TL-Link Archer VR400 V3 AC1200 Wireless MU-MIMO Dual Band VDSL/ADSL Modem Router, Phone Line Connections (BT Infinity, TalkTalk, EE and PlusNet Fibre) 1 USB 2.0 Ports (UK Version)

Bought to replace the horrendous NOW TV Broadband router. This can also replace the Sky Broadband router. It is able to because it allows for a less common login method called MER or Option 61. I'm going to write this review in two parts - first, how to configure to replace Sky/Now broadband router - second, my thoughts on the router itself after a couple of weeks in place. FIRST. I'm writing this on the day of purchase. It took me about an hour to set up the router to substitute the god-awful NOW TV broadband router. It should have taken 10 minutes max. It took that long because I tried to use the mobile 'Tether' app supplied by TP Link. You can't do all the steps on it and therefore it was a waste of time. To save you the pain here are the steps... Quickest method - Plug in the new router to the microfilter that Sky/Now provided, plug an ethernet lead from LAN1 into your PC or laptop (you can use powerlines in between the two if the PC is too far from the router - I did) and navigate to 192.168.1.1 Use the login details from the sticker on the router to access. Under Internet Connection menu, select Sky(MER)_VDSL, vlan enabled, vlan id 101. Select Dynamic IP. (Here's the bit the phone app cannot do) Enter username 123456789012@skydsl - password 1234567890abcdef (they're irrelevant but you need to put something in there with @skydsl at the end) And hit save - that's it, you are now Internet accessible in the replacement router. You can then change other settings around the router admin as you please. Now there is a step that I preferred to do that I believe might stop future issues but it will add time. I used the Broadband MAC address from the NOW router as the start of the address - so 1a:2b:3c:4d:5e:6f became 1a2b3c4d5e6f@skydsl - as I read something on a forum suggesting it may be better for users who don't reboot their router regularly (for the geeky, the lease time on the connection being longer means it may fail a validation checks should one be run). I went this route but feel free to go the generic address route - just bear it in mind if you get unexplained disconnections. I hope all that helps. As for the router itself, it was easy enough to setup. It seems to be much better at doing IP address ports than the NOW router and I've been able to use uPnP instead of a dozen port forwards, at this time anyway. Also the speed is better. My speedtest.net results went from (18Mbps/2. 5 to 19.5/3.5). WiFi is stronger than the NOW router on both 2.4 and 5 likely thanks to the two directional antennas. UPDATE 10/2. Very stable and it has replaced the Now TV Broadband router completely. The WiFi strength is better and having more ethernet ports is a bonus. I'd like the ability to determine bandwidth control on a per-device basis. The firmware allows for QoS and prioritisation of device groups. However in these days of COVID homeworking I would like to be able give the important pc number one status. And my plex/kodi server the lowest. Smartphones doing their updates doesn't need high priority at the expense of a zoom call for instance. I'm very happy overall and would happily recommend to anyone looking to replace the awful Sky/Now routers.

I bought this router as the router provider by Vodafone would not let me forward port 22 (ssh) to my lan. Its fairly easy to set up with Vodafone (there is no vodafone preset so you need to use "other" as your service provider and then set vlan to 101, you need to powercycle the router once you have put in the vodafone settings, and then wait a couple of minutes -- it tries to connect immediately when you turn it on, it fails and tells you to contact your ISP, then auto connects about 2 minutes later). Things I have noted so far: 1. The wired ports seem able to delivered the advertised speed (1 Gb/s); 2. The router only offers one DHCP server for both the main and the guest networks. If you're using your own DHCP server for your main network, you will have to use it for the guest network and this really weakens the segregation between the main and guest networks; and 3. The VDSL connection speed seems slower (60 Gb/s) than the Vodafone supplied router achieved. This may change if the connection gets "tuned" for the new router. [Update -- after a couple of days its tuned itself and is now delivering full speed]

I used this replace the BT homehub ar our sailing club. Our test speed immediately improved from 17 to 27mbps, pretty well our line max. Really simple easily understood configuration, and using the tether app on tp-link cloud I don't even need to go to the club to reconfigure. During sailing events we have always had a problem with visitors swamping the bandwidth, knocking out our results laptop. It's really easy to hide a network for club computers and choose 2.4, 5ghz or mixed. Also easy to put in the opendns family safety servers, essential in a safeguarding environment. The other problem we used to have was the lease length when busy with visitors. I couldn't find a control for this in the interface, but I think that's because the lease expires automatically when a particular device is out of range. The other nice touch is the ability to blacklist a mac. We are in a busy area and when the wifi password gets leaked we suffer excessive piggybacking. Using the clientlist and looking at times the club is closed we can now trim them out. I am not in any respect a networking expert. If you are, this probably looks obvious and normal. My point is that the interface makes it easy to do and at a decent price. Try doing any of the above on a BT business deal with a homehub, oh sorry, businesshub, and see how far you get.

This thing sucks. Even basic use, like plugging my PC into this via ethernet cable is bad. Every time my PC boots up, and I login, the internet connection is fine for a minute or two, then it drops out, and doesn't recover for at least 4-5 minutes, and that's just normal simple use! Now onto more advanced use, this is where it really falls down. You can set this thing up to act as a OpenVPN server, I did this because I wanted to tunnel into my home network, while I'm abroad with my laptop. The problem is the VPN server isn't stable. sometimes (if you're lucky) you can connect to it, most of the time the connection attempt just times out. In conclusion, an utter waste of time.

I bought this because my ISP (TalkTalk) supplied router was terrible - it would overheat, the caps inside smelt like BO and the auto switching between 2.4 and 5ghz connections just didn't work, I'd constantly have no internet on my phone as it would hang onto a weak 5ghz connection instead of switching to 2.4. This router solved both problems, and replaced my existing router without having to get any extra details from my ISP, even on an old style FTTC connection. The wifi coverage is better, and It's been running for 6 months or so now without overheating or any other issues.

Happy with item, but the power adapter in the packet is not suitable for Australia, If I know this early, I won’t buy that product.