Want to improve the quality, speed and coverage of your home Wi-Fi for #WorkFromHome and #HomeBasedLearning? I’ve been using the E9450 WiFi6 EasyMesh Router from Linksys since its launch half a year ago and I’m very happy that it has delivered.
The Linksys E9450 Dual Band WiFi 6 Mesh router to expand Wi-Fi coverage and performance for #WorkFromHome and #HomeBasedLearning, as well as for gaming.
I’ve been using a telco-provided router for years – it has served me well although it could not reach the study, the bedrooms and the garden outside – so Internet access has always been confined to the kitchen, living and dining rooms.
Living in the Digital Age
In this digital age that we are living in, access to the Internet has become a basic necessity of any home – much like water and electricity is indispensable in any facility.
So one of the first things you’ll need to begin #WorkFromHome and #HomeBasedLearning – in this trying time of the COVID-19 pandemic – is a broadband subscription with enough bandwidth to support the data-access needs of the entire household.
Once you’ve subscribed to a broadband subscription from an Internet Service Provider (ISP), you’ll need to set up a robust Local Area Network (LAN) to channel the Internet access to devices around the household – just like you’ll need pipings and electrical wiring to distribute water and electricity to all parts of the home.
The fastest and most reliable LAN is one based on a wired Ethernet network – but most often than not, most apartments have not been wired up and you’ll need a good router to set up a wireless Wi-Fi network instead.
Beyond the reaches of the old router, we had to switch on the mobile data connections on our handphones and hotspot the data to devices (speakers and computers etc) without a mobile data connection.
You can imagine how frustrating and limiting (and expensive) that can be.
And as the number of Internet-lusting devices being used in the household began growing rapidly, connection quality began to deteriorate, with slow speeds and dropped connections occurring more frequently.
Which was why I decided to upgrade the old router with the Linksys E9450 WiFi6 EasyMesh Router.
To expand the coverage of my home Wi-Fi network, I deployed a 2-node (1 parent + 1 child node) mesh network.
This was because a single-node network provided roughly a similar spatial network as my old router, probably because it was a matter of physical topology due to the layout.
The optical network terminal (ONT) for Singtel’s fibre optic network is located at one end of my apartment near the main entrance – instead of the center of the entire apartment – hence the distance between the router (which is connected by wire to the ONT) and the bedrooms tend to render the Wi-Fi signals too weak for connection.
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I have a Network Attached Storage (NAS) connected (by wire) to the E9450 so that devices can upload/download files/photos and stream music/videos wirelessly via the Wi-Fi network. Another reason why I need a good Wi-Fi network with reach and performance.
So with a second E9450 router placed at the far end of the living room, the coverage of the Wi-Fi network was successfully extended to every bedroom – because the second router was located at the center of the entire apartment.
