A lot of electronics make their way through the AskDaveTaylor offices and probably 2/3 of them include some sort of Internet connectivity through one or another flavor of 802.11 wireless connectivity, better known as “wifi”. From TVs to TV interfaces, toys to computers, tablets to wireless speakers, if I could see all the data flying back and forth, it’d be a thick web of information and would make it darn hard to move around.
That’s why the router in the office is of critical importance: if it’s misconfigured or can’t keep up with the varied data traffic, things start to slow down, and when you’re streaming video or even audio, slowing down means hiccups that are darn annoying, ranging from sporadic pauses to buffer video to things just freezing up or failing. Even with regular data traffic, a high-speed tube coming into the office (hey, at least I didn’t refer to it as an offramp on the information superhighway!) doesn’t guarantee that the Web will be snappy on a new Windows 8 Ultrabook.
With its unusual design and terrific specs, I was therefore quite interested in the chance to plug in the new D-Link AC1750 router (its full name is a mouthful: AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit Cloud Router DIR-868L) and give it a whirl.