Our house has been under siege for the past 18 months. Under siege from two teenagers constantly blaming me, because I work in tech, for slow WIFI signals in their rooms. They care not that I was brought up online in the late 80’s with a 300 baud acoustic couple modem attached to an Amstrad CPC 464 computer. Nor that I later used to download mp3s from Napster via dial-up. They simply do not care.
The scene
I’ll quickly set up what we have here at McNally Towers so you know what I am dealing with and I can better explain in this review what works for me and what has caused me problems. Broadband wise we have FTTP (fiber to the premises) supplied by British Telecom giving us full fibre download speeds of around 970Mbps download and then around 110Mbps upload as far as bandwidth is concerned.
So far so good. That then comes into our house, a 1930s semi-detached, three-bedroom with an extension adding a fourth and spinning off to the other side of the house. While not a huge house by any standards, for whatever reason, a decent WIFI signal has, until now, been difficult to obtain upstairs, either in my office or the kids bedrooms. Hence the incessant whining.
Our TV is suppled by BT, soon to be EE, rather than a Sky TV setup and they supply a rather terrible Homehub 2 with a WIFI signal that stretches about as far as an asthmatics best breath. I swapped that out for a normal TP-Link router a year or so back and, while stability improved, our speeds upstairs were still considerably less than what we were paying for.
Since then, over the past six months I have tried two more extravagant gaming routers, one from Netgear, one from ASUS. Both have had to be returned because they refuse to play nice with the antiquated BT tech in its TV box. Most channels are fine, live sports and the like refuse to play, kicking up an error to do with protection of the stream which has a dependency on IGMP/multicast. A quick search will find plenty of people in the same boat. Much better WIFI, but unable to watch live sport.
So how will the insanely-priced, state of the art Orbi Mesh system perform when faced with my slightly oddball set up, More on that later, let’s check out the device itself.
Orbi Mesh 970
There is little doubt that this latest set up from Netgear is state of the art. Everything reflects it, feature set, build quality and price. Should you choose to bring this heavy box into your life and home you should be future-proofing yourself for many, many years to come.
WIFI 7 is the key selling point for anybody who has 7 as their lucky number and not 6. In truth most of the tech out there at the moment can’t even take advantage of it fully yet, hence the future proofing aspect, but what I am interested in the most is seeing how most of that fast broadband I have I can get to all four corners of the house using the Mesh, so that I can have an easy life.
Features
Here’s what Netgear are pushing as the 970’s plus points. Spoiler: when you get to the end of this you will want one.
- Up to 27Gbps speed
- Speeds up to 27Gbps for unparalleled performance and coverage for your whole home, from the front door to the back garden and the basement to the loft
- Quad-band Technology
- Exclusive, patented Quad-Band technology with Enhanced Dedicated Backhaul ensures WiFi stays fast across all devices simultaneously
- 10Gig Internet Port New!
- Whether multi-gig cable or fiber, get the fastest speeds available today and tomorrow with a 10 Gig internet port
- 8k Streaming, Gaming and More
- From 8K streaming to video conferencing, gaming, VR, and more, Orbi ensures your family can accomplish it all at once
- 360° WiFi Coverage New!
- Elegant, new design and high-performance antennas provide exceptional 360° WiFi coverage across every corner of your home, no matter the layout
- Secure and Private New!
- NETGEAR Armor software provides an automatic shield of security for your WiFi and connected devices (PC, phone, camera, TV, etc.) for real-time protection against hackers. 1 year included
- Reimagined Speed & Reliability New!
- 10Gbps & 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports unlock unbeatable speed and reliability for wired connections and 10Gbps wired backhaul option
- Easy Set Up with Any Service Provider
- Simple to plug Orbi into your modem and set it up with the Orbi app
What’s in the box?
We are looking at the package here that comes with two satellites as well as the main unit which will sit next to my fibre modem downstairs. A satellite will then be paired upstairs, and then one out at the then end of the garden in the summerhouse office. This is quite a stretch for any signal but if anything should be able to cope, the Orbi Mesh 970 is the device. The summerhouse is quite tech heavy, not only serving as an office in the warmer months, but it also houses some of my wi-fi connected 3D printers and a Peloton, all of which will devour bandwidth if it is available.
Besides the three units, three PSUs and the usual odd ethernet cable, you get a quick start guide and the manual.
From the front all three units look similar and come in at just under a foot tall each. There are no antenna arrays poking out of the cases, they look more like speakers than network equipment. They are considerably bigger than anything you might have seen already from the Orbi range.
The backs of the units are where the differences occur. The main unit has a 10GB port marked in yellow to connect to your incoming internet. An further 10G port marked Ethernet gives you a tasty home network boost which I am running to my office upstairs via some dodgy Cat 6 hidden under the carpet. Additionally there are four further 2.5GB ports to connect the rest of your cables too.
The satellites have a 10GB ethernet port on the back so you can wire them in for greater throughput and two more 2.5GB ports for good measure.
Orbi 970 Setup
Setup is simple and requires the ORBI app which will guide you through adding the main unit then the sats before running some optimizations to work out the best setup. All I needed was my BT Broadband username and I was good to go. I simply tapped it in on my phone and everything worked. I could then access everything either from my iPhone or the web interface. Seamless.
The system sets up a variety of networks and you can choose others too. You obviously get the standard 2.5, 5 and 6Ghz offerings but you can also flick on a guest network and an Internet of Things network too which you can connect things such as your Ring Doorbell and smart lights too for extra security, as any bad actors trying to sneak into your network that way will be locked into that particular walled garden. That’s a lot of available options for network nerds.
In fact, the web interface is hugely more configurable than the app which is more useful for just an overview. Don’t get bogged down with the idea that you only need the app because that’s what setup pushes you towards. This may be an annoyance to some. The app is simplistic and will let you see what’s going down at a glance but for more granular control you will need a browser and a bigger screen.
Orbi 970 Performance
Performance can be summed up very easily, Astonishing. For my use case scenario I have never seen speeds and transfer like it both wireless or wired. Comparing it to my old TP-Link setup it’s like we have discovered a new alien technology.
Whereas without the tech upstairs the bedrooms would get a still largely acceptable, even if the kids didn’t believe it 40Mbps (300 baud I used to get you little bas….) now they are getting in excess of 400, which is, as I say, astonishing. These things pack some serious power and have changed the game for internet in our household…with one caveat…
BT/EE Compatibility
Having disconnected my old WIFI setup and got the Orbi Mesh producing lightning fast speeds all over the gaff I was absolutely delighted. Then, you guessed it, it became apparent that channels such as Sky Sports and TNT Sports, would not work, throwing up the error message which leads you back into the multicast nightmare I mentioned earlier.
Hope was briefly reignited when I noticed there is actually a BTTV multicast compatibility mode in the web interface, but that made not a jot of difference to me, and seeming others who have got this hugely expensive mesh system coupled with this strangest of TV problems.
There is a way around it and it is wholly unsatisfactory. I, like others, have changed the Orbi Mesh router from router into Access Point mode. From there my old TP Link remains connected to the BT fiber modem on my wall. I run an ethernet from the TP Link to my TV box and another to the Orbi which is running its own WIFI network connected to the satellites and giving everybody great speeds. But I have an extra device plugged in and using electricity and all the extra plugs and wires that brings. I wish this was a problem that would go away. I feel it is more BT/EE’s issue than Netgear’s, but it is weird that the compatibility mode doesn’t work, and that it just works with my £60 TP-Link router that I bought on a whim with zero configuration out of the box. I didn’t even know this was an issue until I started playing with more expensive router tech.
Orbi 970: Price and conclusion
I have saved this bit until near the end as I wanted you all to see the plus points of the Orbi 970 before bellowing “HOW MUCH”.
The three-pack we are reviewing here comes in at a tasty £2200/$2200 – no typo. That much. That equates to around the £700 per unit in the box and indeed you can get a two pack which comes in at £1500 should you not need to cover as much ground. You can then add additional satellites for a relatively jaw-dropping £800 each. That kinda makes the satellites, which have considerably fewer ports on them, as, if not more, expensive than the main unit.
So we have established then that this is not aimed at the everyday market but the high-end. Indeed the images on the Netgear site show houses with steel and glass frontages and swimming pools. Anybody breaking into my house would be better advised to steal the router than the TV if they want the most valuable item to sell for drugs.
With that in mind I have to say the Orbi 970 Mesh system is one of the most technologically impressive pieces of kit in any area I have reviewed for a long, long time. It’s performance is nothing short of stunning. It has transformed our household internet and the only issue I have had is one that is, while not a niche use case, not one that will affect the majority of purchases who will be with another TV provider. Should I need to change my TV provider just to get my router to work? My cheapo TP-link says not, so there is a body of work that could be done to make it better for everybody and remove the lottery. Whether that ever happens I don’t know.
You also get a year’s subscription to the Netgear Armor ecosystem ($99 a year after that) which gives you hacking protection and a built in VPN. A nice extra for a year but ongoing cost after that, and you would think it could probably have been included for free for longer, bearing in mind the cost of entry for this system.
If you have a large area to cover with high-quality wi-fi, and the money to do it in style, you can check out the Orbi 970 Series here for yourself. You won’t find anything better out there at the moment. You will find cheaper, but you will now always think you perhaps should have gone for this option to get the best in class home network available.