NBN Corp has announced wholesale price changes for 2026, and as we saw last year, the prices will go up rather than down. According to NBN "the wholesale price change is between $0 and $2.34 per month" depending on a connection's speed tier, but that doesn't necessarily mean your NBN provider will increase or decrease their monthly fees: it just means your provider will be paying NBN more.

Are NBN providers likely to absorb that cost, though? Probably not.

The increases are, depending on how you look at it, pretty miniscule. If you're on an NBN 500 plan—which most people in metropolitan centres probably are, nowadays—the wholesale price of those is increasing by an average of AU$2.32 a month. For NBN 1000 it's less at AU$1.95 a month.

"NBN’s wholesale prices will be adjusted, on average, by just under the annual percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), measured over the 12 months to 31 December 2025, which was 3.63 per cent," the NBN helpfully elaborates. The main take away is that, with the new financial year looming, NBN prices are likely to increase on a provider-by-provider basis.

Spending more on the internet, whether a tiny bit or a lot, is annoying and you shouldn't take it sitting down. If you want to delay any inevitable increases, it's probably wise to jump on one of the many introductory NBN deals floating around at the moment. It means you'll get to enjoy between 6 and 12 months of internet at a lower price than usual, and because these offers are promotional, the provider needs to honour it for the duration.

A deal I reported on recently is one I think you should consider if you want to lock in a low monthly price for as long as possible. Kogan Internet's normal monthly cost for NBN 500 is AU$85.90 per month, which could increase to around AU$88 per month in the next financial year. But if you jump on its pretty amazing AU$71.90 per month introductory deal right now, which lasts 12 months, that's what you'll pay until May next year.

Here are some of the best introductory offers going around for NBN 500 plans at the moment (this is not exhaustive; check out our guide to NBN plans in Australia for the full rundown).

That Kogan price is the best at the moment if you look at the whole year, and it's the connection I've been meaning to jump to since my previous Spintel introductory offer elapsed.

There are also some very decent introductory prices on NBN 1000 going around (though no where near as many):

In other words, there are plenty of good reasons not to spend a great deal on the internet, especially in light of a looming (though still vague) price hike.

NBN 500 and NBN 1000 connections are only available on FTTP and HTC connections. If you're not on either of those, you should check on the NBN website to see if you're eligible for an upgrade.

I've always been an advocate of keeping your personal data as private as you can to stave off the creeping hand of digital tyranny, but for gaming? Nah, no chance. I'm a (wannabe) competitive gamer and I need my latency as low as possible, and VPNs are a no-go. At least, that's what I thought until I actually tried a bunch of them out for an extended period.

During my testing of the best VPNs for gaming, I was surprised to find that—at least with some of them, in my location—it wasn't a case of making the best of a bad situation. In fact, in some cases my ping actually dropped lower than without a VPN on.

This is good news not just because it means you don't have to keep toggling your VPN off and on, or keep adding an app to your 'split tunnel' in the VPN software each time you install a new game, but also because you get to keep all the benefits of a VPN while playing your games.

If you're cautious about sketchy enemies or teammates potentially trying to don their 1337 hacker gloves and doxx you, for instance, keeping your VPN on can give you some more peace of mind. And if your ISP throttles gaming speeds, as some are known to do, a VPN should be able to hide what you're doing so speeds are kept high.

It might be counterintuitive at first, but the fact that a VPN might not actually cause much of a problem for your ping and even improve it, in some cases, makes sense when you consider that really all that's going on is your data is still just travelling to and from a given destination.

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VPN performance comparison

Local ping (Counter-Strike 2)

No VPN

12.58

NordVPN

12.73

Windscribe

12.34

Surfshark

13.54

Mullvad

12.55

Proton

13.8

ExpressVPN

12.22

03.757.511.2515

Ping (ms)

Local ping (Counter-Strike 2) Data

Product	Value
No VPN	12.58
NordVPN	12.73
Windscribe	12.34
Surfshark	13.54
Mullvad	12.55
Proton	13.8
ExpressVPN	12.22

Average ping in CS2 Deathmatch games in the same country (UK) and connected to the same game server, with data collected over multiple runs.

VPN performance comparison

Jitter (Cloudflare speed test)

No VPN

10.66

NordVPN

14.06

Windscribe

12.9

Surfshark

12.37

Mullvad

12.4

Proton

20.7

ExpressVPN

12.07

07.51522.530

Jitter (ms)

Jitter (Cloudflare speed test) Data

Product	Value
No VPN	10.66
NordVPN	14.06
Windscribe	12.9
Surfshark	12.37
Mullvad	12.4
Proton	20.7
ExpressVPN	12.07

Average jitter as measured over multiple runs on speed.cloudflare.com

VPN performance comparison

Download time (15.3 GB, Team Fortress 2 on Steam)

No VPN

271

NordVPN

275

Windscribe

276

Surfshark

276

Mullvad

276

Proton

275

ExpressVPN

287

075150225300

Time (seconds)

Download time (15.3 GB, Team Fortress 2 on Steam) Data

Product	Value
No VPN	271
NordVPN	275
Windscribe	276
Surfshark	276
Mullvad	276
Proton	275
ExpressVPN	287

Time taken (in seconds) to download the same 15.3 GB on Steam, connected to the same Steam download server.

VPN performance comparison

Distance ping (Counter-Strike 2)

NordVPN

85.13

Windscribe

86.19

Surfshark

86.58

Mullvad

87.69

Proton

86.93

ExpressVPN

85.79

0255075100

Ping (ms)

Distance ping (Counter-Strike 2) Data

Product	Value
NordVPN	85.13
Windscribe	86.19
Surfshark	86.58
Mullvad	87.69
Proton	86.93
ExpressVPN	85.79

Ping in CS2 Deathmatch games in a different country (USA) and connected to the same game server.

It can either travel along a route and to a server that your internet service provider (ISP) dictates, or that the VPN dictates (or, as actually happens, a mix of the two). If a VPN server you're connecting to is closer to a game server than your ISP's server, or if the VPN route gets you there more directly, you might end up with better ping and lower latency.

For instance, as you can see in my benchmark results above, my ping actually dropped to 12.34 ms connected to Windscribe, my pick as the best VPN for low ping. Sure, the difference isn't massive given my ping was already a relatively low 12.58 ms, but the fact it dropped at all over multiple benchmarks is impressive. I will say that ExpressVPN was even lower, but all things considered I'm picking Windscribe over that one, personally, based on the companies and how much I'd trust my data in their hands.

Those results are averages across multiple runs in-game, and actually if I look at the raw data, one run for Windscribe gave me an average ping of 12.27 ms, and one with ExpressVPN gave 12.16 ms. And even when pings were higher, they were usually only ever more slightly so. NordVPN, for instance, would be my own personal VPN of choice because, while it might give me a slightly higher ping than my native connection, the difference really is very slight and there are other benefits to the VPN (overall compatibility, number of servers, other features like adblocks, etc.).

If you want your VPN to work across the board, compatibility will be an important factor. With Windscribe and Surfshark, for instance, I couldn't get Valorant up and running at all. I was either blocked from logging into the Riot app or from booting up the game, and I struggled to load Riot's website, too.

That being said, if you have a problem using a VPN with a particular app or website, you can permit the latter to not go through your VPN without disconnecting everything else from it. This is called 'split tunnelling'. In Windscribe, for instance, I can turn split tunnelling on and set it to 'exclusive', meaning everything goes through the VPN excluding the apps and sites I choose. After doing this, I added the Riot app and the Valorant executable(s) to the list—including 'Valorant-Win64-Shipping' which I had to find by inspecting the process in Task Manager.

That's more of a workaround than actually getting an app or website working with the VPN, but it's an option. Every VPN I tested allowed for split tunnelling, so if you don't mind having some things route outside your VPN then any should be fine. But if you want everything on the VPN, that will eliminate some options which leaves NordVPN as the best overall.

The long and short of it, though, is that if you can manage to get everything on the VPN, it doesn't have to be as much of a death sentence for your online gaming connection as I thought—far from it. If your ISP throttles gaming speeds, as some have been known to do, then it can help with that, but even if you have a pretty great connection for online gaming to begin with, I've found it can still help or at the very least not hinder anything.

I don't think twice before spending AU$70 on a Steam sale or on two delivered gourmet pizzas, but it annoys me that I have to pay for utilities. Internet should be free anyway (how else can corporations extract our lucrative private data?). But right now I have to pay for it, and it's my mission is to pay as little as possible.

Since my six-month introductory offer with Spintel has drawn to a close (admittedly months ago—I'm getting lazy), I've been shopping around again. This time I'm just looking for the absolute cheapest—prestige of the brand be damned—and one I can set and forget for a while.

And, well, here's what I found:

That's a damn, damn good price for a full year of NBN 500.

Let's just say you're shopping around and notice that Origin is offering NBN 500 for AU$53.50 a month. It seems good on the surface, but that's a six-month introductory offer, after which time the price rises to AU$107, resulting in a yearly total of AU$963.

Sure, you can use Origin for six months, for example, and move on. If you have the dedication to do, I highly recommend you do. But I've found myself far less inclined to hop around than I had hoped, making Kogan's deal damn fine for me.

Here's how Kogan compares with other providers on the cheaper end of the spectrum:

As always, NBN 500 requires a FTTP or HFC connection. If you're still on FTTN, check your upgrade eligibility on the NBN website.

Doom runs on just about everything. From 100 pounds of mouldy potatoes to a pregnancy test, creators have endeavoured to run everyone's favourite demon-blasting fest on all sorts of hardware—but cramming its code inside DNS text records is a new one on me.

That's what Doom Over DNS does, and it's a remarkable bit of lateral thinking from the mind of Adam Rice. Essentially, the entirety of shareware Doom has been split into 1,964 DNS text records that can be stored across a single Cloudflare zone, which in turn is reassembled by a PowerShell script making public DNS queries. Resulting in... well, Doom, as we've come to know and love it.

As this breakdown explains, the Domain Name System (DNS) turns domain names into IP addresses, acting a bit like a phonebook for the internet.

However, it also supports text records, with fields that are usually used for mundane entries like email authentication data. Each record can hold around 2,000 characters, and they're not validated, which means you can put anything you like inside them.

Apparently. This is all news to me, as I understand the internet as a series of tubes. Props if you got the reference without clicking the link.

With an initial goal of storing an encoded movie collection within that text data (I wonder how many records that would take?) the project was pivoted to first Base64-encode a picture of a duck (why not), with a metadata record that would allow a reassembly script to piece it back together.

Duck test successful, the scope of the project was adjusted. Sure, a small .jpg of a duck is easy enough, but a 1 GB .mp4 file? That'd take roughly 670,000 text records. What's needed is something smaller, something easily compressed... something like Doom.

After using Claude to re-write some of the game code to run from a memory stream rather than on-disk system files (and cutting the audio to keep the file size down) Doom was then compressed into code chunks that would fit inside multiple text records, which were then contained within a single CloudFlare Pro DNS zone.

The script that runs Doom is a neat little 250 lines of standalone PowerShell code, which is capable of resolving all the DNS queries needed to grab Doom's data in 10-20 seconds. It then reassembles everything in memory, loads the assemblies, and launches the game with nothing written to disk.

"DNS is almost 45 years old and it was designed to map hostnames to IP addresses. It is not a file storage system. It was not designed to be a file storage system", says Rice.

"Nobody at the IETF was thinking about it being used as a file storage system when they wrote RFC 1035. Yet here we are. The most boring protocol on the internet is also, quietly, one of the most abusable."

Well, congratulations. Doom has once again been forced to run on something it should not be run on, and we've all learned something about how the internet works. Or how Doom works. Whatever. It ain't half cool though, ey?

After the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries on its Covered List earlier this week, effectively banning the sale of new models in the country without special permission, Taiwanese manufacturer Asus has been quick to respond.

An official statement released by the company yesterday says the following: "Asus has proudly served US customers since 1991, with a long-standing commitment to trusted innovation and strong product security.

"We are confident in the integrity of our supply chain and the security of our networking products. This FCC action has no impact on existing ASUS router users, software updates, and customer support."

With unfortunate timing, Asus also published a major security update for its routers on the very same day. The patch aims to mitigate against CVE-2025-15101, a particularly nasty-sounding vulnerability that scores an 8.5 out of 10 (or High severity) on the official record.

According to its listing, CVE-2025-15101 "potentially allows actions to be performed with the existing privileges of an authenticated user on the affected device, including the ability to execute system commands through unintended mechanisms".

On the one hand, you could argue that the continual discovery and patching of these flaws speaks to Asus' commitment to ongoing security. On the other, the fact that such major vulnerabilities are still cropping up on Asus routers is perhaps a little defeating of the point.

Of course, all router manufacturers experience security issues from time to time, and Asus is far from unique in this regard. Hackers managed to hijack over 16,000 TP-Link routers (and other networking devices) in 2024, creating an Azure-slamming botnet of massive proportions.

Not to mention older Cisco Linksys routers being called out by the FBI for their vulnerabilities, no less. However, Asus does seem to patch its routers more often than most, which again, could be looked at in two different ways.

Certainly, the timing of this particular fix is less than ideal. But hey, it's a good chance for me to remind you once again: Update your networking hardware, folks. It simply ain't worth the risk to ignore.

As part of the country's defense-shoring strategy, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has put "all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries" on the Covered List. This means foreign routers are now "deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the US or the safety and security of US persons" and will require special permission to be sold in the US.

The FCC notes that "the restrictions imposed today apply to new device models", not ones consumers already own, or ones being sold and marketed that have been previously approved by the FCC.

This is considered an application of President Trump's strategy [PDF] to "re-secure our own independent and reliable access to the goods we need to defend ourselves and preserve our way of life." Ie, isolationist economics, ostensibly for national security.

It makes sense for routers, specifically, to be on this list, given the potential vectors for attack they open up. And if those routers are foreign-made, it makes sense that a state might be cautious. We've already seen, for instance, TP-Link routers being hijacked by hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government. And there have been calls to ban these routers for some time.

The FCC's decision is informed by an inter-agency expert determination [PDF] that explains the risk: "Given the criticality of routers to the successful functioning of our nation’s economy and defense, the United States can no longer depend on foreign nations for router manufacturing ... Compromised routers can enable in-depth network surveillance, data exfiltration, botnet attacks, and unauthorized access to US government or American businesses’ networks ... foreign-produced routers present additional and unacceptable risks to Americans."

This statement cites a report from CISA, the NSA, and the FBI that says these bodies "assess that People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actors are seeking to pre-position themselves on IT networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against US critical infrastructure in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States."

These concerns aren't anything new, as anyone who's got an eye on cybersecurity will likely have seen increasing focus on 'supply chain' attacks over the last year or two. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), for instance, recently said "software supply chain failures" are one of the top web app security risks. In other words, vulnerabilities at source (or some other point in the supply chain) are becoming a real issue. Throw in some increased risk of interference from the manufacturer's state agencies, and you can see why precautions might be prudent.

Thus the ban on new foreign routers. However, it's not an unbreakable blanket ban, as the determination states—and the FCC agrees—that there should be a way for routers to become approved:

"To facilitate this transition period, entities that produce routers in a foreign country are encouraged to apply for Conditional Approvals (Annex A) which, if approved, will allow such producers to continue to receive FCC authorization for their products while they work to address the US government’s national security concerns described above."

So, it's not as if all TP-Link routers are going to disappear in a cloud of smoke and you'll have the state knocking at your door to collect contraband. Instead, it just looks like the US government is getting a little more serious about ensuring the networking devices it lets in are secure and don't pose a national security threat.

Superloop threw me for a loop last year with its introductory price on NBN 1000: as part of its Black Friday sales it offered 1000 Mbps NBN for AU$79 a month for six months, instead of the usual AU$109 a month. That's a discount of AU$30 per month, or in other words, AU$180 in total savings.

Well, apropos of nothing (or perhaps apropos of wanting to attract more customers) Superloop is offering the same deal again. If you missed out last time, now's your chance to sample NBN 1000 for the common going rate of NBN 500.

I checked in with the competition and Superloop is safely among the cheapest NBN 1000 introductory plans at present, though not the cheapest. Here's where the market is at a glance:

Astute readers of charts will note that Dodo's total yearly price is six cents cheaper than Superloop's, and their introductory price wins by a full dollar. But Superloop is a much better provider, especially for gaming. According to the ACCC it's the best low-latency provider, with a ping of only 8.7ms during peak hours, versus Dodo's 10.9ms. When you look at other metrics it's also the winner: it has far fewer outages, and pages load quicker.

As for Origin, the ACCC's testing doesn't appear to include this provider, but their offer may be mighty tempting if you have your electricity with them too.

It's worth pointing out that speeds of above 100 Mbps require either FTTP or HTC connections. If you're still on a FTTN connection, you'll need to wait until NBN has rolled out FTTP to your property. You can find out if you're eligible here.

Superloop, by the way, is oalso offering discounts on its other NBN plans, as per below:

• NBN 500: AU$65 per month for six months (AU$95 p/m ongoing)
• NBN 750: AU$74 per month for six months (AU$104 p/m ongoing)

For a bigger overview of NBN plans, check out the best Australian NBN plans for gaming.

Cloudflare has sent us a copy of its quarterly DDoS threat report, and it makes for hair-raising reading. The gigantic CDN provider claims that it recorded "an unprecedented bombardment" from a botnet in the fourth quarter of 2025, resulting in a DDoS attack that peaked at 31.4 Terabits a second.

Cloudflare claims that this is "the largest attack ever disclosed publicly", and "a new world record". The attack is said to have been launched by the Aisuru/Kimwolf botnet against Cloudflare customers and its infrastructure, with the campaign itself dubbed "The Night Before Christmas".

The campaign is believed to have begun on December 19, 2025, and it's said that over 94% of the attacks delivered between one and five billion packets of unwanted traffic per second, with 58% of those lasting between one and two minutes.

It appears that similar attacks are on the rise, with Cloudflare claiming that in the final quarter of 2025, the amount of DDoS attacks overall grew by 31% quarter-over-quarter and 58% year-over-year.

Telecommunications providers are believed to have borne the brunt of so-called "hyper-volumetric" attacks, with 42% pointing their way. 15% are said to have targeted information technology and services providers, while a mere 2% affected gaming. Small mercies, I guess, although Arc Raiders developer Embark has recently complained of an "extensive" coordinated DDoS attack this week, which suggests that modern gaming providers are far from immune.

In terms of the most attacked locations for DDoS attacks in Q4 of 2025, China, Hong Kong, Germany, and Brazil make up the top four, with the US coming in fifth, just ahead of the UK. In terms of the geographical sources of the attacks, the report claims that Bangladesh tops the list, with Ecuador, Indonesia, Argentina and Hong Kong making up the rest of the top five.

The report highlights that the top 10 list of attack source networks "reads like a list of internet giants", stating that:

"The common thread is clear: threat actors are leveraging the world's most accessible and powerful network infrastructure, primarily large, public-facing services."

Cloud computing providers like DigitalOcean, Microsoft, Tencent, Oracle and Hetzner are claimed to be the largest sources of DDoS attacks, "demonstrating the strong link between easily-provisioned virtual machines and high-volume attacks".

Ah, it's a scary digital world out there. By the looks of this data, it seems it might not be long before this new record is broken, although Cloudflare says that over 50% of HTTP DDoS attacks were detected and mitigated by its new real-time botnet detection system. So, it's the same old game of cat and mouse—but this particular squeaker seems to be getting larger every year.

Every time I write about decent NBN deals I have to point out that the contract-free nature of most plans means you can hop around easily. This comes especially handy if you want to take advantage of a provider's introductory prices, which can usually shave off at least AU$20 from your monthly bill.

These introductory discounts generally last for six months, and if you time things right it means you could be feasting on sub-AU$65 NBN 500 for a long time (or at least, until prices inevitably go up). That's been the case since NBN 500 rolled out late last year, and most providers have relaxed into a fairly safe AU$65 per month bargain ball park.

That's why Dodo's latest offer caught my attention. The bird company is offering NBN 500 for AU$72.99 per month as an introductory price, down from AU$92.99. That doesn't look too great at first glance, but that introductory price is actually for a year rather than the usual six months. If you stick with the provider for a whole year, it actually shakes out to be quite cheap compared to all competition.

Check out this table, where I compare Dodo's 12 month price with the next best ISPs in terms of low price.

There's nothing particularly competitive about Dodo's regular price of AU$92.99, which is on the higher side (unless you count the ridiculously expensive likes of Telstra). I wouldn't stick with the provider once the price increased to normal: I'd simply switch to someone else.

But if you want damn cheap NBN and don't want to shop around every six months for it, this is the best you can get at the moment for a full year of internet connectivity.

When it comes to the specifics of Dodo's offering, the stats are good. Typical evening speeds are 500 Mbps, which means there's no (advertised) penalty for using the internet during peak times. You get an advertised 48 Mbps upload speed too. According to the most recent ACCC NBN broadband performance data, Dodo ranks highly for speed reliability so those promises above check out.

To get further into the weeds, again via the ACCC: Dodo's latency sits around 10ms during busy hours, which is pretty par for the course unless you're exceptionally good like Exetel (7ms) or not so great like iiNet (13ms). This is probably only worth noting if you're a multiplayer gamer.

You also have to actually be eligible to connect to an NBN 500 service. You'll need either a fibre to the premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coax (HFC) connection. If you're still on an inferior fibre to the node (FTTN) connection, you're currently limited to a maximum of NBN 100. Which sucks.

But things will hopefully change for you soon, and maybe you're eligible for a free upgrade right now. You can check on the NBN website to find out.

For someone whose daily job is to write about, test, and review PCs, components, and peripherals, you'd think I'd know instantly what my top pick for the best hardware of 2025 is. The problem is, I've been utterly spoilt for choice this year.

As well as officially reviewing numerous mice, ergonomic keyboards, motherboards, RAM kits, processors, and all kinds of other hardware, I've also used a range of PC products for testing game performance and just as part of my collection of test rigs in the office. Some of them I've bought myself, others have been kindly provided by hardware companies (and let me take this opportunity to directly thank MSI, Asus, and Corsair on that note).

Absolutely none of it has been rubbish. Even the products that didn't get a high review score still had some feature to make them stand out a bit from the crowd, or offered something special for the right user. I absolutely adore Thermal Grizzly's Der8enchtable, for example, but it's near-useless for most PC gamers.

Likewise, I was left really disappointed by the Naya Create, but I bet that with all its 'early access' niggles fixed, it could be the ultimate ergo keyboard for some folk. And I can say pretty much the same about anything I've reviewed or used this year.

But there's been one piece of kit that's graced my office in 2025 that, and I say this without a hint of hyperbole, has utterly changed my daily PC life, both for work and gaming. Believe it or not, it's a mere router. Yes, I know that the technically correct phrase is 'a router, switch, and wireless access point all-in-one device', but you know what I mean.

Specifically, it's the TP-Link Deco BE68 (or BE67, if you buy it at Amazon) and continuing with the theme of specificity, it's a mesh router. Basically, you get two or three nodes/hubs/routers in the box, and you can either link them together via LAN cables or let them automatically create a seamless network via Wi-Fi.

The secret sauce behind the Deco's brilliance is Wi-Fi 7, and I can tell now, with all honesty, switching from a Wi-Fi 6 network to a home full of Deco wireless connectivity has been the best upgrade I've done... well, not just this year, but probably the past five years.

I have a 1.1 Gbps fibre connection to my house, but with my previous Wi-Fi network, I could only ever get a download speed of 450 Mbps, maybe 500 at best. Given the location of my office and the nature of the house, trailing LAN cables everywhere isn't an option, nor is using powerline adapters to route the network through the electrical mains rings.

That's all a thing of the past. Using just two out of three hubs in the Deco BE68's box, I now have a wireless network that I have absolutely no problem hitting my Internet connection speed limit with. Of course, I only get that on my PCs that have Wi-Fi 7 motherboards, but thanks to the Deco's triple bands and the multi-link operation (MLO) feature of Wi-Fi 7, older hardware still enjoys great networking speeds, too.

While the Kinesis Gaming Freestyle Edge RGB Plus and Razer Pro Click V2 Vertical mean I have a stress-free body during work, they only benefit me. The TP-Link router has improved everyone's digital life at home, though for the most part, they're completely oblivious to it.

I'm not, though. No longer do I have to explain 'Why is the Internet slow?' or magically make someone's movie stop buffering while I download a 100 GB game for testing. Since switching to the Deco BE68, nobody has complained once about our net connection. I can download Baldur's Gate 3 for testing a CPU in less than 20 minutes. I have multiple networks for heavy users, guests, and IoT devices—none of which were difficult to set up.

Sure, I wish I still had the Ryzen 9 9950X3D or Alienware 18 Area-51 I reviewed, but even if I did, they certainly wouldn't have made as big an impact on me, my home, and everyone in it as the TP-Link Deco BE 68 has.

Oh dear Lord, I'm gushing over a bloody router. Quick, somebody send me a new CPU or graphics card to review that triples my frame rates. I mean, that's the sort of thing PC gamers want to read about, yes? Not 'Nick's family haven't noticed how great the Wi-Fi is now'.

If you want to find out who wins in the PC Gamer Hardware Awards, we'll be publishing all the winners on New Year's Eve.

The vast majority of new games released for the humble PC are published with a list of what hardware is required to run it and another list of 'recommended' specs. However, the breadth and depth of this information vary enormously, but not so in the case of the forthcoming voxel-based sandbox Hytale. Its system requirements are so detailed that you'll probably be able to figure out the exact setting you'll be using the game, long before you get a chance to install it.

You can check them out for yourself via Hypixel Studio's news post on the matter. Let's start with the good stuff to begin with, just as Hypixel does: listing the expected performance, graphics preset, and screen resolution for the minimum, recommended, and 'streamer' requirements.

Specifically, it's 30 fps at 1080p Low for minimum, 60 fps at 1080p High for recommended, and "stable framerate with high-quality video capture and streaming at 1440p". Okay, so two out of three isn't bad, at least.

Moving on to the actual hardware requirements, you'll immediately notice that none of this is especially demanding. Even for the recommended specs, you're looking at a six-core CPU from 2019, a decade-old GPU, 16 GB of RAM, and just 20 GB of storage, albeit on an NVMe SSD. Heck, the minimum CPU is a four-core, four-thread Ryzen from 2017!

Truth be told, this is no different from Minecraft, where both Bedrock and Java versions sport system requirements so old that a degree in archaeology might be more useful for translating them than having some PC knowledge. However, as any keen Minecrafter will tell you, if you want to enjoy the game properly, your rig needs quite a bit more poke behind it.

It's the same with Hytale, but where Mojang just leaves you to figure it all out yourself, Hypixel Studios has gone into a lot of detail about client and server performance, network requirements, and how the game's visual settings will interact with your hardware.

For example, it writes that "[an] Intel HD Graphics 630 achieved ~30–34 FPS at 1080p [Low]" and that for streaming, "One internal benchmark (AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, NVIDIA RTX 5080, 2x32 GB DDR5-6000) sustained around 400 FPS at 3840×1440 resolution with view distance set to 768 blocks in singleplayer while recording the game in AV1."

I wish more studios would take the time to put this much effort into detailing their game's system requirements. Just stating that it needs a certain CPU and GPU doesn't tell me anything, to be honest: we need to know how well the game will run on that hardware and with what settings.

But even that's only half the story. What about multiplayer or streaming? What's really more important to the game's performance, CPU or GPU? Do I really need 100 GB of storage space, or can I get away with less?

None of this will make the game better, of course, but if a developer is willing to carefully explain the relationship between the game, its performance, and your hardware, it suggests to me that it's doing more than the bare minimum of just getting it run.

Hytale is expected to have an early access launch in January 2026, so it's not long to wait to see just how well Hypixel Studios understands its game and PCs in general.

If there's one thing sure to ruin your day at work, it's receiving an unrealistic target from your higher-ups. Pour one out, then, for the Google employees who attended an all-hands meeting earlier this month, only to be told that they need to double its serving capacity every six months to meet AI compute demand.

That's according to CNBC, as the news outlet got a look at a presentation reportedly given to employees by Google AI infrastructure chief Amin Vahdat earlier this month. A slide entitled "AI compute demand" informed the team that "Now we must double every six months... the next 1000x in 4-5 years."

CNBC also reports some direct quotes from the meeting, which was also said to be attended by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. While Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta have been pouring huge sums of money into data center expansion in recent months to boost their own AI serving capabilities, it appears that Google's lofty expansion goals might not be receiving the same budget.

Vahdat reportedly told employees that "[Google's] job is of course to build this infrastructure, but it's not going to outspend the competition, necessarily" and that the real goal will be providing infrastructure that is "more reliable, more performant, and more scalable than what's available anywhere else."

That's not all. Vahdat is also claimed to have said Google needs to "be able to deliver 1,000 times more capability, compute, storage networking, for essentially the same cost and increasingly, the same power, the same energy level."

"It won't be easy," the Google AI chief said. "But through collaboration and co-design, we're going to get there."

That sounds like quite the task, doesn't it? I can only imagine the blank faces in the room as the Google engineers wrapped their heads around the idea of expanding their infrastructure on a truly gigantic scale, in record timeframes, without substantially increasing the budget—both literally and figuratively.

Management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company estimates that AI data centers are expected to require $5.3 trillion in capital expenditures by 2030, or roughly $1 trillion over Nvidia's current market cap, if you prefer to think of it that way. Certainly, if efficiencies could be made to enable unbelievably rapid AI compute expansion without pushing data center power requirements and budgets further into the stratosphere, the company to do so would be in a prime position to make the most of the AI boom.

If, indeed, it lasts that long to begin with, given mounting concerns over a massive, potentially economy-wrecking AI bubble. Still, they don't call it a moon shot for nothing. Get to work, Google AI infrastructure engineers. It sounds like an impossible task, but Vahdat seems to believe in your work ethic. You didn't need a lunch break anyway, did you?

I often take the internet for granted. Over the years it's taken many forms but the underlying technology has mostly remained the same. However, even the very foundation of the internet as we know it was not always a given. To that end, I was recently told about the Protocol Wars of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

The Protocol Wars is mentioned in passing in Sir Tim Berners-Lee's new book This is for Everyone, and Sir Berners-Lee is often called the inventor of the World Wide Web, so I should probably take what he says seriously. Berners-Lee essentially married HTML (the visual webpage code we see every day) to the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Domain Name System (DNS), which were already in operation.

The former of these two already-operative systems and protocols, TCP, is what was up for question prior to the late-80s/early-90s creation of the World Wide Web.

I knew TCP as a protocol existing alongside IP (Internet Protocol)—TCP/IP—with them together forming the group of protocols that underlie our internet today. These protocols are essentially sets of rules governing how systems communicate over networks and the internet, ie, explaining how data should be organised and transmitted. TCP deals with the virtual handshake between systems and data formatting (the host-to-host communications) and IP deals with delivering the packets of data (the inter-networking).

In networking, TCP/IP is often taught alongside the somewhat equivalent OSI model. Both can be conceptualised as different layers in a stack, with each layer performing a different function. The layers in each of the two stacks—one stack for TCP/IP, one for OSI—correspond to layers in the other, and while TCP/IP is what's used in practice, the OSI model is often used to help understand what's going on in network and internet transfers.

That's how it's usually taught in networking today: The OSI model is taught as another way of conceptualising what's going on in TCP/IP transfers.

So I was a little surprised to find that, actually, TCP/IP and OSI battled it out in the 70s and 80s, each vying to be the standard of choice for the internet. At least, that's the way my retrospective glasses gleam it, because no doubt at the time it wasn't seen as a march towards the internet as we know it today. That's hindsight.

Before TCP/IP and OSI battled it out, though, TCP/IP was battling other protocols. The Robert Kahn- and Vint Cerf-created protocol had its merits pitted against the protocol underlying the French Cyclades network in the 70s, for instance. This network helped pioneer packet switching (transferring data in packets) but didn't build reliability checking such as error handling into the network—TCP did. TCP/IP also fended off other protocols such as IBM's Systems Network Architecture and DEC's DECnet. Everyone had their different ways of doing things in the early days of the technology—pockets of the internet had emerged via local networks—and few wanted to lose sovereignty in the developing protocol war to connect everything together.

TCP had a lot going for it in such fights. Its biggest assets, as far as I can gather, were twofold: first, that it had a kind of try-first, fix-later approach that had it being used right away, and second, that it was formed by the (then) US Department of Defense (DoD), because of course it was. I suppose this is in part what people mean when they say the internet developed out of military application.

The DoD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the time was sans a 'defense' and was just called ARPA. ARPA worked on ARPANET, which became one of the first packet switched networks. A bunch of ARPANET project-connected bigwigs formed the International Network Working Group (INWG), which came up with TCP, and through learning from other protocols such as the one underlying Cyclades, over the course of the 70s this turned into the fully fledged TCP/IP protocol stack.

These protocols were, of course, used throughout the entire period, and many of the people working on it headed different institutions such as universities. Vint Cerf, for instance, was Chair of the INWG, and he was faculty at Stanford University. Stanford, in fact, helped test inter-network communications with ARPANET. Tim Berners-Lee notes in his book that he would've quite liked to have gone to Stanford in his early days, however, ceded that he didn't even realise it was an option in those early days, and admits he doesn't recall if he even had much of a concept of Silicon Valley at the time.

During the same rough period of time, the European International Organization for Standardization (ISO)—you might know it as the organisation that makes European keyboard layout standards—was developing the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. This attempted to do similar to TCP/IP, and was backed by some telephone companies like the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT).

Telephone company involvement couldn't quite match the benefits of DoD and academic involvement in the development of TCP/IP, though. TCP/IP was being implemented and tested as it was being developed, whereas OSI was being developed thoroughly and methodically before being implemented.

Ben Segal, one of the people that introduced TCP/IP at CERN, also where Tim Berners-Lee was working, says of OSI: "ISO's style of standards development was top-down, driven by the committees of experts meeting physically from time to time. ISO standards were printed - for sale - and were expensive. Internet standards were developed bottom-up and free on-line."

"TCP/IP was cheap and simple, but in fact disruptive."

TCP/IP became an open standard, and by the time its first fully fledged and usable standard came out in the form of IPv4 in 1981, to be properly adopted in 1983, OSI didn't have anywhere near the ubiquity of TCP/IP. The latter had been used out in the wild by various institutions around the world (institutions in Britain and other European countries had connected to ARPANET by then). CERN accepted ISO/OSI was out by 1988.

And so, the war was won, and TCP/IP became the standard underlying the internet communications we use today. All that was left was for it to get hooked up to HTTP for all our flashy visual webpages. Berners-Lee went on to create the first website while at CERN in 1990. The website told readers how to use the World Wide Web and set-up their own websites.

Oh, and then TCP/IP decided to yoink a layer from OSI and mix-mash it into its own stack. That's why the fifth layer in TCP/IP is often called layer seven: because it is the seventh layer in the OSI model, the latter of which is still used to help theoretically understand TCP/IP.

Best gaming PC 2025

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Choose a list Best gaming laptop 2025Best gaming PC 2025Best gaming rigs 2025Best handheld PC 2025Best mini PC 2025

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BEST OVERALL

1. HP Omen 35L

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BEST BUDGET

2. Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8)

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BEST COMPACT

3. Velocity Micro Raptor ES40

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4. Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop

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5. Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT

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If you've got an old Asus router, you might want to check whether it's needing a firmware update. Asus has just reported that three of its older DSL modem routers have a critical vulnerability, an "authentication bypass vulnerability" that "may allow remote attackers to gain unauthorized access into the affected system."

Asus hasn't just dropped that bombshell and left the room, though; there's a firmware update you can install to patch the vulnerability. The affected models are the DSL-AC51, DSL-N16, and DSL-AC750, and here are links to the firmware you should install for each of these:

• DSL-AC51: firmware
• DSL-N16: firmware
• DSL-AC750: firmware

The firmware you want is the latest one, version 1.1.2.3_1010. You download this firmware, and then upload it to your router's firmware upgrade page.

For instance, for the AC51, after downloading and unzipping the file on a PC connected to the router, you go to your router's administration page and navigate to Advanced Settings > Administration > Firmware Upgrade, then select Browse in the New Firmware File field, and click Upload. It will reboot when it's done.

These three affected routers are all getting on a bit now— each is listed as an EOL product on Asus' site. Older devices tend to be more at risk of becoming vulnerable to security issues, so it's not a massive surprise that old routers like these can be discovered vulnerable to such critical security flaws.

Even if you don't have one of these routers, critical security vulnerabilities can act as a good reminder to keep our routers updated. I don't know about you, but router updates aren't something I tend to keep on top of. Many will update automatically, but it can't hurt to check every now and then—I'm saying this to hammer it into my own head, more than anything.

In fact, it's probably a good idea to do the rounds on updates every now and then: Windows updates, graphics drivers, router, and software. You never know when it might catch something critical.

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1. Secretlab Titan Evo

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2. Secretlab Magnus Pro XL

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3. HyperX Cloud Alpha

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BEST GAMING KEYBOARD

4. Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless

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5. Razer DeathAdder V3 HyperSpeed

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6. Xbox Wireless Controller

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7. Logitech G Pro Racing Wheel

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8. Shure MV6

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9. Elgato Facecam MK.2

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I've been reporting on the recent NBN speed upgrades and all attendant pricing shenanigans for months now, and just as I felt like things were winding down a touch, Black Friday kicks in. Internet providers don't shy away from big sales events, and Superloop has gotten in early with a range of pretty generous deals, the likes of which we'll probably feel nostalgic about in two-to-five years when the pricing arms race is over.

What stood out to me was the ISP's introductory NBN 1000 offer: at the moment you can get 1000 Mbps download speeds for AU$79 a month for six months, after which the price will rise to AU$109 a month (the advertised evening download speed is 860 Mbps). Depending where you look, that introductory price is slightly cheaper than what other providers are asking for NBN 500—you can see that in the table below.

On the topic of NBN 500, Superloop's Black Friday offering is pretty tempting too: AU$65 for the first six months, before the usual AU$95 a month fee kicks in. That means AU$390 for six months of NBN, or if you look at the whole year, AU$960.

I've added Superloop to a chart below to demonstrate the price differences among the most competitive NBN 500 providers.

Obviously Superloop is not the cheapest in that list, all things considered, but there are other factors worth consideration when it comes to this particular ISP. The ACCC puts Superloop and Exetel roughly equal in terms of the lowest average ping rate (8.2ms during peak hours), so that's a boon for online players. Superloop also ranks #2 on Steam's ISP speed comparison chart for Australia, just behind Aussie Broadband. If those factors matter to you, Superloop is a wise option.

While the NBN 500 price feels insignificant if Superloop's particular strengths don't mean much to you, the NBN 1000 deal is a pretty extraordinary opportunity to taste test ultra-fast downloads. Just don't get used to it, I suppose.

As always, speeds of above 100 Mbps require either FTTP or HTC connections. If you're still on a FTTN connection, you'll need to wait until you've upgraded to take advantage of the high-speed competition currently on display.

Last month I wrote that at this point, you probably don't need anything faster than NBN 500. And I stand by that: if you're on a FTTP or HFC connection and recently upgraded from NBN 50, NBN 100 or NBN 250 to 500 Mbps, then you might as well enjoy that (massive) speed increase while it still feels novel. You've probably suffered for years with crappy internet. Now that it's fast, and you're likely not paying any more for it, why not enjoy it before you become numb to the speed?

Because some people are speed demons, I suppose, and since NBN now offers plans with 2000 Mbps downloads, it's psychologically tough to cope with a "miserable" 500 Mbps. I'm not going to argue with you, but I will say this: NBN 1000 prices are so good right now that even I'm tempted to upgrade.

Both Swoop and Superloop are offering NBN 1000 connections for AU$85 at the moment, which is around what you'd expect to pay for NBN 500 after any introductory offer has elapsed. These offers last six months, before rising to AU$109 on an ongoing basis.

There are some minor differences between the two providers that actually see Swoop—the less prominent provider—come out marginally on top. Swoop has typical evening download speeds of 890 Mbps, while Superloop's is lower at 860 Mbps. Both boast 85 Mbps upload speeds.

In both cases, you're looking at a bill of AU$1,164 for the first year, and then AU$1,308 every year after that. Or, you simply jump to another provider once the introductory price has elapsed: by that point, there may be a better deal offered by someone else.

Or maybe not? High speed internet prices have been pretty extraordinary for consumers since NBN's September upgrade. Chances are, once the dust settles, we'll stop seeing such steeply discounted introductory offers. Whatever the case, I've rounded up everything you need to know about NBN and gaming in Australia.

Note also that speeds of above NBN 100 are only available to FTTP and HFC-connected NBN customers. If you're still on FTTN, you're—I'm afraid—out of luck at this point, but hopefully due for an upgrade soon.

Sometimes, it's hard to get overly excited about a new bit of PC gaming kit. Take the gaming routers, for example. We all use them (and yes, I know it's technically more than just a router—there's a switch and a wireless access point in the box, too), but they just sit on a shelf somewhere or on the floor, getting poked by bored cats. They just do their thing and we rarely give them a moment's thought, until they ruin a Steam download, of course.

I felt very much the same way until I recently reviewed three new devices from TP-Link: two mesh systems, the Deco BE68 and Deco BE25 BE5000, and the Archer BE9700. Using two Intel Core Ultra 200S gaming PCs to test the wireless performance of them, I came away seriously impressed by just how easy they were to set up, how ridiculously quick they were, and perhaps most importantly, how affordable they were compared to the first generation of Wi-Fi 7 gaming routers.

Take the Archer BE9700. You can buy one of those for $200 at Best Buy. That's genuinely very little money for such a capable Wi-Fi 7 router. Heck, you can't even buy a brand-new, semi-decent graphics card for that amount of money.

As someone who's only ever used the router supplied by an ISP over the past decade, I had quite the shock at how much better the BE9700 was than my stock unit. I'm not talking just about raw speed (seeing a 1.1 Gbps Steam download over Wi-Fi in my office was a real eye-opener), but how much better every wireless in my home worked on that router.

No stutters, no hiccups, just peerless connectivity, anywhere in the house. Even the non-Wi-Fi 7 devices were a lot happier with all of the new routers I tested.

So maybe it's time we actually made more of a fuss about routers than we do. Sure, they won't turn your budget gaming PC into an RTX 5090 hot-snottin' monster, but it'll make your digital life just that bit smoother and more enjoyable. That's hardly headline-busting news, but it's a message well worth hearing, nevertheless.

The best gaming routers

Here's a conundrum to start this review: When is a Wi-Fi 7 networking device not really a Wi-Fi 7 networking device? The answer is when it's the TP-Link Deco BE25. It might seem very harsh to start things so negatively, but it's best to get the most important point about this home mesh system out of the way first.

Basically, unlike most Wi-Fi 7 routers and mesh networks, the Deco BE25 doesn't support the 6 GHz band or the 320 MHz channel. You just get 2.4 and 5 GHz, plus a maximum 240 MHz channel, making it not better than an average Wi-Fi 6 system. On paper, at least, because the little wireless hubs have a trick or two to make up for it all.

If you're unfamiliar with the term 'home mesh system', it's basically a group of synchronised Wi-Fi routers that work together to create a broader and seamless wireless network. Have poor Wi-Fi in your basement or attic bedroom? Then a mesh setup is ideal for you. However, most systems seem to be extremely expensive, and that's certainly true for the high-end models.

TP-Link's Deco BE25 is at the other end of the spectrum, with an MSRP of $300, but it typically sells for $209 to $230. That's for a three-node pack, making each unit as little as $70. This is a great price for any Wi-Fi 6/7 router, packed with modern features, and a lot cheaper than most gaming routers, so if you've been putting off making the jump to mesh, then the BE25 might just change your mind.

Of course, you need to be certain that it's going to be right for your needs, so let's consider coverage to begin with. This is a rough estimate of the floor area that the mesh system can ideally cover, and TP-Link suggests that a three-pack of BE25s is good for 6,600 square feet (613 square metres). That's more than enough for most homes, though if you have a large property with distant buildings, you'll be better off with something with more reach, like the Deco BE68.

Each BE25 router (well, router, switch, and wireless access point) in the mesh network communicates with the routers via backhauling, and the Deco can do this wirelessly, wired via its 2.5 Gbps LAN ports, or both. Unfortunately, each unit only has two LAN ports, and one will be used as a WAN port to connect you to the Internet. If you plan to embed the mesh within a pre-existed and complex wired network, you may have to rethink those plans.

While outright performance isn't going to be important for the average digitally-connected home, it is when you've got a lot of gamers in the mix. The Deco BE25 is a four-stream, dual-band transmitter, achieving a theoretical maximum of 688 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band and 4,324 Mbps via 5 GHz. However, it also supports Wi-Fi 7 multi-link operation (MLO), whereby the unit streams data across both bands, for a peak throughput of 5,000 Mbps (hence the BE5000 name).

That might sound really good and way better than what a lot of Internet connections can handle, but the reality of Wi-Fi is far from its peak numbers. Interference from other devices, building materials and structure shapes, and distance between transmitters and receivers all affect the data transfer speed.

The above performance charts show the maximum data throughputs between two Intel Core Ultra 200S gaming PCs, using Killer Wi-Fi 7 BE1750x adapters. The 'near' results are for when the PCs are directly in line with a Deco BE25 unit, at a distance of 1.8 metres (6 feet); the 'far' results are for when the computers are a little over 6 metres (20 feet) away, with several walls and other devices in the way.

As you can see, compared to the considerably more expensive Deco BE68 mesh device, the BE25 is slower in both of its bands, despite having the same theoretical throughputs. Why this is so almost certainly lies in the fact that the BE68 has twice as many antennae as the BE25 (8 vs 4), as well as double the number of streams.

But while the numbers look disappointing, if you only have a 1 Gbps Internet connection or slower, the Deco BE25 will be more than fast enough. And don't worry about the far results, as that's the whole point of a mesh network—just add a node where your Wi-Fi is the slowest and you'll get a handy boost. Not to the maximum, though, because even wired-plus-wireless backhauling, you're going to be limited by the performance of the 5 GHz band.

It's worth noting that MLO is an exclusive feature of Wi-Fi 7, so if you don't have any wireless devices that support the standard, you won't be able to use it.

With the best performance being found using the BE25's MLO mode, one nice feature about TP-Link's mesh devices is that you can set up separate networks to have relevant devices kept away from each other. For example, you can have a 2.4 GHz network just for IoT/smart devices, alongside a dedicated MLO network, as well as a 5 GHz guest network. They're all sharing the same bandwidth, of course, but they'll never see each other as the networks are isolated.

All of this is done via a simple setup process, but if you're used to handling router configurations via a browser on your PC, then you might be disappointed to learn that TP-Link requires you to use its phone app to do all of this. It's a very nice bit of software—clean and simple to use—but poking settings with your finger does feel somewhat kiddified compared to how one normally does it.

Certain aspects of the software package are hidden behind a paywall, such as advanced parental controls, customisable VPNs, and other security features. While I found this to be rather unacceptable on the $700 Deco BE68, I can excuse it for the much cheaper BE25. I dare say that a good number of potential buyers for the little mesh system won't really care about the extras and will just be happy with the controls that you do get.

However, they might care about the total absence of USB ports, for adding external storage to the network, or the fact that the BE25 looks remarkably like a smoke detector, or that adding additional nodes to an existing network can sometimes fail or run into glitches. But when the whole caboodle is this cheap, you can't complain too much.

Admittedly, the relatively small price tag is the main reason why you'd consider the TP-Link Deco BE25 over anything else, because why else would you choose a Wi-Fi 7 mesh system that isn't giving you Wi-Fi 7's best features? If you just think of it as an affordable Wi-Fi 6 home mesh system, albeit with a slightly misleading specification, then you'll be fine.

If you've just bought a new gaming PC or upgraded your current one to an AMD Ryzen 9000-series or Intel Core Ultra 200S setup, there's a good chance you'll be considering an upgrade to your Internet router, too. That's all because such rigs sport ultra-fast Wi-Fi 7 adapters, and if you've got a web connection that's 1 Gbps or faster, you'll surely be wanting to enjoy some mighty quick Steam downloads, if your home is wirelessly networked.

What's probably stopping you is the price of a typical Wi-Fi 7 router: Netgear's Nighthawk RS600 is $400, and even its slower RS300 model is $329, while Asus is asking $350 for its RT-BE88U, and that doesn't support the full Wi-Fi 7 feature list. So if I tell you that the TP-Link Archer BE9700 has every Wi-Fi 7 trick in the book, five fast LAN ports, an easy-to-use interface, and costs just $200, does that make you change your mind?

It certainly made me pause for thought and wonder if we have a new contender for the best gaming router you can buy right now. Jumping the gun somewhat, I have to say now that the Archer BE9700 isn't the outright best one around, as it's nowhere near as fast as most of the top-end routers on the market, and it's not quite cheap enough to be considered a 'budget' offering either. But it's still a very good Wi-Fi 7 router and well worth considering.

But let's go back and start with what you're getting for the money. The Archer BE9700 is a router (technically, a router, switch, and wireless access point in the same box) that supports the full spectrum of Wi-Fi 7 features: 6 GHz band, 320 MHz channel, multi-link operation (MLO), 4K-QAM, and more. Along with seven streams and six external antennae with beamforming, it's got everything you need for a modern home packed full of wireless devices and gaming enthusiasts.

What it doesn't have are theoretical peak data speeds to drop your jaw. Don't get me wrong: for most users, the Archer BE9700 will be more than fast enough, but if you have a really speedy Internet connection, then TP-Link's router isn't going to keep up with it.

To test the wireless performance of each band, plus its MLO capabilities, I used two Core Ultra 200S gaming PCs, both with the same Killer Wi-Fi 7 BE1750x adapter, and tracked the rate at which data passed between them, via the router, using iPerf3. Two situations were examined: one with the two PCs and router all on the same plane, and separated by a distance of 1.8 metres (6 feet), and the other with everything on different floors in my house, with the distance between them being a little over 6 metres (20 feet).

As you can see, the Archer BE9700 does well against TP-Link's Deco BE68, but then again, it should do, as it has higher theoretical throughputs. However, the 'far' results suggest that despite all the external antennae and relatively high power consumption of 40 W, the router isn't the best at coping with distance.

It should be noted that everyone's home environment is different, and you could find that the Archer BE9700 performs much better in your house. Equally, it could be worse; it depends on so many factors that it's almost impossible to tell how well a router is going to work in your home without testing it directly.

The MLO result was a bit of a surprise, in both a good and bad way. Multi-link operation works by having the router selectively transfer data across all three bands, dynamically switching between them to maximise throughput and minimise latencies. If you add up all the speeds for each band, you get a value of 9679, hence the Archer's BE9700 name.

With a rating of BE14000, the Deco BE68 should be up to 44% faster than the Archer BE9700, and yet the near results in the MLO are a mere 5% higher. However, that speed difference opens right out with the far results, and that's possibly because the BE68 has more antennae than the Archer, even though they're internal.

I spent quite a bit of time tweaking the position of the external antennae, but saw little difference in the data transfer speeds, both near and far. I can only assume that my home, especially my office, possesses some kind of anti-Wi-Fi gremlin that has a particular grievance with TP-Link's Archer routers.

That all said, the 5 GHz and MLO far speeds would be good enough to allow you to max out a 1 Gbps Internet connection, which isn't bad at all. And if it's faster than that, then you can always use the Archer BE9700's LAN ports. You get one rated to 10 Gbps and four at 2.5 Gbps, which is a decent amount, both in count and performance. The fastest port and one of the 2.5 ones can automatically switch to WAN mode, which is great for giving you options as to whether you want a fast net connection or a really fast Ethernet network.

Configuring all of this is a piece of cake, thanks to the browser-based settings interface. Unlike the two Deco mesh models in the results comparison, which use a phone app for setup and config options, the Archer is blessedly more traditional. Want a separate 2.4 GHz network, just for IoT/smart devices? Need a discrete MLO network just for your gaming PC? Not a problem: just log in, click a few options, and away you go.

It's all very lovely, and while I'm not a fan of the Archer BE9700's staid looks (it's better than the 'alien mothership' vibe that some gaming routers have, though), I don't really have anything of note to complain about. If I had a much bigger house, I probably would, given how quickly its performance drops off with distance, but then I'd be looking at a mesh system instead.

Should your home environment suit the TP-Link router, and you don't need outrageous amounts of wireless performance, then the Archer BE9700 is worth a spot on anyone's Wi-Fi 7 router shopping list.

Home mesh systems might sound like a whole new world of wireless technology, but they're really just two or more 'routers' that can transfer data between themselves, allowing for a greater wireless coverage in your house. I say 'routers' because that's just one part of what's inside: you've also got a WAP (wireless access point) and a network switch.

But regardless of what you call the TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000, you're getting a very capable device for providing super-fast Wi-Fi 7 in every nook and cranny of your home. You can buy the system as a two or three-pack, and even just use a single unit (or node, to use the correct term), but we're reviewing the $700 triple node offering here.

TP-Link claims up to 8,100 square feet (753 square metres) of coverage with three nodes (6,000 for two and 3,100 for one), which far exceeds the dimensions of a typical home, be it in the UK or the USA. However, if you have a large property with buildings widely separated, that 8,100 square feet of coverage might come in very handy.

The Deco BE68 sits roughly in the middle of TP-Link's Wi-Fi 7 home mesh range due to its maximum speed rating of BE14000. That number refers to the peak data transfer speed in Mbps of the combined three bands that the mesh operates over (2.4, 5.0, and 6.0 GHz). Faster systems sport more bands (e.g. the BE95 has two 6 GHz bands) to improve transfer rates, but naturally they're also a lot more expensive.

The Deco BE68 is expensive too, but given that you get three nodes for $700 (which equates to a single unit coming in at $233), it's actually relatively cheap for a high-end Wi-Fi 7 router. Still pricey, of course, but Netgear's Nighthawk RS600 is $400 for just one unit, though that's not unusual for the best gaming routers.

Fortunately, what you're getting for that steep outlay is very good. As I've already mentioned, it's not the fastest you can buy, but unless you have an Internet connection that's well over 1 Gbps and you need that enormous speed wirelessly, then it will surely be quick enough for you. To test just how quick it is, I used two Intel Core Ultra 200S desktop PCs, both with Killer Wi-Fi 7 BE1750x adapters, and iPerf3 to examine data transfer rates across each band.

It's worth noting that my results are not comparable with those in our other networking hardware reviews, because the test environment and devices used are entirely different. The 'near' results are with both PCs directly in line with a Deco BE68 unit, at a distance of 1.8 metres (6 feet), whereas the 'far' results have both PCs a little over 6 metres (20 feet) away, with several walls and other devices in the way.

TP-Link sent us another mesh system, a Deco BE25, and its Archer BE9700, to compare and review, so at least you're not looking at the BE68's results in isolation. The 2.4 GHz band transfer speeds might seem to be well short of the 688 Mbps theoretical maximum for the unit, but it's actually pretty quick. Better still, the far distance results hold up very well, considering the range and band involved.

Naturally, the speeds on the 5 GHz band are even better, though the drop-off with far testing is more notable. That's to be expected, and this is especially true for the 6 GHz band, which offers blistering transfer rates when you're close, but once you move away or put a wall or two between the device and the mesh node, the speed falls away rapidly.

But that's the whole point of a mesh system, and I hasten to note that only a single node was used in these tests. Adding a second node approximately 4 metres from the test PCs improved the 5 and 6 GHz far results by 60% and 120%, respectively.

Oddly, though, the Deco BE68's 6 GHz results are slower than those for the Archer BE9700, despite having a much higher theoretical maximum (8647 vs 5765 Mbps). I suspect the latter's external and highly directional antennae are helping matters considerably, as while the Deco BE68 has the same number of antennas (eight in total), they're all internal and fixed in position.

Where things become more interesting is when you enable the MLO (Multi-Link Operation) network. This lets the Deco BE68 use all the bands together to transfer data, though it does this somewhat intelligently, switching packets from band to band, depending on what's going on. In this mode, the BE68 outpaces the Archer BE9700, especially in the 'far' results.

Not all wireless devices support MLO, but if your gaming PC or laptop does, I strongly recommend enabling this network on the Deco BE68 and using it exclusively for your rig. And speaking of setting things up, TP-Link has given up support for the use of a web browser to access everything in the nodes. Instead, you have to use a phone app.

It's very good, with clear instructions and everything laid out well, but I dare say there will be many a networking enthusiast who will be instantly put off by not being able to access a node's settings via a PC. The app also contains a number of subscription services, such as HomeShield, but at least you're not bombarded with adverts for it.

Having the ability to quickly and easily fire up additional networks, including ones dedicated to IoT or home smart devices, is nice to see. However, having to pay extra for advanced parental controls or a VPN isn't quite so nice, especially when you've already forked out $700 for the whole system.

And while I'm in complaints mode, I'm a little disappointed with the LAN ports. There are only three per node, and while they're all WAN auto-sensing (i.e. you can use any of them as a WAN port), only one of them is rated at 10 Gbps. If you're using that one for your Internet connection, then any wired backhaul to that node is going to be limited to 2.5 or 1 Gbps, because those are the only other LAN ports available.

I also experienced quite a few niggles when trying to add a second node to the network. In theory, it's a case of clicking a single button in the app to meld additional Deco units to any given network, but the first time I tried it, the extra node refused to play ball. Rebooting the whole setup solved the problem, but it's not an ideal solution.

Lastly, there's the matter of market availability. As things currently stand, the Deco BE68 only seems to be sold in the US. If you live in the UK, then your closest options are the slower BE65 (£550 at Amazon) or the faster BE95 (£935 at Amazon), and it's a similar story for other countries. This might be because Internet speeds higher than 1 Gbps in the UK are quite rare, but it would be nice to have the option to buy a more futureproof mesh system.

Compared to the Deco BE68's wealth of positives, though, these are minor complaints. I should imagine that the majority of users will just want something that you can plug in, spend a minute or two setting up, and then enjoy peerless Wi-Fi speeds anywhere at home, across dozens of devices…and then never have to touch it again.

That's precisely what the TP-Link Deco BE68 offers, and if you're not keen on the alien mothership vibe that most high-end Wi-Fi routers have, the BE68's sleek looks will be very much appreciated, too.

I wrote yesterday that the new NBN 2000 plan is probably overkill for most households—even a household of internet power users. Now that Australia has a bunch of new high-speed internet offers thanks to the NBN, it's worth paying attention to just how fast you need to go. And I'm here to tell you that, based on price and other factors, the new NBN 750 tier offers are pretty middling at the moment, and you should skip them.

Keep a few things in mind: if you were previously on NBN 100 on a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) connection, you're now on an NBN 500 plan. Do you need more than that? If not: great! But if you do, based on pricing, you're probably better off graduating straight to NBN 1000.

Let's take Superloop as an example of how much love and close scrutiny NBN 750 is getting: Superloop's NBN 1000 plan is AU$85 a month for the first six months with 100Mbps uploads. Meanwhile its NBN 750 plan is AU$89 a month for the first six months with 50Mbps uploads. After the introductory offer expires in six months, NBN 1000 will increase to AU$109 a month, while NBN 750 will increase to AU$104 a month.

The chart is clearer:

Uh, yeah: NBN 750 is AU$6 cheaper for the first year with Superloop.

Other providers demonstrate that NBN 500 is the better value plan, chiefly Spintel. They offer NBN 500 with 42Mbps uploads for AU$64 a month for six months, while their NBN 750 offering is AU$80 a month for the same 42Mbps uploads (after six months, the bill will be AU$86.95 and AU$90.95 respectively). Sure, after the introductory offer, an extra four bucks for an extra 250Mbps sounds pretty good, but the starkness in difference between the introductory offers rules out any significant value with the NBN 750 plan here.

On the NBN 500 plan you're saving AU$120 a year.

Even Telstra, whose prices are usually way too high to recommend, is taking an "ah screw it" approach to NBN 750: it's AU$105 a month for six months and then AU$129 a month. NBN 1000 is AU$105 a month for six months and then AU$139 a month. Not only is the NBN 1000 plan much faster for an extra AU$60 annually, but it also doubles uploads from 40Mbps to 80Mbps.

One of the chief reasons for NBN 750 to exist at all is that is what users of NBN 250 are upgraded to. Quite why they weren't just given NBN 1000, thus eliminating the busywork of offering an NBN 750 tier at all, I don't know. What I do know is this: if you were on NBN 250 and are now on NBN 750, you're better off either downgrading to NBN 500, or upgrading to NBN 1000. And if you're not enjoying cheaper introductory offers you should switch ISPs while the high-speed NBN arms race is so consumer-friendly (unless you're locked in a contract).

If you're after a good NBN 500 plan, these are the best offers I've seen so far:

Everyone's been talking about the recent NBN 500 upgrades—which are automatic if you're on an NBN 100 plan with a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coax (HFC) connection—but few are talking about the fact that, as of now, internet speeds via NBN in Australia can now theoretically max out at 2,000 Mbps, which is double the previous limit.

NBN is calling this new plan tier 'Hyperfast' and I guess, by the low standards Aussie internet users have grown used to, that isn't hyperbole. And as you can probably expect, 2,000 Mbps plans don't come cheap: the most affordable I've seen is AU$149 a month via Southern Phone.

Oh, and you'll need to make sure your NTD box (network termination device)—ie, that wall-mounted or router-like device found somewhere in your home that bridges the connection between the NBN and your wireless router—is compatible with this new NBN 2000 tier. I only had mine installed about two months ago and it is compatible, but you'd best be checking if yours is too on the NBN website (scroll to the bottom until you get to the address form). If it's not, you'll need to contact your provider to talk about an upgrade.

But that's not all! You're also going to need a Wi-Fi 7 router, or at least a WiFi 6E one, if you want to actually reach those 2,000 Mbps speeds via a wireless connection. Most of the routers in our best gaming routers feature are good candidates.

Here's the lay of the land at the moment:

*Superloop's NBN 2000 plan won't be available until Friday, September 19.

I guess the most pertinent question at the moment is: does a household that uses the internet predominantly to game, browse and stream 4K content (such as the cult 1980s rock 'n' roll sitcom Sweet and Sour) need an NBN 2000 connection?

I've pointed out as much in my guide to the best NBN plans for gaming, but higher download speeds generally aren't going to improve latency and thus, have no impact on the most important aspect of competitive online gaming. For example, ping times using Aussie Broadband are going to be the same whether you're on NBN 2000 or NBN 500.

What an NBN 2000 connection will help with, obviously, is download speeds. Borderlands 4 is 100 GB, so at theoretical full speeds it should download in around 7 minutes. Double that if you're dropping down to NBN 1000, and so forth. Let's take Aussie Broadband for example: their NBN 1000 plan is AU$140, while their new NBN 2000 plan is AU$189. Is the extra speed worth an extra AU$39 a month? That's the question you'll need to consider.

Note also that you may not always be able to reach your connection's maximum download speeds either. Achieving them also requires the server you're downloading from to be configured to (and have the bandwidth to) send data at the top speed your connection is capable of.

For my money, the new NBN 500 tiers offer the best all-round value, and assuming you've been on an NBN 100 or NBN 250 (heck, maybe even an NBN 50) until now, I reckon you're better off dabbling in 500 Mbps speeds before forking out for quadruple that. We've become so accustomed to waiting for big files to download that a climb to 500 Mbps actually feels incredible. And, it's dramatically more affordable.

Here are the best NBN 500 plans available in Australia at the moment:

The days of making do with piddling download speeds are increasingly a thing of the past in Australia. As I've reported numerous times of late, NBN is rolling out upgrades to its network in September that will see most NBN 100 plans transforming into NBN 500 plans. Some providers aren't waiting though, and so far we've seen both Exetel and Spintel offer very competitive early NBN 500 plans.

Tangerine has been watching and is not taking it lying down. The provider is now offering NBN 500 for AU$68.90 per month, which is an introductory offer that will last six months. After that the regular fee of AU$88.90 per month will kick in.

Let's break that down. That AU$68.90 monthly bill is definitely the cheapest NBN 500 price so far, but once the introductory offer expires, it will turn into the most expensive monthly bill.

But overall, if you take a full 12 months into account, Tangerine is still the marginal winner. Let's make a ye olde chart about it:

Since none of those plans have contracts, there's no need to stick with any for a full year. If you could be bothered taking advantage of Tangerine's introductory offer for six months, then Spintel's for six months (assuming it sticks around), before settling with the cheapest ongoing cost that Exetel offers, you could stand to save even more: AU$857.40 for a year of NBN 500 sounds good to me.

But keep in mind that things are changing so rapidly in NBN land that maybe some other provider will dash out of the gate next week with something cheaper. In other words, we're currently living in a mini golden age for high-speed internet in Australia, with providers competing aggressively.

As always, it's important to note that speeds over NBN 100 need either a fibre to the premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coax (HFC) connection. If you're still on fibre to the node (FTTN), you're not going to get higher speeds than 100 Mbps, whether you're on a speedier plan or not.

The good news is that you may be eligible to upgrade to FTTP right now. You can check on the NBN website if that's you.

If you know your noise rock from your industrial, your ambient noise from harsh noise wall, there's a good chance you'll enjoy the chaotic screeches of an ethernet cable plugged into a Eurorack module. If not, you might find it a little cool anyway, like I do.

As spotted by Hackaday, creator Wenzellabs recently showed off their NSA Selector, a Eurorack module with two Ethernet ports and an audio output. Effectively, any bits on the detected network will be sent to the output.

Wenzellabs makes it very clear that this is not an audio interface. It doesn't format that sound into an MP3 or WAV file, which can be easily digitally converted into something else. They said, "All traffic is forwarded from one network jack to the other unmodified. It's just tapped, intercepted to convert it to audio."

A Eurorack module is a physical format used in modular synthesisers. With the modern resurgence of modular synthesisers, even the likes of Roland have reinvested in the format.

Though the NSA Selector doesn't make the most pleasing of sounds, there is some room here for creativity, and the chances are that if you care about modular synth, you already have some of that drive already.

Notably, Wenzellabs tests the synth out in a few key areas. At 28 minutes, they scroll around in Google Maps, with the port making a sharp noise every time they move around. Given that the audio matches the bits, the higher the workload, the more aggressive the sound. In the browser and mobile game 2048, at the 25-minute mark, they manage to get a full-on drone as the page is loading ad elements. This is arguably the most 'usable' sound in a more traditional musical sense.

Wenzellabs loads bitmaps at one point, which means you can create images that use resources in a specific way to project certain types of sounds from the Eurorack. They edit the images to make them larger and differently shaped, and open them from a remote machine, which gets different results from the synth. None of it sounds particularly appealing, but they do sound unique. Making weird sounds is one of the biggest reasons people like modular synth.

After approximately 4 seconds of what I can only describe as 'the drill at a dentist's office', Wenzellabs says, "Isn't it great?" Yes, Wenzellabs, it is.

If you want to give it a go yourself, you can buy the NSA Selector (kit for $97 or fully assembled for $110) via their shop, Lectronz, and they've posted a tutorial on how to assemble it yourself.

If anything, it will make you more aware of the hours you spend doomscrolling if every time a video pops up on your feed, you get a small screech from your ethernet port. If my internet habits are anything to go by, maybe that's not such a bad idea.

Anyone who knows the frustration of having their internet drop out when they walk to that one room in the house has likely heard of a mesh network system. It's fairly new at a consumer level, but essentially it's a wireless network that uses a node infrastructure to cover your area in wireless connection. If you've ever tried a wireless booster back in the day, it's kinda like that, but these actually work.

The downside to mesh networks is they're still relatively new and thus can be quite pricy. So when Netgear launched its new Wi-Fi 7 mesh system and it came in at less than half price of its previous offerings, it grabbed the attention of The Verge, and also myself. Netgear's new Orbi 370 comes in a two pack consisting of a router and two satellites and it only costs $250 USD. You can also get it in a three pack for $350.

Being by far the cheapest of NetGear's offerings also means the Orbi 370 is a little underpowered compared to its older siblings. It covers less space, clocks a lower speed, only supports dual band, and caps out at 70 devices. For most people this is likely far more than enough, and having to pay extra for the higher end devices simply would be overkill. It's nice to see this friendlier price point, and generally speaking the cuts are pretty smart to get it there.

The Orbi 370 series is enough to cover up to 6,000 sq ft/ 550 sq metres or about half the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Assuming you live in a home rather than a pool, the idea would be to place the satellites in different rooms but within reach of your router, and hopefully each other to get the best connection. This way if any pesky walls or other interference is causing your issues you should have plenty of connections to get around these hurdles.

Hopefully once set up, you'd be enjoying up to 5 Gbps Wi-Fi speeds, which is honestly more than anyone really needs. High-quality streaming of both videos and games should be no problem with this kind of connection. It also has the 2.5 lan ports for both internet and ethernet on the router, and an ethernet on each of the satellites for when you want to go wired and zoom.

While still Wi-Fi 7, this cheaper Orbi only supports up to Dual-Band while the others are Tri-Band and again, I don't think is something most consumers should worry about, we only just found out what Wi-Fi means, afterall. Wi-Fi 7 is still in precious few devices, and these are backwards compatible anyway. If you're buying these for your home you're more likely after better speeds and less dead zones, and they should deliver that nicely even if you don't own a single Wi-Fi 7 device.

As they're on the cutting edge, Wi-Fi 7 routers don't tend to be cheap. Our favourite comparable mesh system router is the Amazon Eero Max 7, and while it's easy to use and fast it's also $600 USD. If this mesh system from NetGear manages to come in as half as good it'll still be excellent value.

Over the decades, astronomers have faced the increasingly tough problem of satellites appearing in their view of the universe. The rapid growth of Starlink, SpaceX's web-from-space system, isn't just impacting countless pictures using visible light but also those in other parts of the spectrum. A recent study of 76 million images shows that the satellites are affecting the work of radio astronomers, even at frequencies that the satellites don't transmit at.

Take a photograph of the night sky, far away from any urban lights, and you stand a good chance of capturing the telltale streak of a satellite passing overhead. For any ground-based telescope capturing the faint photons of visible light from distant stars, it's an unavoidable problem because the satellites will always reflect the Sun's light.

When it comes to observing space in the radio spectrum, though, it should be far less of a problem because satellite companies are forbidden to transmit in specific frequency windows. However, a study by Curtin University in Australia (via Space) shows that SpaceX's Starlink satellites are "significantly interfering with radio astronomy observations, potentially impacting discovery and research".

Over four months, the research team amassed a total of 76 million radio wave images from a prototype section of the Square Kilometre Array observatory and upon analysis of the data, discovered that "[i]n some datasets … up to 30 per cent of our images showed interference from a Starlink satellite."

To make matters worse, the Starlink satellites were emitting signals in radio bands that they shouldn't be. "Some satellites were detected emitting in bands where no signals are supposed to be present at all, such as the 703 satellites we identified at 150.8 MHz, which is meant to be protected for radio astronomy," said study lead Dylan Grigg.

"Because they may come from components like onboard electronics and they’re not part of an intentional signal, astronomers can’t easily predict them or filter them out."

Professor Steven Tingay, a co-author of the research paper, points out that SpaceX isn't doing anything nefarious or the like. "It is important to note that Starlink is not violating current regulations, so is doing nothing wrong. Discussions we have had with SpaceX on the topic have been constructive."

Starlink isn't the only satellite-based internet service provider, nor is it the only satellite company routinely launching new devices into low Earth orbit, but few companies (if any) are launching on the same scale as SpaceX. Grigg notes that during the study period, a total of 477 Starlink satellites were sent into orbit, and another study has shown that the newest Starlink models create 32 times more radio interference than previous designs.

The number of electronic devices whizzing around our planet, transmitting within the permitted windows of the radio spectrum, is well over 10,000, and a significant portion of them are almost certainly going to be unintentionally emitting signals outside of the regulated zones.

As Professor Tingay says, "current International Telecommunication Union regulations focus on intentional transmissions and do not cover this type of unintended emission. We hope this study adds support for international efforts to update policies that regulate the impact of this technology on radio astronomy research, that are currently underway."

Future launches may well have structures in place to greatly minimise, or even remove, the problem, but the thousands of satellites already in orbit will continue to be a problem for radio astronomers. The incredible benefits of space-based internet and global communications are plain for all to see, though too much so in the field of space research.

After years of suffering famously average internet, Australia's NBN is making sweeping changes in 2025 to bring it up to speed. Not only is fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) being rolled out to more and more homes, but come September, NBN 100 plans will automatically become NBN 500 plans (for fibre-serviced homes).

Naturally, providers are scrambling to offer the best plans for this brave new world. A couple of weeks ago Exetel upgraded its NBN 100 plan early, offering NBN 500 for a flat AU$80 a month. Considering many—myself included—have been paying more than that for much slower speed tiers, it offers significant value.

It didn't seem likely that other providers would sit around and let Exetel soak up the glory. Inevitably, competition has arrived in the form of Spintel, which has rolled out its own NBN 500 plan early. Not only that, but it's kinda cheaper. For the first six months, Spintel's NBN 500 "Home Turbo" plan will set you back AU$74 a month. After that, the monthly fee will raise to AU$84.95.

A few caveats, as always. Speeds above 100 Mbps aren't possible on aging fibre to the node and fibre to the curb connections, so make sure you've got either a FTTP or hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) connection. If you're not on FTTP, you should be eligible to upgrade soon, if not now: you can check your status on the NBN website.

It's definitely a buyer's market at the moment, and as always, it's super easy to swap between internet providers so long as you're not locked into a contract, which is pretty rare nowadays. At a time when Telstra is still charging AU$93 a month for a maximum download speed of 25 Mbps (!) it really pays to shop around.

For more speeds, check out my guide to the best NBN plans for gamers.

Netgear's current crop of Nighthawk Wi-Fi routers—and there are a lot of them—all have the kind of looks that, were they gaming PCs, might hide ridiculous amounts of rendering power behind their otherwise anonymous black exteriors. And in a way they do, if you replace the word 'rendering' with 'networking'.

No wait, come back. Networking is really interesting, I promise. Otherwise PC Gamer wouldn't keep getting me to review these things. This new model from Netgear, the Nighthawk RS600 is a mid-priced Wi-Fi 7 model, though, in a world where something like the TP-Link Archer GE800 can sell for £700, calling it that doesn't mean it's exactly low-cost. You can pick up a cheap router that gives you the Wi-Fi 7 features for much less, but the reason you'd pick up something like this is because you're looking for large amounts of network throughput and stability, plus extras such as security and the ability to deal with multi-gigabit internet connections.

What you get is the same old black plastic hexagon as the rest of the Netgear range, with no visible antennas. The RS600 does come with a silver top instead of a black one, and its vents are perhaps more obvious than those of other models such as the $300 Nighthawk RS300, but the wisdom of Netgear's design choices is in how it sits in your home.

If you've ever tried to find a home—a proper home, not just chucking it behind the sofa—for the flat style router with four or more aerials sticking up from it will know that it's not a particularly easy thing to do. The GE800 is a particular nightmare in this regard, as it's basically a cube, so high do its wings reach. Unless you have a spare Ikea Kallax unit knocking around it can be tricky to find enough shelf space for it, and it's going to end up on the floor.

Not so with the Netgear, which has a small footprint and can be placed either vertical or horizontal anywhere you can get power and cables to it. It requires a power brick (which is nice and small), and the cable is around five feet long, so you'll need to keep it within that sort of range of a socket, as well as any fibre or cable modem you're using. Finding the right place for your router is an involved business, and that's before you even consider the best placement for Wi-Fi performance.

Luckily, the RS600 has a lot of Wi-Fi to go around. It claims 18 Gbps of combined throughput speed, and has a 10Gbps input socket to feed it. That makes it almost as (theoretically) fast as the top-end Nighthawk RS700S router. Though the more expensive model has other benefits, such as a slightly greater coverage volume (3,500 Sq ft against 3,300 sq ft) and the ability to talk to 200 devices at once compared to the RS600's 150.

Setup is done through a phone app—you'll need to create a Netgear account and then connect to the router's default Wi-Fi network, after which everything happens more or less automatically until you need to input your network credentials—there's a lot of time spent watching a blue bar creep across the screen while it 'makes sure your mobile device is connected' and constantly asks you to 'wait two minutes'. There's an on/off switch on the back of the router you're going to need to remember to press to make the whole thing work, but that's the most difficult thing. Then you're going to need to name your Wi-Fi network (an opportunity to broadcast messages into your neighbours' homes), create a new password, create an admin account and password, then answer some security questions. It's a very smooth process, and includes an automatic firmware update check—twice.

There's a sticker on the end of the router that provides information about the default network name and password, and which indicates that it can be peeled off —it can't. The sticker held onto the plastic shell of the device like a limpet on a rock, and if you're fussy about the appearance of your router this is going to be annoying.

It also has Netgear's Smart Connect enabled by default, which collects all the various wireless networks it's capable of emitting into one, and allows the router to choose which it assigns to a particular device. This is fine if you're not fussy about always getting the best one, and prefer an uncluttered Wi-Fi connection page on your devices, but you'll want to turn it off if you need to make sure your gaming PC, for example, connects to the 6 GHz or 5 GHz network to make the most of its speed.

And as for that speed, well Wi-Fi 7 is no longer new so we're not as impressed by the vast throughput figures as once we were. Average internet speeds also haven't kept up with advances in router tech, so hooking that 10 Gbps socket up to an average 70 Mbps connection can still feel a little wasteful. What routers like this excel at is acting as a hub so that your gaming PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone, NAS, media server, games console, multiple smartphones, smart home devices, internet-enabled fridge and coffee machine, plus any children you may have (they're fitted with Wi-Fi chips at birth these days) can all communicate with each other and the wider internet at once.

These speeds, recorded between two Wi-Fi 7 PCs both connected to the router on each of its three bands, are pretty good, meaning that you'll be flinging around gigabit streams of data with wild abandon if you've got a need for that sort of thing.

As has often been the case with the Wi-Fi 7 routers we've tested, the 5 GHz band comes out on top when both PCs were in the same room and again when a bit of distance and a wall or two are put between them, though the 6 GHz one is no slouch and could be kept as the exclusive domain of your games PC to avoid congestion from other devices. Hopefully this adds a degree of future-proofing to the device, though it's not as fast as the big TP-Link, and it will make an excellent upgrade over that flimsy thing your ISP lumbered you with.

You know what they say: If you want something done properly, do it yourself. Two brothers-in-law based out of Saline, Michigan, appear to have taken this principle to heart—as, after having had their fill of relying on Comcast for their high-speed internet, they've started an ISP of their very own.

After becoming frustrated with the slow upload speeds and what he perceived to be an unreliable connection offered by Comcast's Xfinity service, Samuel Herman—a Saline resident and chief operating officer of his father's local construction company—decided to take matters into his own hands (via Ars Technica). After discovering that no fiber ISP was competing with Comcast in his area, he enlisted the help of his brother-in-law, Alexander Baciu, to create an ISP that aims to provide a cheaper and more reliable alternative.

"All throughout my life pretty much, I've had to deal with Xfinity's bullcrap, them not being able to handle the speeds that we need," Herman told Ars Technica. "Many times we would have to call Comcast and let them know our bandwidth was slowing down... then they would say, 'OK, we'll refresh the system.' So then it would work again for a week to two weeks, and then again we'd have the same issues."

"We have spoken to all of these Internet service providers and asked them to come and service these areas. I knew that there was a dire need in this area and that everybody was sick of the Xfinity BS."

Given that the construction business is their game, particularly the installation of fiber lines and their associated conduits, the two decided to pivot their knowledge of local infrastructure into creating a fiber broadband provider of their very own. "We kept on talking. We're like, hey, we're doing this work for other people, why not?" said Baciu.

In August of 2024, the pair signed a contract with a firm that provides IP address assignments, backhaul services, and connectivity for ISPs. They also hired technical assistants and software engineers to handle the networking requirements. Just six months after their newly-minted broadband provider, Prime-One, began operations, the pair have already gained over 100 customers.

Prime-One currently has 15 employees and provides unlimited data connections to the local area starting at 500 Mbps for $75 a month, all the way up to a 5 Gbps connection for $110, along with an Optical Network Terminal, a modem, and a router. "We are 100 percent fiber optic," says Baciu. "Everything that we're doing is all underground. "We're not doing aerial because we really want to protect the infrastructure and make sure we're having a reliable connection."

The company also offers phone support, as opposed to the mostly online chat support offered by Comcast. Currently, the network is capable of servicing around 1,500 homes in Saline over 75 miles of fiber optic cables—but Prime-One is planning to expand to 4,000 homes in the near future, along with providing connection opportunities to multi-unit residential buildings as well.

So, it's a hometown hero story all round, then. Everyone loves the idea of a scrappy underdog taking on the big players, but in this case, the two underdogs involved had the technical know-how, the will, and the funding to succeed. On Comcast's part, however, it looks like the pair might have spurred the competition into a response:

"We have upgraded our network in this area and offer multi-gig speeds there, and across Michigan, as part of our national upgrade that's been rolling out", a spokesperson said. Meanwhile, MetroNet and Frontier, two competing ISPs, have also been expanding their fiber line construction into The City of Saline, although neither appears to be serving the zones Prime-One operates in currently.

And as for the future? Herman says that "we have plans we cannot disclose at this moment, but we do have a plan to expand." Sounds like this David vs Goliath battle has some ways to go yet, then. Good luck, chaps.

NBN Co is rolling out a bunch of changes to its once-fraught but rapidly stabilizing broadband infrastructure. Come September, a whole new wired speed tier in the form of NBN 2000 will be available, and as the name implies, that tier will offer up to 2,000 Mbps downloads—a 100% increase over the old highest tier. If you feel like you need the internet that fast, NBN 2000 connections will come bearing a wholesale cost of AU$115, so expect ISPs to charge a bit more than that, probably in the range of AU$150 to AU$200.

Having an ultra high speed option is welcome, of course, but perhaps the best NBN change coming this September is the automatic update of NBN 100 services to NBN 500 services. In other words, expect connections currently capping out at 100 Mbps to cap out at 500 Mbps. Similarly, 20 Mbps uploads will become 50 Mbps uploads.

But one ISP has decided: eff that, let's change now. Exetel, who ranks among our favourite NBN plans for gaming, has not only started offering NBN 500 a full two months ahead of the competition, but it has scrapped all of its other plans. In summary, Exetel currently has a single speed tier (NBN 500) for AU$80 a month.That's not an introductory offer either—that’s the ongoing price.

The price corresponds with what I'm expecting to see in September: AU$80 is the ballpark figure for what you currently pay for NBN 100 from competitive providers, so while we’ll obviously have to wait for September for pricing confirmation, Exetel’s NBN 500 price looks about right to me.

So, if you're paying more than AU$80 for NBN 100 at present, it's hard to argue against swapping to Exetel right now, because why pay the same or more for a fraction of the speed? (Unless Exetel's move triggers an avalanche of copycats—let's hope it does.) It's pretty easy to swap internet providers, so if you're not in a contract, the option is sitting right there on the table.

While the NBN 500 upgrade is hugely welcome, there is a caveat: your physical connection will need to be either fibre to the premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coax to get that new top speed. If you're still on fibre to the node (FTTN) then you simply can't get speeds higher than 100 Mbps at this point. NBN has dramatically scaled up its FTTP roll-out this year though, and chances are you're either eligible for a free upgrade, or will be soon. You can check on the NBN website. Exetel’s NBN 500 plan isn’t (yet) eligible for the free fibre upgrade program, though this will likely change at some point in future.

Just a couple of months ago I was praising Spintel for offering a very fast NBN 250 connection for AU$80 a month, which (I am somewhat sheepish to admit) was less than what I was then paying for an NBN 50 connection. That's what I get for forgetting to check in on my internet bill situation: it's something everyone should do every six months or so, to ensure they're not being extorted.

I changed, of course. But now I'm feeling slightly regretful, because Superloop has arrived with an even better deal: NBN 1000 for AU$85 a month.

That's for the first six months. After the introductory offer, the price will increase to AU$109 per month. But as most thrifty internet users in Australia know, it's best to change your provider depending on who's offering the best price at the time, because there are usually no lock-in contracts and the switching process is extremely easy: it's usually just a matter of making a phone call.

The only bad news is that you'll need to make the jump with urgency, because the deal expires on June 30. Again, switching is easy: just cancel with your current provider (you'll stay connected with them until your next billing date) and set up your new connection via the Superloop link above.

It's pretty good timing too: NBN's huge fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) roll-out has really picked up pace of late, with millions of Australians eligible for a free update. If you've been suffering with a sub-standard FTTN connection, which can't cope with speeds above 100Mbps, you should see if your address is eligible to upgrade here.

Given that Superloop's NBN 1000 deal is better than some of its competitors prices for lower speed tiers, I'd say it's worth grabbing even if you don't think you need lightning speed downloads. Why not spoil yourself for six months? If you want to see what the competition is doing, or the best prices in other speed tiers, check out the best NBN plans for gaming.

Unless you're a networking engineer, it's unlikely you've thought about your router in some time. After all, working tech is working tech, and if it's still delivering the speeds your internet provider promised, why change it? Cyber criminals, that's why. Especially if yours happens to be a Cisco Linksys model.

That's according to the FBI, which has released a document [PDF warning] advising that not only are EOL (End of Life) routers particularly open to attack from nefarious internet forces in general, but specifically mentions multiple Cisco Linksys models as "vulnerable to compromise" (via Hot Hardware). The routers mentioned are as follows:

• Cisco Linksys E1200
• Cisco Linksys E2500
• Cisco Linksys E1000
• Cisco Linksys E4200
• Cisco Linksys E1500
• Cisco Linksys E300
• Cisco Linksys E3200
• Cisco Linksys WRT320N
• Cisco Linksys E1550
• Cisco Linksys WRT610
• Cisco Linksys E100
• Cisco Linksys M10
• Cisco Linksys WRT310N

"Threat actors exploit known vulnerabilities to compromise EOL routers, install malware, and use the routers in a botnet they control to launch coordinated attacks or sell access to the devices as proxy services," the document warns.

"The FBI recommends users replace compromised devices with newer models or prevent infection by disabling remote administration and rebooting the router."

Given just how many people cling on to ageing routers until the day their ISP finally replaces them, I'd say it's worth having a look at routers used by your nearest and dearest, too. I'm pretty sure my grandparents use a clockwork router from 1853 (or thereabouts) for their home network, so I'll be certain to dig around underneath the cables next time I'm over for a quiet cup of tea and give them a top router recommendation for their regular Counter-Strike 2 sessions.

While TP-Link routers are not specifically named, they too have been in the news recently regarding security concerns. US congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi has repeatedly called for a ban of TP-Link devices linked to Chinese cyberattacks, most recently in regards to a "worst in nation's history" US telecoms hack revealed late last year.

Networking might be the least sexy of all hardware concerns, but it's worth remembering that your router is the last port of call between the worldwide web and your personal devices. Best to give it a check over—and most certainly a firmware update— even if your router doesn't appear on this list, don't you think?

NBN Co confirmed last week it will raise wholesale prices in July, which means ISPs will inevitably follow suit. Expect a message from your provider some time soon advising of a price increase, or perhaps you've already received it. According to NBN Co, "average wholesale prices" will likely increase by up to AU$1.71 per month, but ISPs will raise their prices by a little (or a lot) more than that.

Indeed, it's already happening: as TechRadar has pointed out, some providers including Exetel and Superloop have gone ahead and raised their plans by up to AU$10 per month ahead of the July hike. For example, if you're on Superloop's popular NBN 100 plan your monthly bill will imminently rise from AU$81 to AU$95 (assuming you're not enjoying any introductory discount at the moment).

But as I pointed out last week, proactive bargain hunters need not overspend for high speed internet. I recently switched from TPG to Spintel: I was paying AU$79.99 for an NBN 50 plan with TPG, which I was advised would soon rise to AU$84.99 a month. I obviously noped out of that situation very quickly. Now I'm spending AU$65 a month for NBN 100 with Spintel. That's an introductory price: It'll rise to AU$81.95 in six months, but even that's still cheaper than TPG's NBN 50 plan.

Lest you think I'm trying to big-up Spintel, let me make this clear: Do I plan to stick with Spintel once the six month introductory offer has expired? Not a bloody chance! It's just too easy to switch.

Price discrepancies are everywhere in NBN land, and there are sometimes good reasons for that. Aussie Broadband-owned Buddy offers extremely competitive prices on NBN 1000, but that's at the cost of any human customer support—it's really for people who have a bit of know-how and can troubleshoot themselves.

On the other hand, it takes basically no savvy at all to hop between internet providers based on their introductory prices, which tend to last six months. All you need to do is cancel with your current provider—they will sometimes try to talk you out of it!—and sign up with the new one, making sure to leave a buffer of a couple of days lest things go wrong. Things shouldn't go wrong though, because the transition just… works. You shouldn't need to change anything, unless there’s specific modem-router settings you need to tweak. I went to sleep one evening with TPG as my provider, and I woke the next morning with Spintel powering my connection.

In other words—and I know I've said this before elsewhere—there is nothing wrong with hopping between ISPs every six months. You stand to save a tonne of money doing so (discounts are usually in the order of AU$15 off the "usual" price, which means a saving of around AU$180 per annum) and all it takes is usually around 15 minutes on the phone.

With that in mind, here are the ISPs with the best introductory discounts going at the moment, across tiers ranging NBN 100 through to NBN 1000. As always, for speeds upwards of 100 Mbps, you'll need a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connection.

For a broader look at NBN providers in Australia, and some tips on what matters for PC gaming, check out our guide to the best Australian NBN plans for gaming.

Earlier this year my internet provider jacked up the monthly cost of my NBN 50 plan to AU$85 a month. It came as a shock, not least because I hadn't been paying attention to how much I was over-spending on a slow connection. As you can probably gather, I'm not a power user—I work from home, but I don't generally stream much, and I'm more than happy to wait half-a-day for big games to download (I'm old, you see).

But today I'm reminded that it's well-worth checking in on what you're paying for internet regularly. While browsing for an alternative, I found an absolute banger of a Spintel deal. For AU$80 a month I could be getting an NBN 250 connection with 240Mbps typical evening download speeds. That's less than what I'm paying for NBN 50 at the moment, and not only that, the AU$80 per month isn't an introductory offer: that's what you'll pay for the life of the plan.

Just to expand on that: usually most worthwhile NBN deals are introductory offers. I fully expected that AU$80 to be an introductory offer that would then rise to, say, AU$95 per month after six months. But that is not the case here, which, frankly, is kinda bizarre value.

While the NBN 250 plan is the most impressive in terms of what competitors are offering, Spintel's NBN 1000 price is also noteworthy. This gigabit plan offers a typical evening speed of 750Mbps (42Mbps uploads) and will set you back AU$90 a month. And again, that's not an introductory offer: that's "life of plan".

Note that if you've got a FTTN connection (fibre to the node) you won't be able to enjoy speeds any higher than what an NBN 100 connection provides. That said, FTTP is slowly but surely rolling out nationwide, and many households now qualify for a free upgrade.

If you're keen to do more research or check out some other plans, check out our guide to the best NBN plans for gaming.

If you own a Netgear router it may well be time to check for updates, as the company has released a security advisory to update the firmware as soon as possible on several models.

While details are thin on the ground, it appears two critical remote code execution vulnerabilities have been patched for multiple WiFi router models (via Bleeping Computer). I've listed the latest firmware updates next to the affected routers below, so if you're a Netgear user it's worth a quick check to see if your router is affected, and if it's using the latest version.

To check your router's firmware version, follow the instructions on the Netgear site.

If you own an affected router and the firmware differs from the listed versions above, it's time to get updating. To do so, visit Netgear support and begin typing in your model number, before selecting it from the drop down menu.

Once you're on your router's support page, click Downloads, and then under Current Versions select the first option. Then follow the Release Notes instructions to download and install the latest firmware version to your device.

Netgear says "the authentication bypass vulnerability remains if you do not complete all recommended steps," so make sure to double check your new firmware has installed correctly after following the instructions above.

Out of the affected models listed, the XR variants are considered gaming routers, with the XR1000 Nighthawk Pro being the most recent. A router is often regarded as a "set and forget" sort of device, and I know it's been many moons since I last checked if my particular (non-Netgear) router was up to date.

So even for the rest of us, it's worth a quick check for updates, isn't it? Security starts at the first potential entry point, and your home router is the first sentry on the outer walls of your internet perimeter. Better safe than sorry, I'm sure you'll agree.

While the TikTok US ban debacle rolls on, it looks like TP-Link is being considered for the same treatment. After a letter signed by two US congressmen called for a ban of TP-Link devices last summer for having "unusual vulnerabilities" linked to Chinese cyberattacks, one of its signees is now voicing continued concerns.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an American attorney and politician serving as a representative for Illinois since 2017, has spoken to CNBC regarding what he perceives as an ongoing threat to national security, with no action taken since concerns were raised to the US Department of Commerce last year.

"I am not aware of any plans to get them out," he said. "The PRC has every intent to collect this data on Americans and they will, why give them another backdoor?"

TP-Link is thought to have roughly 65% of the market share of US routers for homes and small businesses. Previously, the US government had mandated that telecom equipment manufactured by Huawei, another China-based communications provider, be banned from sale and import in the US over similar national security concerns.

"I am wondering whether something similar needs to be done, at least in regards to national security agencies, Department of Defense, and Intelligence," said Krishnamoorthi.

"It just doesn't make sense for the US government to be buying the routers."

The fresh calls come in the wake of a "worst in nation's history" telecoms hack, the details of which were revealed late last year. A China-linked hacking group dubbed "Salt Typhoon" was identified by the FBI and CISA as having infiltrated US telecoms networks by manipulating backdoors in existing communication equipment.

The hackers were initially said to have compromised the communications of politicians, campaign advisors, and other high-profile targets through the Verizon network, although it was later revealed that the hack was much more widespread.

Certainly, the US telecoms network now looks like a much leakier ship than initially thought, and the widespread use of TP-Link routers and their alleged vulnerabilities is a scary thought.

However, with the network itself being comprised of huge amounts of ageing equipment from multiple manufacturers, it strikes that a "rip and replace" policy, as was metered out to Huawei's products, would be extremely difficult to enact—especially given their share in the US domestic market.

Still, Krishnamoorthi couldn't be making himself clearer at this point:

"I would not buy a TP-Link router," he said. "I would not have that in my home."

As a renter all too familiar with the faraday cages that make up much of Bath's Georgian architecture, I've found TP-Link WiFi adapters often come in clutch (that Bridgerton fanfic isn't going to read itself, and certainly not on a dodgy internet connection). Unfortunately these adapters, alongside many of TP-Link's networking products, seem to be extremely vulnerable to hackers.

It gets worse: thousands of TP-Link routers have been hijacked by hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government, according to Ars Technica. The affected routers have been leveraged into a botnet that's hammering Microsoft Azure accounts with password spray attacks, sending massive amounts of login attempts from a rotating roster of IP addresses.

A dizzying 16,000 compromised devices have been pulled together into what's been dubbed the 7777 (or Quad7) botnet. The name is a reference to the TCP port that exposes the intrusion on the compromised device, and this name was coined by the researcher who first documented it—back in October 2023.

As for Azure, Microsoft's cloud services have already been the subject of similar attacks, most recently leading to the illicit access of email accounts belonging to a number of US government agencies. In that instance, hacker group Storm-0558 was identified as the culprit, and a recent blog post from Microsoft says this same group has been using credentials scooped up by the 7777 botnet, suggesting a "close working relationship" between the hacker group and whoever is steering the bots.

Once hackers get in via a compromised account, they've then been observed by Microsoft to move "laterally within the network," scooping up more data and even attempting to install remote access trojan horses so they can hop back in at a later date.

According to security researchers at Sekoia TDR and Team Cymru, the 7777 botnet was active as recently as August this year. Furthermore, affected routers were found all over the world; the highest portion of compromised devices was found in Bulgaria, though Russia, the US, and Ukraine follow closely behind. This far flung web of devices makes it especially difficult to pin down the source of the attack, or that an attack is happening at all.

On top of all of that, it's not yet clear how the devices involved are becoming infected and drawn into the botnet in the first place. However, before you punt your TP-Link WiFi adapter down the Mendips, it's worth noting that compromised devices may be disinfected, at least temporarily.

As the malware involved can't write to the storage of a TP-Link device, a simple reboot could potentially cut the cord — until hackers try to brute force the back door open once more, so it's best to reboot your devices periodically. It's simple advice, but serves as one more example of why the words 'have you tried turning it off and on again' endure.

While many other manufacturers like their Wi-Fi routers to look like mechanical spiders or spaceships, giving little thought to the practicalities of keeping them on narrow shelves or dusting them, Netgear's design department is more restrained. The RS300—an affordable Wi-Fi 7 router inasmuch as you don't actually fall over when you see how much they want for it—is very much the Nighthawk RS700S's little cousin.

There's a strong family resemblance in the upright stance, rounded-diamond cross section, and the lack of aerials, as well as a very similar layout with blinking status lights on the front which can be turned off with a single button-press. The RS300 comes from a different part of the gene pool, however, with slower speeds on both wired and wireless connections.

By slower, however, it still means fast. This is a Wi-Fi 7 router and everything is measured in Gbps, faster than almost everyone's internet connection and more than you need for streaming or even gaming (though downloading from Steam will always benefit from greater speeds). We're seeing more and more gaming laptops and desktops (as well as phones and tablets) come equipped with Wi-Fi 7 cards, however, so it's nice to see this latest version of a mature technology becoming mainstream enough for budget models to emerge.

Still, if you have an internet connection greater than 2.5 Gbps (in which case, can we come to your house?) you should consider something else. You won't find a 10 Gbps input or output port on the RS300, so if you want to run a high-speed home network you'll be limited to 2.5 Gbps throughput.

For most people this absolutely will not matter, and the ability to hook up modern devices to the 6 GHz Wi-Fi network and enjoy speeds of up to a claimed 5.8 Gbps means the router is very unlikely to be any kind of bottleneck.

In testing, with two Wi-Fi 7 devices connected wirelessly and acting as a server and client in iPerf3, to see how quickly data took to be transferred between them at various distances (in the same room, and further away with a wall and floor in between) over the different bands, the RS300 provides respectable, though not jaw-dropping, speeds.

This performance puts it behind more expensive routers such as the TP-Link GE800, but not too far behind. Think of it as an RTX 4070 up against an RTX 4090. The model that's twice the price is faster, sure, but it's probably not worth it for everyday use.

The RS300 comes in compact and restrained packaging, with a slim box-within-a-box containing the bundled power adapter and Ethernet cable laying on top of the router itself. A ribbon has been carefully placed underneath the plastic casing as it lays in the cardboard embrace, allowing you to easily lift it out. Other than this, and some plastic wrapping, it's a lightweight offering, matching the router itself, which is less than half the weight of the TP-Link Archer GE800 and easy enough to pick up with one hand. This, combined with an ergonomic shape that resembles a flattened gridiron or rugby ball, makes it possibly the first Wi-Fi 7 router that could be thrown with any degree of accuracy, something that clearly needs to be taken into account in all future buying decisions.

Once it's out of the box you'll want to set it up, and Netgear has years of experience in making this as easy and straightforward as possible. A QR code is helpfully stuck right on top of the unit (and repeated on the base), along with a default SSID and password, and you can use this to connect up the Netgear Nighthawk smartphone app, which will allow you to input an admin password and set some security questions. Then you need to try to remember the username and password for your broadband service, if needed, and you can adjust the settings of the Wi-Fi broadcasts if you want to deviate from the default. It is extremely easy, and Netgear gets a big gold star for making it that way, but it can take a long time especially if there's a firmware update involved. Luckily, it's the sort of thing most people will only need to do once.

From there, you can build your network. With a claimed coverage of 2,000 sq. ft and the ability to talk to 100 concurrent devices, it makes an excellent hub around which everything else can cluster. If a wired network is your thing, there are four Ethernet ports on the back, two of them capable of full 2.5 Gbps speeds, with the other two limited to a 'mere' 1 Gbps. That's still fast enough for most uses, and the benefits of a more stable connection when hooking up streaming devices such as smart TVs can outweigh the inconvenience of running one more cable.

Wireless performance is a much less stable thing, as our homes were simply not designed for optimum data transfer. One day, perhaps not too long from now, all apartments, bungalows and townhouses will be completely empty and open plan, with no walls, doors or partitions of any kind; the router will be suspended precisely in the centre, and circles inscribed on the (single) floor—painted white, naturally—so you know exactly how far away you are. Today is not that day, so we have to put up with our imperfect homes and the problems they pose for wireless data transmission.

To do this, you can separate out the bands so all three have different names and passwords, rather than allowing the router to manage them all as one SSID (which Netgear calls Smart Connect, and is on by default).

Something we're starting to see more of with Wi-Fi 7 routers is a proliferation of subscription services, and the RS300 is no exception. You get Wi-Fi encryption as standard, of course, but after a free trial period you'll have to cough up some extra cash to keep using the Armor security services and Smart Parental Controls. It's an annoying upsell, and some companies include this stuff in the asking price.

Netgear has created a Wi-Fi 7 router here that does a lot right, and comes in at a very good price… for a Wi-Fi 7 router. It may not have the absolute fastest hardware imaginable, but it easily outstrips average internet connections, and even with IoT devices in the mix 100 concurrent devices is a lot, so why do you need more?

Two US Congressmen have called on the Biden administration to launch an investigation over concerns that networking products made by the widely used TP-Link brand could be used to covertly spy on Americans, or be used for cyber attacks.

Republican Representative John Moolenaar and Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi have formally requested an investigation from the US Department of Commerce citing national security risks. According to a letter posted by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (via Reuters), "TP-Link’s unusual degree of vulnerabilities and required compliance with PRC law are in and of themselves disconcerting".

TP-Link products are widely used in the US, and can be found inside critical facilities, including US military bases.

Last year, TP-Link routers were used to launch an attack on European foreign affairs organizations. TP-Link firmware was infected with malware, giving attackers the ability to run shell commands, access files and relay communications between devices on the network. TP-Link is not the only manufacturer that can be exploited. Other manufacturers including Cisco and Netgear have also been used to launch attacks from foreign adversaries.

The request for an investigation is just the latest in the US government's actions against Chinese companies, with Huawei and ZTE being forced out of the US market. TikTok is another well known example of a Chinese company facing similar spying concerns.

Most end users are at least somewhat aware of the need to keep devices and PC software updated for security reasons, but there is far less awareness around the potential for router based attacks. I'd place a wager and suggest that a majority of home users have never updated their router's firmware. Now would be a good time to start.

We PC gamers often like to flirt with F1 driving, from sim racing to straight-up brand sponsorship and partnership. We tend to be a techy bunch, too. So I was a little angry at myself for not already knowing that, as Ex-F1 Senior Systems Engineer Dan "EngineMode11" explains, "An F1 car has an IP address."

I mean, duh, of course F1 cars have IP addresses. Right? We're talking about some of the most sophisticated automobiles on the planet, designed to chop sharp turns at well over 100 mph and quickly climb back up to 200+ mph, all without spattering person across the asphalt.

If everyday dawdler vehicles are now packed to the brim with electronics, including wireless tech (and they are), you can bet that F1 cars are, too. And we already know that F1 teams like Alpine painstakingly gather shedloads of car sensor data for analysis. What, did we expect F1 cars to pit-stop-and-USB? 

No, much is done wirelessly, apparently using the F1 car's IP address. Or, to be more precise, using one of its multiple IP addresses, because, as Dan explains in a reply, "there are several depending on what you want to do."

What you probably don't want to do is blow up the car's engine, though. And that, Dan implies, is something that might have actually happened. "The fear" about having an F1 car with an IP address, he explains, "isn't from external bad actors. It's internally, from the electronics team, who definitely wouldn't accidentally connect to the wrong car and flash the ECU of one running on the test bed instead of the sim, that's definitely never happened."

An ECU, for reference, is a car's Electronic Control Unit, which controls much of its engine's systems, such as the ignition. Now, thankfully, I've never actually had anything go wrong when flashing a motherboard BIOS, which is why I'm not too fussed about doing so. If my motherboard was connected to a combustion engine, though? I'm not so sure I'd pull the trigger. And I certainly wouldn't like the ability to accidentally connect to it remotely and do so.

When asked what happens when a running F1 car has its ECU flashed, Dan has a straightforward answer: "New engine," followed by an explosion emoji. Pretty simple, then: Check you're connected to the correct IP address when flashing an F1 car's circuitry. 

Let's just hope there's no flashing going on track-side (no, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter) because, apparently, track-side wireless management is a mess at F1 events: "I had the unfortunate job of trying to deploy WiFi trackside and the amount of noise and overlapping networks in the pitlane gave me an aneurysm."

I dunno, I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that I didn't realise F1 cars are zooming around out there with itty bitty IP addresses circulating the digital space. Information I now know, that I may never need to use, and that now you know, too.

Exterior, space. Stars twinkle. A serene planet hangs in the blackness. A Star Destroyer passes across the camera's view to orchestral music. The shuttle of evil Sith Lord Ray Tracingus flies by with a scream of engines, enters the destroyer's bay and lands, folding its wings up as it does so. Wi-Fi reception aboard the heavily armed warship improves considerably.

Yes, TP-Link's latest and greatest Wi-Fi 7 router, the Archer GE800, is what you might call a distinctive shape, and if you put it on display with some model TIE Interceptors and a CR-90 corvette or two it might blend in, or at least have people wondering which part of the expanded universe it comes from.

This is no simple shuttlecraft, however, but a fully armed and operational... [that's enough -ed] battle... er... Wi-Fi 7 router with five fast Ethernet ports for smuggling data away from Imperial probe droids and capable of downloading the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs [you're fired -ed]. Look, the antennas are merged into two panels that stick up like the Netgear Nighthawks of old, OK? And they look like wings.

The box is huge, and emblazoned with 'dominate the competition'—a slogan most probably aimed at gamers unless there's some kind of competitive networking event we're unaware of. And while a Wi-Fi World Cup might be fun, we suspect a certain amount of performance-enhancing plugs might be involved. 

Your first challenge is to get it out of the plastic wrapping, which clings tightly to the angles and flat plates of the router. It's fully assembled, with no antennas to screw in, but you'll be forced to put it down on a desk before committing it to the cupboard or shelf just to take in the sheer majestic size of the thing. Footprint-wise, it's the size of a small laptop, but a laptop that rises six inches into the air. Between the wings there's even an active cooling fan—it really is like a laptop.

An Ethernet cable and a phone SIM tool—for poking the recessed reset button—are included, plus a power brick which came with a US-style three-pin plug that connects to the brick with a cloverleaf connection—watch out in your region if you have to replace the cable, as cloverleafs are less common than kettle leads. One of the 10 Gbps Ethernet ports is for the WAN hookup, but there's also an SFP+ port for direct fibre connections (the one on the review model is filled with an easily removable rubber bung) and you can even combo the two together for unheard of amounts of internet. Setup is a case of connecting to the Wi-Fi hotspot using the password (or QR code) printed on the bottom, and using the phone app or web interface to create passwords and go through a few simple questions. It's a very fast and easy process.

Assuming the Ethernet ports are at the back, it's one of the few routers to be deeper than it is wide, and as you're going to want the front and back of the unit to be accessible—there are buttons for WPS, Wi-Fi switch-off and more on the front, plus a USB port and on/off switch alongside the Ethernet on the back—it's going to be better installed sideways, so that it doesn't hang over the edge of a shelf and you can appreciate the RGB.

Oh yes. The coloured lighting plague that has led to desktop PC cases looking like Fourth of July celebrations and laptops projecting manufacturers' logos onto our knees has taken root on this router, with multi-hued LEDs buried in the vertical antenna plates and behind grilles that now, to return to the previous tortured Star Wars metaphor, look like engines. 

You can turn it off. There's a dedicated button. Use it.

The Archer GE800 is certainly not cheap, but it certainly is fast, and while the benefits of Wi-Fi 7 may be best experienced on a network with a particularly fat connection to the wider internet and a lot of separate devices to share those megabits between, a router like this is an upgrade for anyone still labouring away with Wi-Fi 5. One of the Ethernet ports is a ‘gaming port' which will prioritise your traffic if you plug your gaming PC into it, but really with a router operating at this level network congestion should be the least of your problems. There's automatic QoS on-board too, which claims to detect and optimise gaming traffic without you having to interfere—though you can tweak it—and Homeshield security. You even get access to the Gamers Private Network VPN service.

The published wireless throughput figures are as huge as the box it comes in, offering a whopping 11.5 gigs of 6 GHz bandwidth to play with, and over a gig on the longer-ranged 2.4 GHz band, which will be useful for that relative who hasn't updated their phone since 2010 (it is of course backwards compatible) and for when your fridge downloads a firmware update. You're not going to get all that in one go, even if you're transferring data to a networked SSD array, but it can be shared out among a lot of devices without succumbing to slowdown or latency. Some of this capability comes from using the latest version of the Wi-Fi spec, and some from a Qualcomm chipset that not so long ago we'd have been calling a flagship smartphone.

In testing, the GE800 manages something close to a perfect score, with no weird peaks and troughs. Each network gets faster as we move up the GHz scale, and there's a distinct drop off in transmission speed as the client device is moved away from the server and a few walls and a floor are put in between. It's all exactly as the Force predicted.

It may be large and expensive (though it's actually not the priciest router on the market), but there's no arguing with the results. If your wallet and shelving can take it, and you have a fast internet connection you want to distribute among multiple devices that can use Wi-Fi 7—or think you will have in the near future—then the TP-Link Archer GE800 has got your back with this one.

It is the dawning of the age of Wi-Fi 7, but it's taking time to become popular and buying a Wi-Fi 6E router can be a good—and more cost-effective—way to boost your Wi-Fi speeds from Wi-Fi 5 or, heaven forbid, Wi-Fi 4. 

TP-Link has produced a striking-looking router in the AXE75, taking the standard rectangular wedge with antennas up the back so beloved of tech designers and adding into the mix a geometric pattern and a smooth, angled area. It stands out from other routers that follow the same basic shape, but that pattern is sure going to collect dust. Around the back there's nothing unusual, with four gigabit Ethernet ports, a gigabit WAN port, power connector, on/off switch, and further buttons for WPS, reset, and turning the LEDs and Wi-Fi on and off.

The router comes as an already assembled unit, though there are individual plastic sheaths tightly wrapped around each of the six antennas that you'll spend ages picking at with your fingernails to remove. Why they don't slide straight off is a mystery. There's also a peel-off sheet of plastic over a section on top of the unit, that you might not even notice until it bubbles up. Power comes via an external adapter with a cable about 1.5m long, so you'll need to position the router at least that close to a socket.

Setup is very straightforward. Plug it in and switch it on, then use the Wi-Fi network name and password printed on the bottom, or the QR code, to connect the TP-Link Tether app on your phone. Set an admin password, then (in a step that foxed me for a moment because I'm dumb) enter that password, and you're in. You can also do this from a web browser, and once you've got access to the admin page you can separate out the three Wi-Fi bands, which are bundled together by default, and enable the guest network and parental controls.

Wi-Fi 6E is Wi-Fi 6 that extends into the 6GHz band, which can give you additional 160 MHz channels to play with. Wi-Fi 7 would double these to 320 MHz wide, but even so Wi-Fi 6E gives you a lot of extra capacity over previous versions. As higher frequencies have a harder time penetrating the bits of our homes that make them homes—the walls and floors—the 6 GHz channels are better for fast, short-range links, such as a gaming PC in the same room as the router. This, in turn, frees up capacity on the 5 GHz network for your phones and tablets, and on the 2.4 GHz spectrum for IoT and legacy devices. 

OFDMA, or orthogonal frequency-division multiple access—a new Wi-Fi 6 technology—allows these channels to be further split up if a device isn't using them to their fullest, for simultaneous low-data-rate transmission from several users. 

This means a Wi-Fi 6 network is better at handling lots of light-use devices, such as smart lightbulbs and coffee machines, while you keep the 6 GHz network free for those multi-gig Steam downloads and low-ping gaming sessions. Another bit of cleverness, MU-MIMO, which allows multiple nodes and antennas to communicate with each other simultaneously, came in with Wi-Fi 5, but in Wi-Fi 6 and 6E is can be applied in both the down and up link directions, instead of just down as was the case in Wi-Fi 5. This means you'll get a boost in capacity for uploads as well as downloads, which is important for keeping latency down when gaming.

The best thing about getting a Wi-Fi 6E router now rather than a Wi-Fi 7 model is that you'll save a bit of cash, as the slightly older tech doesn't attract the price premium of the new hotness. The TP-Link AXE75 is one of the more reasonably priced Wi-Fi 6E routers on the market, with Netgear's RAXE300 going for over £100 more, Asus' RT-AXE7800 adding £70 to your bill and Acer's Predator Connect W6 needing £40 more in terms of outlay.

These results, carried out in a reasonably modern suburban house without a Faraday cage built into the walls and not a tinfoil hat in sight, are a little odd. The 5 GHz close-by result is faster than the 6 GHz band's speed, and we'd usually expect it to be the other way around. As the two networks share a hypothetical throughput speed they should be allowing data to pass at about the same rate, especially up close. That 5 GHz connection is seriously fast, however, so it's not worth moaning about—it's unusual to see a wireless connection that can actually outstrip a wired one in real-world use.

As fast fibre internet connections continue their rollout, a router like this increasingly makes sense, as internet connections get faster and are shared between more devices, and as games get larger and take longer to download. It can also make a useful hub for a home network if you're running a media server or networked backup solution, and the ability to handle multiple connections at once is almost as important as straight-line speed. 

A Wi-Fi 6E router is starting to look like yesterdays news compared to the very best Wi-Fi 7 models, but networking equipment isn't a sexy purchase, and if you'd rather save your money toward RGB RAM or a step up the graphics card hierarchy, then getting one that supplies enough throughput and the extra features of Wi-Fi 6E is a good way to do it. 

In our testing, the AXE75 provided a particularly fast 5 GHz connection when uncongested and up-close, meaning gamers with a speedy internet connection will be able to download over wireless without suffering too much in the way of slowdown. And the price is low enough that if you're after a speedy gaming router on a budget, this neat little TP-Link Archer will hit the target.

Is there anything Asus doesn't make? The Taiwanese company has knocked out everything from 80486 motherboards to PhysX cards, to some excellent gaming laptops, and you'd expect its Wi-Fi routers to be top quality too. For the most part, this new Wi-Fi 7 model is exactly that, but it comes with a specific omission.

Since Wi-Fi 6E, routers have been able to broadcast on three frequencies. There are the common 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and a 6GHz band that offers greater speeds at a shorter range. It's ideal for a gaming PC in the same room as the router, and frees up the others for phones, tablets, and the IoT devices that are increasingly cluttering up our homes. This router doesn't have that band, but does that mean you're missing out?

Not really. The 6GHz band is fast, but it's also shorter-ranged, and doesn't penetrate solid objects as well. Wi-Fi 7 routers have some clever tricks, however, that mean you can get excellent speeds—certainly faster than you'd need on an average internet connection—on the other bands. 

There are the 320MHz-wide channels, which double the potential bandwidth from Wi-Fi 6 and leave Wi-Fi 5 in the dust. You get 4K-QAM that alters the phase and amplitude of the Wi-Fi signal to squeeze more data into the same space, and MLO (Multi-Link Operation) that allows a client to connect via 2.4GHz and 5GHz at the same time. Even without 6GHz (which isn't approved for use in all countries) Wi-Fi 7 is faster, more reliable, and has less latency as long as you have the equipment to take advantage of it. 

Yes, you're going to need a new PC, phone, tablet, smart fridge, whatever to take full advantage of Wi-Fi 7 (though it is of course backward compatible), whether you connect to the 6GHz band or not, but sharing your current internet connection in a new way might not be enough to tip you over the edge into upgrade heaven. Better to get a mighty multi-gigabit fibre connection first, then sort out the Wi-Fi later.

To the Asus RT-BE88U then, and it's a fairly standard-looking Wi-Fi router of the kind Wednesday Addams might keep as a pet. It's black, a wide sort of wedge shape, there are twinkly lights, it has a vent grille on top and angular legs/antennas sprout from three of its sides. The antennas have a sharp-looking design with a hole cut through them, so they look like the kind of sword Hawkeye might use after he got his tattoos, and need to be tightened up quite a lot when you assemble the router to prevent them flopping forward like you forgot to water them for a month. Standing tall and proud, their black and bronze colour scheme is attractive, but it's still something you're going to place on a shelf then forget about.

Around the back, there's an unusual addition for a consumer router in the form of a SFP+ port. This stands for Small Form-factor Pluggable, and is a hot-swappable network interface that's used for specific connections, such as copper wire or fibre optics, through a modular connector. There's a 10Gb Ethernet WAN port right next to it, which is going to be the plug of choice for most people and almost certainly good enough for many more years of internet upgrades. There are a lot of other network ports on the back too, making this router an excellent choice as a hub if you're building or upgrading a wired network. You get four 2.5Gbit Ethernet connections, and four more gigabit ones. 

LAN4 is a gaming port, which you'll want to plug your PC into to enjoy higher priority for your gaming traffic if you're running a congested network. The proximity of the rear two Wi-Fi antennas to the Ethernet array means getting your finger underneath to remove cables from a packed rack of cables can be a little tricky, though with eight ports available this isn't something you're likely to be doing too often. A single USB 3 port sits off to the side, next to the power connector and its attendant on/off switch. The vertical nature of the USB port is a good decision, as it removes any limits that might have been placed on the size of flash drive you connect to it for sharing if it had been horizontal.

But Wi-Fi speed is what you're looking for in a Wi-Fi 7 router, and the Asus RT-BE88U offers enough, even without the 6GHz band. We set it up for testing by separating out the bands (smushing them into one that automatically negotiates the best connection is also possible) and testing throughput at close range, and again when a bit of distance and some inconvenient bits of a house were put between the two points. Here are the results:

That's not bad, and it's certainly fast enough for streaming and gaming, though it isn't as good as the top Wi-Fi 7 routers such as the Eero Max 7 or Netgear RS700S which can top 700Mbps up close.

Setting up the router is a case of installing the Asus Router app on your phone, then scanning a QR code on the base of the device to join its Wi-Fi network. From there, you can auto-detect your internet settings if you've got it plugged in directly, or choose DHCP mode from the advanced settings to set it up as an access point. 

For advanced settings you can log into the router's web interface, which looks the same as it has with every Asus router going back years. From here you can split out the 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks if you need to, tweak security, and add parental controls and other filtering.

The router is compatible with Asus' AI Mesh system that will allow you to chain routers together to cover a larger area, so being able to set it up in this way is welcome. There's also a dedicated SSID for IoT devices, which means your lightbulbs won't clutter up the network you're trying to game over with their constant chatter, and a guest network too for when your cousins come to stay and you don't trust them with the password.

The Asus RT-BE88U is, it must be pointed out, almost half the price of some other Wi-Fi 7 routers, so it's possible to overlook the slightly lower transfer speed and lack of a 6GHz network in favour of saving a few notes. The RT-BE88U also comes with the benefit that setup is easy, and the presence of Wi-Fi 7 means you pick up an element of future-proofing. With all those Ethernet ports, this router could sit at the heart of your home network for a very long time.

Wi-Fi 7 has its benefits, sure, but at $600 per unit, which each covering over 200m², you still need to be absolutely sure the impressive Amazon Eero Max 7 is the router for you. It's a mesh system, too, so chances are you'll want two or three to dot around your country estate, and the cost soon mounts up. Add to that the monthly fee for the sort of multi-gig fibre connection you'll want to make the most of all this wireless wonder, and networking can suddenly be as expensive as any other part of PC gaming.

Mesh systems work by having more than one router, or node, scattered around your property. They all broadcast the same SSIDs, and communicate with one another over Ethernet, if your house is wired for it, or using a high-capacity wireless network separate from the usual ones you'll use for streaming and that Wi-Fi kettle you bought on a whim. That can certainly be more convenient as long as you get a good connection. Placing mesh nodes, however, especially if you're trying to eliminate Wi-Fi dead spots caused by quirks of architecture or distance, is an artform in itself.

The thing about the Eero Max 7, though, is that one is probably enough. There's definitely a case for mesh if you're connecting an office environment, a house split over multiple floors, a thick-walled basement or a farm, but Wi-Fi 7 itself, with its extra speed and ability to cut through interference, is pretty good on its own. That said, though, put it in a mesh system and you've pretty much got something that can make itself heard anywhere.

The Eero Max 7 node comes as a smooth and shiny white rectangle that wouldn't be out of place as an Ikea wall light or Apple product from the time of the Anglepoise iMac. The Eero logo is picked out in silver, with a single coloured LED to tell you the router's status, and it's a minimal, classy design you won't mind having on display.

There are no visible antennas or multiple blinking lights, it just sits there being completely silent and unobtrusive—which is what you want if you're planning on dotting a few of them around your enormous property. It is kind of large though, which is something Wi-Fi 7 routers all seem to have in common. If space is a concern Eero has much smaller Wi-Fi 6 mesh nodes available.

The back is more interesting, although there's still a lot of smooth white plastic on show with cooling vents at the top and bottom. It's where the Ethernet ports are and Ethernet ports are interesting, dammit, especially when they're as fast as these. Eero has gone for some definite future-proofing here (though with Wi-Fi 7 we wonder how many cables these sockets will actually see, beyond the one that hooks up to the internet in home use) with a pair of 2.5Gb ports next to two more 10Gb connections. That's a lot of networkingness, and you'll need to make sure any cables and hubs you're using are rated for the same speeds to get the most out of it. 

But you don't buy a Wi-Fi 7 router just to use Ethernet cables, and the Wi-Fi options here are comprehensive. Setup is straightforward, but assumes you're tech savvy enough to find and download the phone app yourself—there's no printed guide in the box or QR code on the node itself. 

Once you've got it hooked up there aren't a lot of fine-grained controls on offer, which is generally fine as you can just leave it to get on with the job of running itself and transferring your data. The Max 7 comes with a trial subscription to the Eero Plus security package, which adds a VPN, MalwareBytes protection, content filters, ad blocking and enhanced support to the package. It costs $100 a year, though, and provides many things you could do yourself. Still, with the Eero's commitment to simplicity and its hands-off approach to router management, I can see it being popular.

Wireless speeds are, of course, promised to be spectacular. The Max 7 can theoretically handle up to 574 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band, up to 8,677 Mbps on the 5 GHz band, and up to 11,529 Mbps on the 6 GHz band. That's a grand total of just over 20,000 Mbps if you take your shoes and socks off and add them all together. Though it's obviously something you'll never achieve in reality, it's still a lovely big number. 

This, of course, assumes perfect conditions and no inconvenient walls, but while even the 2.4GHz band, which is usually the longer-ranged of the trio thanks to the way it penetrates solid objects better, can outpace the average internet connection it doesn't offer the same (claimed) high speeds as the Netgear Nighthawk RS700S.

In our testing, which involves transferring a gig of data at varying distances over the Wi-Fi and working out the transfer rate using our fingers and toes, the Eero Max 7 put up a good fight, giving an average transfer rate over Wi-Fi 7 of around 570 Mbits/s whether it was in the same room or had a floor and a few walls in the way. This rate wandered, however, being as high as 624 Mbits in one test and as low as 499 Mbits in another. Its fastest rate was lower than that of the Netgear RS700S, but its slowest rate was better. It's the networking equivalent of a score draw.

Such is its commitment to simplicity that the Max 7 combines all its SSIDs into one, and doesn't allow you to separate them, relying on the devices to negotiate the best connection they can. There's a guest network, however, so you can hive some users off that way.

There's nothing else on the Max 7 beyond a USB-C power connection and a WPS button, but what is noticeable by its absence is the otherwise ubiquitous USB port, which allows you to set up simple file sharing through a flash drive (or USB hard drive for a multi-device backup solution), or share a USB printer, just by plugging it in. It's a feature that probably doesn't get a lot of use, especially as network storage and Wi-Fi printers are now commonplace, but having had USB ports on routers since the days before Wi-Fi 4, it seems wrong not to see one. 

Being an Amazon device—the well-known online grocer is Eero's parent company—there's plentiful IoT support in the Max 7. It will pair with your Echo and contains the necessary radios to control Zigbee and Matter devices, sidestepping the need for an extra hub. 

The question that arises with these high-speed, high-capacity routers, however, is just who are they for? These kinds of network speeds, especially over wired connections, are only really useful if you're transferring a lot of data to and from a server. Perhaps one day when we're all streaming 8K and have AI edge servers running our homes it'll be different, but a PC gamer wanting to share a sub-gigabit internet connection between their rig, phone, laptop and tablet is going to get the same sort of results from a much cheaper router, and might get a USB port too. 

With its speed, capacity, future-proofing and the ability to add extra nodes if your house suddenly gets bigger, the Eero Max 7 is one of the best Wi-Fi routers it's currently possible to buy, but you'll need to pay for the privilege.

Routers don't grab news headlines like CPUs, graphics cards, or gaming laptops do but they're pretty much standard hardware for every household with a PC in it. Most are discrete, dull-looking boxes that simply get on and do the job they were created for. Enter stage left Asus at Computex 2024, and its ROG Rapture GT-BE19000, the gaming version of its already ludicrous Wi-Fi 7 RT-BE96U router.

While we've not tested that particular router yet, our chums at Tom's Guide have and reckon it's a brilliant router, fast and packed with features, though the $700 price tag is perhaps as outrageous as it looks.

But if you feel a spikey, black router just isn't gamer enough for you, then don't worry as Asus clearly feels the same way. It's plastered the router with a variety of aesthetic enhancements to make it feel right at home in the ROG family of hardware, especially with the name Rapture GT-BE19000.

If you don't have GT in the name of something, it's automatically slow. Allegedly.

As far as we can tell, the components inside are no different to the original RT-BE96U, but you're getting some additional cooling (err, why?), some RGB (but of course), and a slightly bizarre collection of what appear to be decals, underneath a transparent plastic shield. 

Routers targeted at the gaming market have always been a tad on the extreme side when it comes to looks, but I have to say that I've not seen one quite so lairy as this one.

And you know what? I kind of want one! With two Wi-Fi 7 capable PCs in my house, it would be nice to take full advantage of that with an appropriate router, though my current Wi-Fi 6 one pretty much hits the maximum transfer rate of my ISP connection (500 Mbps) anyway.

The two 10Gb LAN ports would be great for hooking up all the other test PCs I have in my office or attaching a NAS to the network, although I'm not a fan of having Ethernet cables trailing about everywhere.

Truthfully though, I just want it for the Thargoid-inspired looks. Forget discrete and boring—give me something that looks like it could beam data directly into my frontal lobes. However, given that I can't afford the 'standard' RT-BE96U, I suspect I'll have no chance with the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000, whatever its retail price ends up coming to.

Then again, given how well Asus has been handling its warranty situation, perhaps it's a good job that I can't actually buy one. Ah well, my alien-router dreams will have to wait a while longer.

You can almost hear Also Sprach Zarathustra playing as you unbox the latest Nighthawk. It may be named after Lockheed's stealthy ground attack plane, but in the flesh it's all 2001's black monolith.

And just like Clark's creation the Netgear Nighthawk RS700S is here to uplift you. It brings with it unheard of technologies that will become the centre of your home for years to come. It shows us the way of the future and... calm down Ian, it's only a router.

The funny thing about Wi-Fi 7 kit, though, is just how advanced it seems over the Wi-Fi 5 and 6 gear we're all using (hint: not that much). Every new generation of wireless internettyness brings some innovations, but we're reaching the point of diminishing returns. With average UK and US homes being in the 1,000 to 2,000 sq ft range, why do you need a system that will cover 3,000 sq ft unless you live in a castle or want to share with your neighbours? 

Obviously there are good reasons for wanting more coverage, such as the ability to email while gardening and wanting decent signal strength away from the site of the router and through walls. You could buy a Wi-Fi 6 mesh system for the same price as the RS700S, but you'd miss out on the Wi-Fi 7 features and the admiring glances from your network-savvy friends. 

This latest release of the Wi-Fi standard, AKA IEEE 802.11be, offers twice the speed of v6 and is better at handling network congestion and keeping latency down. It offers a 6 GHz network with a blistering throughput of 11 Gbps, though distance and inconvenient walls will cut this down. What's perhaps more interesting is the 2.4 GHz channel, which offers 1.4 Gbps and has a much longer range, thanks to the ability of the lower frequencies to penetrate solid objects.

To take advantage of all this you'll need every device in the chain to be Wi-Fi 7 compliant, which means the right kind of extender, if you're using one, and a device like one of the latest Apple or Samsung Galaxy phones, HP, Lenovo, MSI laptops and desktop motherboards from Gigabyte and Asus, to mention just a few. Like all new wireless standards, Wi-Fi 7 is totally backward compatible, so for now a Wi-Fi 7 router is a hub to build around, with room for more devices in future as you upgrade and your needs grow.

The RS700S is a router you won't mind so much having on display. It's refined, a simple, shapely black tower with all the plugs squared away at the back. There are some vents, a few lights, but nothing that's going to prevent its positioning in a communal area of the house. All eight of its antennas are internal, so late-night trips to the fridge are unlikely to be disturbed by thoughts of Gregor Samsa, and there's a convenient button right on the front to turn off all the LEDs except the power light.

Around the back, there's an impressive array of Ethernet ports. The input is a 10-gig one, and this is what I mean about future-proofing. One glorious day, when all our homes have multi-gigabit fibre connections and we think nothing of quickly downloading a 500 GB game from Steam 2 onto a 500 TB SSD, then this router will still be a viable choice. There's a 10-gig output port too, which could be used to feed a hub in a complex network or a single data-hungry PC or server, along with four of the more common gigabit variety. 

Setting up the RS700S is straightforward, with both basic web browser and QR-code-assisted smartphone app setup available. If you want to get deep into the settings, then the web page is the way to go, as it has access to more options than the app. If it's just parental controls and speed monitoring you want (plus administration of Netgear Armor security, for which there's a one-year trial included), the app is fine, but for those times only the Advanced tab will do, you'll need to dial in using a browser.

In my iPerf3 testing, however, which transfers a gigabyte of data over the wireless link and basically sees how fast it goes, the RS700S proved truculent. It's unwilling to offer up its Wi-Fi 7 goodies unless you use Smart Connect, which aggregates the three wireless networks into one and negotiates the best connection. Turn this off, and the laptop and smartphone I tried could only connect using Wi-Fi 6 at best, even on the 6 GHz network. 

Still, with Smart Connect and Wi-Fi 7 enabled it transferred the data at a handy 704 Mbps with the client device close to the router (the laptop showed a link speed of as much as 3843 Mbps), and 204 Mbps when I put some distance, a floor, and some walls between the pair. Even on the long distance test it's comfortably faster than the Wi-Fi 6E Acer Predator Connect W6, and not that far off being twice as fast near the router itself.

It's basically impossible to trip up in general use, however, capable of serving 4K video streams (and 8K in the future), downloading from Steam at the full speed allowed by your internet connection, and transferring hundreds of files onto a network drive all at the same time to up to 200 devices. Like all Wi-Fi routers the speeds drop as you move further away, which is why you should run 50 feet of Cat7 Ethernet cable up your stairs, but this is an immensely powerful networking hub, and has the potential to remain that way for many years to come. 

The upside-down insect look is a popular one among Wi-Fi router manufacturers, who seem to assume that they're something you're going to keep behind the couch or in a cupboard rather than attempt to balance on a narrow shelf near the point at which the internet cabling enters your home.

The aggressive styling can make these devices look incongruous among the other tasteful artefacts you've gathered from trips to Ikea and Habitat, though the use of words such as 'Predator' and 'Killer' don't help either. The names of PC hardware components have been the butt of multiple jokes, but networking equipment has to be some of the most boring kit to receive the kind of title you might expect from an Air Force drone.

Still, they're necessary if we insist on living in the early 21st century, streaming, downloading and otherwise internetting it up. And if you've got a fast fibre connection and the need to transfer data quickly, these so-called 'gaming routers' have a lot to offer. 

Acer's Predator Connect W6 is a Wi-Fi 6E router with the requisite number of little leg pointed into the air (though it can also be wall-mounted, in which case the legs splay out further, giving it the appearance of a large bug that's just hit the paintwork at high speed). There are vents carved into the plastic body (the quad-core CPU is passively cooled), with some LEDs in the shape of the Predator logo buried underneath (these are quite bright, but can be turned off), and a row of five Ethernet ports at the back. 

It's all very standard, though the design of the router means it takes up even more space than you'd expect from something that's basically square, as by having the power input and USB port on one side, and the Ethernet ports on another at 90° to that, you're forced to put it in a diamond configuration to keep the cables at the back.

One of those Ethernet ports is the input, and can take up to 2.5 Gbps of internets. This is, to use a technical term, a lot, and you'll be distributing it through four gigabit ports (one of which is a mysterious 'Game' port that claims to prioritise gaming traffic and is the one you'll want to plug your gaming desktop into) plus the Wi-Fi, which has a maximum throughput of 7.8 Gbps. That's a figure arrived at by manufacturers adding together the transfer rates of the router's three bands, rather than being rooted (or routed?) in reality. 

As long as you have Wi-Fi 6E equipment to talk to it (plain old Wi-Fi 5 and 6 still do fine, but you'll lose out on the fancy 6GHz band, which can be handy for avoiding congestion) those theoretical speeds are yours to do with what you will. As you'll no doubt have noticed, this is way higher than any possible input, and outstrips average broadband speeds in the UK and US by 111 and 40 times respectively, but means the router won't be a bottleneck if you're transferring data between devices, gaming and streaming at the same time.

Happily, setup is a breeze. The wireless network is available straight away, and there's a QR code on the bottom of the router's casing to help you get connected via your web browser. From here, it's just a case of entering your WAN details, giving the Wi-Fi channels amusing SSIDs and changing the password. There's a phone app that you can use for all this too, which will step you through the setup in a more beginner-friendly way.

Once it's connected, there's a whole range of features to, er, play with. Networking isn't particularly sexy but it is essential for modern life, especially if you're a PC games enjoyer, so being able to easily slip into the admin panel and change a setting is paramount. That said, there's often little need these days, as routers have become very good at doing things automatically. 

To accompany the 'Game' port on the back, the Predator W6 offers QoS features ('compatible with Intel Killer Prioritization Engine,' so Acer crows) to prioritise your gaming traffic. It also includes a preset dedicated to GeForce Now which will appeal to, well, at least some people.

Otherwise, hooking up to a fibre connection (600Mbps in my case: not great, not terrible) by both Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6 leads to a stable connection and good throughput. Routers have been able to handle multiple connections and complicated network topography for some time now, so the fact it breezes through serving multiple streaming, gaming, and IoT uses simultaneously isn't anything unusual. 

What routers are really sold on are their big numbers and their price. At £300/$300 there are cheaper Wi-Fi 6E models available, though few with as impressive a combined throughput figure (Netgear's RAXE300 hits the same combined speed, but its RRP is higher). If you want to upgrade from the router your ISP gave you, then the Predator W6 will probably make a big difference to a congested network with a lot of users.

But the way it's designed means that it wants a lot more attention than most of us are willing to give networking hardware within our homes. It may have Quality of Service features, but its quality of life layout is something that stops it from being an easy recommendation.

Intel has unveiled its Thunderbolt Share technology, which utilizes the bandwidth on offer from Thunderbolt 4 and 5 ports to share and sync data, and control two PCs with one keyboard and mouse. 

It's not the first way to link two PCs. I've used crossover cables in years past, and I recall using a USB link device about a decade back, but this method looks like it will be the easiest way yet to link two PCs together. It's not quite a plug and play solution though, as it will need a software app to work.

At its most basic, Thunderbolt Share is a great way to share data between two computers that would eliminate the need to use flash drives or external hard drives to transfer data. It supports drag and drop functionality, and automatic folder sync. I really like the idea of using this to transfer Steam backups between benchmarking systems!

Beyond data sharing, Thunderbolt Share supports remote access, so you can control a second PC using one monitor, keyboard and mouse. It supports screen sharing at up to 1080p at 60fps. Support for 1440p or 4K would be nice, but that's something that could come in the future.

Thunderbolt Share can be licensed with Thunderbolt accessories. Docks would be the most logical example, while things like monitors with multiple Thunderbolt ports could use it too. As it's an Intel technology, and separate from USB4, AMD owners appear to be out of luck, at least for now.

Intel emphasizes the security aspects of Thunderbolt Share. It supports VT-d and Windows User Access Control. And, sharing data over a cable is inherently more secure than using WiFi, a wide area network or the cloud. 

Apart from a couple of tests with external GPUs in years past, I have never used a Thunderbolt device on any of my home systems. I quite like how this sounds, and this might be the first time I consider using Thunderbolt on a day-to-day basis. We'll have to wait and see just how the app performs in practice before giving it the thumbs up though.

Intel says Thunderbolt Share will be offered on select PCs and accessories starting in the second half of 2024. Lenovo, Acer, MSI, Razer, Kensington, Belkin, Promise, Plugable, OWC and others are on board, with more announcements to come.

A recent Windows security update is causing some VPN connections to fail, Microsoft has said. The company is working on a resolution.

The KB5036893 update, known as the April security update, was first released on April 9, 2024. Since then, and after rolling out across heaps of PCs, Microsoft has noticed the inadvertent effect the update is having on virtual private networks. It's causing some of them to fail to connect entirely, thus potentially leaving users without a way to hide their IP address or change their location on the web.

We don't have much more information about the fault beyond what Microsoft is reporting on its Windows 11 issues page:

"Windows devices might face VPN connection failures after installing the April 2024 security update (KB5036893) or the April 2024 non-security preview update," Microsoft says.

"Next steps: We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release."

The issue affects Windows 11 (versions 23H2, 22H2, and 21H2) and Windows 10 (versions 22H2 and 21H2).

Looking to the Windows 11 subreddit, which usually is quick to pick up common faults in the OS, I don't see many reports of the issue. Then again, it's one of those issues that you might not attribute to Windows unless you know Microsoft has admitted blame. If you're struggling to get connected, anyways, it sounds like you need to try to remove this package. Microsoft offers the following advice on how to do that:

"To remove the LCU after installing the combined SSU and LCU package, use the DISM/Remove-Package command line option with the LCU package name as the argument. You can find the package name by using this command: DISM /online /get-packages.

"Running Windows Update Standalone Installer (wusa.exe) with the /uninstall switch on the combined package will not work because the combined package contains the SSU. You cannot remove the SSU from the system after installation."

Another alternative is to find out if your router and VPN provider support running a VPN directly through the hub, meaning you don't need Windows to be aware of the connection at all. That's a slightly extreme measure for some, but if needs must.

There aren't many stories in the world of technology that could easily make it as a plot for a tense spy-thriller movie, but this one sure has all the right hallmarks for one. Last month, the US Justice Department carried out an authorised operation in which it neutralised a botnet, comprising hundreds of routers in homes and offices, that was used to carry out spearphishing and other credentials stealing. And it was achieved by using the very same malware as that by the botnet itself.

As reported by Ars Technica, the network was created by the officially titled GRU Military Unit 26165 (also known by the names Forest Blizzard, Fancy Bear, Sednit, and others), a state-sponsored hacking group that reported has direct ties to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU, for short).

But rather than using its own malware, or anything developed by the GRU, the group used a piece of malware called Moobot that's been used before to insecure routers. In this instance, it infected the operating system on certain Ubiquiti Edge routers that were still using the default, publicly-known admin passwords

Once up and running, the group could then use the network to scrape all kinds of information passing through the routers. While the number of infected routers was relatively small, around a thousand or so, it was more than enough to create an effective botnet that was invasive enough to warrant direct intervention by the FBI and DoJ.

To counter it, the DoJ cleverly used the same malware to hack back into the routers, copy and delete any stolen data, as well as remove the malicious scripts, and alter the routers’ firewalls to prevent any further remote management of them. To coin a simple phrase, it hacked the hack.

As one can't always rely on the authorities to prevent one's router from being used for criminal activities, there are simple steps that anyone running a small business or office from home can follow.

Start by resetting the router back to its factory default settings (which will clear anything stored on it), then update it to the latest firmware version, followed by changing all of the default usernames and passwords, and then finally use its firewall to block any remote management access.

It can be quite hard to tell if your router is infected with malware or not, but the above actions will certainly help to nip that in the bud. What are you waiting for?