With more and more homes connected to fast broadband internet, we’re seeing demand for more powerful routers at home. Multi-user homes may have various needs, from 4K video streaming, managing and transferring large files over the network, to monitoring dozens of IoT devices and providing priority access to a few avid gamers.
The TP-Link Archer BE900 attempts to address all of these various needs and more with a quad-band WiFi-7 technology.
The BE900 is the sucessor to the BE800 which has an identical design with with only tri-band support, and has one less USB port, among others.
So, let’s look at the Archer BE900 and understand why many are calling it the King of the Routers.
Table of Contents
Device and Hardware
The Archer BE900 has a tower-type design with a futuristic bookshelf-like looks. We liked this sleek design better compared to the GE800 because of its smaller footprint.
In some aspect, the BE900 might also be confused as a small-sized desktop PC or mini-PC as it weighs 4.78 lbs. and measures 11.9″ x 10.3″ x 3.8″.
The front side has a perforated surface that runs across the top all the way to the back, while bottom half of the front panel has hidden RGB lights that display preset and custom graphics along with an LED display and touchscreen to help manage or monitor the router.
This design means you will have to place the router in a more conspicuous place, near to reach just in case you want to check the monitors and LED display.
Enclosed inside the tower are 12 optimally positioned antennas. This allows for stronger signal and wider signal coverage around the house.
In our case, this router is placed in an office room, all the way at the back on the second floor of our house. When we check the WiFi signal at the front gate, we can still good reception.
At the back side of the router, we get plenty of ports — four 2.5Gbps LAN ports capable of aggregation to get to 5Gbps, a single 10Gbps WAN/LAN port and another SPF+ Fiber/RJ45 WAN/LANPorts. The SFF+ is the one that can be connected directly to the fiber cable of your ISP, allowing your router to replace the default router used by your broadband provider.
You also get one USB 2.0 port and another USB 3.0 port you can use to connect a portable HHD to serve as network storage (NTFS, exFAT, HFS+, FAT32).
The remaining ones include the Reset button, power plug and On/Off button.
Interface and Features
Just like the other TP-Link routers, there are two ways to initialize or set up the device — either via the web browser or the mobile app.
When you first connect to the router via LAN port or WiFi, you can simply open the the browser and go to http://tplinkwifi.net or http://192.168.0.1. This starts the setup process of the router and it may also prompt to update the firmware of the router to the latest version (if it is connected to the internet).
For the most part, we recommend doing these steps while the new TP-Link router is not yet connected to your broadband modem or another existing internet router in your network. This allows the fresh router to properly use the correct local IP address for the setup process.
Alternatively, you can also download the Tether app from the app store and install it on your mobile phone and manage the setup from there over WiFi.
While the Tether app is optional, we find it as the best and most convenient way to initialize the new router and adjust the settings to your needs. Once you bind your Tether app to a TP-Link account, you can even monitor and manage your routers remotely from just about anywhere.
The device can be configured in two Modes — as a Wireless Router (by default) or Access Point Mode. Once that initial stage has been made, you can now go through several other settings and configurations.
These includes:
- Quick Setup – Setup wizard for easy installation.
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Internet Connection – Set gaming acceleration functions that help boost your gaming needs. Shows real-time game statistics of applications, games and mobile devices.
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Guest Network – Guest network allows visitors to use the internet (2.4GHz and 5GHz) without connecting to your main network. This keeps your main network secure and private. You can also set different access options for guest network users, such as scheduling when they can access the internet.
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IoT Network – Activate the IoT network that all your smart devices (IoTs) can connect so you can be sure that your devices can effectively communicate with each other to provide the best connections possible. This will also create additional bandwidth on your main wireless network that your streaming devices and phones can now take advantage of.
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EasyMesh – Create a single, unified WiFi network.by connecting one or more OneMesh-compatible routers in the network.
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Network Optimization – Optimize network performance by regularly analyzing channel congestion.
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Operation Mode – Switch between WiFi Router Mode and connect it directly to your broadband modem OR change to Access Point Mode1 and extend the range of your existing wired and wireless network.
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Advanced Settings – Set IPTV/VLAN, VPN Server, VPN Client and Device Isolation settings.
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Manager – Allows you to add family members and friends to help manage your Tether network (needs a separate TP-Link ID).
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System – Maintenance, update and troubleshooting of the router, including system time, reboot schedule and restoring to factory default settings.
TP-Link also placed a lot of attention to the LED screen which displays weather, time, text and even emojis with over 3,000 custom graphics available.
It’s like an EDSA billboard in here!
On the other hand, the touchscreen just below it allows limited management option of the router, including sharing of WiFi access and Guest network.
I guess TP-Link wants us to spend a lot of time tinkering around with customizing the screens and graphics to justify the premium price tag of the Archer BE900.
Connectivity and Speed
The Archer BE900 has total bandwidth capacity of 24.4Gbps which is comprised of the 2.4GHz band with 1,376Mbps, two 5GHz band with 5,760Mbps each and a 6GHz band with 11,520 Mbps bandwidth.
You will see which of the devices that are connected to the network are using which band (including 5G-1 and 5G-2) and monitor their activities.
We had a few devices that use the 6G band (Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy S24 Ultra) but sometimes observe that the phones find it hard to switch bands whenever we take them in different parts of the house.
Likewise, we used the two 2.5Gbps LAN ports to connect our Synology NAS to the network. As mentioned earlier, we experience increased speeds with wireless transfers from 10MB/s-20MB/s to 40MB/s-50MB/s when we migrated to the BE900 from the Deco M5.
When used individually, there seems to be no problem with our old network but once everything is running all at the same time, that’s when you’ll observe the slowdowns — slow file transfers over the network, high ping times when playing Mobile Legends, reduced video quality of Netflix movies and erratic freezing of locally streamed videos.
All that are gone when we moved to the Archer BE900.
Conclusion
Why do you need a quad-band WiFi-7 capable router? Obviously, for its bandwidth allotment — 24,4000Mbps is a lot of capacity to fill up. This ncould mean multiple smart TVs simultaneously streaming 4K content in the home network, a large file-storage system actively used by a connected NAS, a couple of gaming PCs and dozens of IoT devices.
The TP-Link Archer BE900 should be able to handle all of these and even more. So, we’re talking about future-proofing your home network and that investment will cost you a pretty penny — Php 41,990. Is it worth it? Well, yeah! What’s the alternative for not upgrading? Wiring the entire house with Cat 6a or Cat 7 (10Gbps) LAN cables. Mesh? Still, you would need a powerful router like the Archer BE 900 to handle all of this. That’s just the cost of future-proofing.
TP-Link Archer BE900 | BE2400 Quad-band WiFi Router:
6 GHz: 11520 Mbps (802.11be)
5 GHz-1: 5760 Mbps (802.11be)
5 GHz-2: 5760 Mbps (802.11be)
2.4 GHz: 1376 Mbps (802.11be)
Router Mode
Access Point Mode
320 MHz Channel
4K-QAM
EasyMesh-Compatible
Works with Alexa and Google Assistant
IoT Network
1× 6 GHz Guest Network
1× 5 GHz-1 Guest Network
1× 5 GHz-2 Guest Network
1× 2.4 GHz Guest Network
1× 10 Gbps WAN/LAN
1× 10 Gbps SFP+/RJ45 WAN/LAN Internet Port
4× 2.5 Gbps LAN
1× 1 Gbps LAN
1× USB 3.0, 1× USB 2.0 (NTFS, exFAT, HFS+, FAT32)
