Netgear Orbi 960: The need for speed

Buying a beautiful old house in the country is a decision that involves a huge range of factors, from the architecture and gardens to the location of the nearest decent pub. These days, however, there’s a new element to consider: how good is the WiFi?

Before the pandemic, you could get away with having a poor internet connection in an old country house — it was akin to ancient plumbing or the creaking noise made by the 17th-century front door. Today, that’s no longer the case. Many of us work from home at least two or three days a week and anyone with senior school-age children will know that homework is now usually done, and handed in, via a tablet. As for entertainment, watching live television or DVDs is — for better or worse — becoming as rare as paying with cash, as we stream shows through a vast array of services and widgets to huge screens of genuinely cinematic quality.

The good news is that internet providers have been doing an excellent job of getting full-fibre broadband into many rural areas, so much so that it’s no longer a surprise to see a house advertised in a remote spot on the Isle of Skye with 1000MBps internet connection. The bad news? The router that broadcasts that internet signal round your house is designed for flats and urban terraces. It’s unlikely to be fit for purpose if you live in a large country house with traditional, thickly built walls; the likelihood is that you’ll get some sort of signal, but as you move away from the main router, you’ll find that your connection begins to chug, your video calls drop in and out, and uploading your photos to share with family and friends takes an age.

Thankfully, there is a solution: replacing the internet router you were sent by your service provider with a state-of-the-art mesh system, such as the NETGEAR Orbi 960 series. This is the very latest type of mesh system on the market, one which uses the WiFi 6E standard. This opens up the 6GHz frequency for the first time and, allied to the Orbi 960’s quad-band technology, the signal can cut through even the thickest masonry to deliver top-class WiFi throughout a house of up to 7,500sq ft, linking to as many as 200 devices at once. Yes, 200.

The Orbi 960 isn’t a single router, but rather a pack of three units: the main router and two satellites to be placed strategically around the house and which then beam data back and forth to create a ‘mesh’ WiFi network. It’s the same type of technology you’d expect to find in a well-equipped office building: internet access that follows you as you move about with no discernible loss in speed — and that latter factor is the key.

Some internet service providers will offer to sell you signal boosters or repeaters, which work up to a point; but if you want the absolute best WiFi possible, the Orbi 960 is the solution to choose. PC Pro magazine called it ‘the gold standard’ in WiFi mesh systems, and a ‘phenomenal piece of kit’. With it, the net result is that you’ll get the fastest possible WiFi throughout your home, meaning that you can carry on working happily in the office, as, elsewhere, your family, friends and guests are streaming 4K films on Netflix, playing videogames online or beavering away at their homework. In other words, it’s the best version of the future at which we’ve already arrived.

Find out more about the NETGEAR Orbi range at www.netgear.com