I recently moved into an area that offered 1.2GB download speeds. I was using the service provider equipment at a cost of $25 additional per month. The equipment was an all in one modem+router which also had a 2.5g port. In an effort to save some money, I decided to purchase and invest in a new Router and Modem for the service. The caveat being that I will lose out on Unlimited data using my own equipment which was a risk I was willing to take. I bought the AX6000 to pair with a Arris S33 2.5g port Surfboard Modem as the AX6000 has a 2.5g port as well.
The Asus AX6000 packaged arrived pristine with no physical damage. Setup - be very careful with the Antennas, I noticed that one my antennas for the router was not tightening properly, you have to ensure you can adjust without breaking the antenna. I noticed my antenna sounded like it was about to break as I was adjusting to access the bottom of the antenna to tighten. The process to get the Router up and running was a breeze, I used my sons Desktop PC hard wired into the 2.5G port and the browser recognized the router pretty quickly. Once my Arris S33 modem was activated, the router acquired the IP very quickly. At this point once I acquired the IP, I immediately did a speed test and....the speed remained the same as the ISP rental equipment. I did not lose out on speed; ISP equipment speedtest was 914GB down and 25up and with the Asus AX6000+Arris S33 was equally the same. I was hoping to at least get some increase in speed (this test was wired). I continued with my setup and began to open ports for my sons games. I noticed that the interface has port forwarding in two areas which was a bit confusing, I used the gaming section to port forward and i believe i have set it up correctly as i did not receive and conflict notification. Also, this is limited to a max of 38 ports. I am not sure what is the difference between the Gaming NAT section and the Port Forwarding section of the router and I found this to be confusing.
WiFi Range seemed to be very good and I did see a slight improvement in range against the ISP rental Modem+Router. My laptop would struggle with zoom calls when i used it outside in my backyard, I did not test zoom with the new router in that area but i noticed the wifi status bar on my laptop improved. I have a number of devices that are on WiFi IoT's + Gaming Consoles. Xbox Series X download speeds are equally the same as the rental equipment and no decrease in speed or increase unfortunately.
Overall I am happy with the Asus AX6000 but I was hoping for a bit of speed boost for 2.5G port. Even the dedicated gaming port did not improve this. I was going to give it 4 stars for that but so far it's remained stable with not decrease in performance so that will keep it at 5 stars for now.
Bonus:
In my previous location, I had 2 Asus AX-3000 routers which i kept, these were being used with AT&T's Modem in Passthrough. I decided to put these in Mesh Mode with the AX6000, this was extremely easy to do. I now have 1 AX3000 in my Laundry and 1 in the master bedroom. Devices seem to hop from the mesh without problem and I have increase range all throughout the home.
| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11ax, 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11ac |
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