used to connect and share storage (albeit at limited speeds) or a printer across your home network, or to plug in a 3G/4G pay-as-you-go data dongle from your mobile-phone network as a backup if your broadband connection fails.

It’s difficult to miss the router’s four adjustable, removable aerials, which let you tweak the wireless signal for the best reception. Blue LEDS along the front let you know what’s going on. The DSL-AC55U is configured from your PC through an online interface, which gives access to a huge array of features. You can set up one or more guest networks and apply parental controls to individual devices that let you block internet access at specific times of day.

A dual-band 802.11ac model like this, supporting both 2.4GHZ and the less congested 5GHZ, should give you a step up in speed and reliability from older 802.11n devices. However, the DSL-AC55U offers maximum connection rates of 300Mbps on 2.4GHZ and 867Mbps on 5GHZ respectively, which is quite slow for a modern router.

This was borne out in our performance tests. At close range we got up to 436Mbps, which is good, but 10 metres away at the back of the house this fell to 22.3Mbps on 5GHZ and 25.2Mbps on 2.4GHZ. That’s below average, and significantly slower than BT’S latest Smart Hub or Virgin Media’s Hub 3.0, across all distances.

You’ll appreciate its versatility, but it runs in the slow lane