Hands on: I tried the Zyxel FWA510 – read what I thought of this WiFi router
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This comment first appeared in issue 353 PC Pro.
Zyxel Always steadily establishing a wide range of 5G NR Mobile Routerthe FWA510 is by far the most extensive. This desktop unit takes everything we like in Zyxel’s NR5101 and claims to be twice as long Wi-Fi 6 Performance, the necessary 2.5GBE multi-Gigabit network ports are added, and its four embedded omnidirectional antennas are combined, and the option to add four TS9 external airborne for improved reception.
The FWA510 is a little larger than the NR5101 and the status LED has moved from the front of the device to the slanted upper surface. If you receive an SMS message, use multi-color LEDs to show cell signal strength and provide visual cues for internet connection and wireless status, so these facts will be useful as they alert you.
The rear interface panel has also been redesigned and now has faster USB-A ports to share Storage equipment. The second multi-party port port can be used as a LAN or WAN interface, and if the latter is selected, it takes precedence over the cellular connection, which can return to standby mode for automatic failover service.
The FWA510 is easy to install and its local web interface provides a wizard to get you up and running. Our unit offers a vodafone 5G Sim, which is ugged in the base’s 3FF slot, which provides instant cellular internet access.
The web interface displays a dashboard that displays the status of local and Internet connections, cellular status, and wireless network details. The default SSID is provided for radios, although it uses weaker WPA2 encryptionyou can easily swap a more secure WPA3.
Supports four SSIDs and has three guest wireless networks configured. These can be modified to suit the use, using the guest wifi tickbox to enable L2 isolation, so users on these SSIDs can only access the Internet.
General network Safety very good. The overall firewall offers three levels of protection, you can choose from the slider bar, you can add customizations Firewall Rules including protocol and port numbers, as well as access control list (ACL) entries to control connections to source and destination IP addresses and services.
So far, everything is fine, but we have issues with wireless service with the router. Zyxel claims it offers up to 2,400Mbits/sec on 5GHz radios (and therefore the AX3600 rating), but to achieve that it must support high-speed 160MHz channels.
Currently, the network console Wireless The 5GHz broadcast setting provides a 20/40/80MHz option, so our test customers can only connect at 1.2Gbits/sec. So, between a copy of a 25GB test file Windows 11 The Pro Workstation with the TP-Link Archer TXE75E Wi-Fi 6/6e adapter and our server on 10GBE LAN was maximized at 108mb/sec in the near range and at 108mb/sec in the near range, down to 86MB/sec, router 10 meters in the next room – evenly getting faster and faster in the AX1800 rated NRR.NRR.NRR.NRR5510 meters.
FWA510 can be cloud– According to Zyxel’s Nebula Control Center (NCC) management, we use it from a iPad Run the Nebula iOS app. The status widget can be added to the NCC site dashboard and selected to provide more hardware details along with WAN and Cellular status, a 24-hour traffic map, and information about wired and wireless clients.
Unlike the Zyxel-compatible Nebula Wireless AP, the FWA510 does not broadcast Cloud SSIDs because they must be configured from its own web interface. Upgrade to the NCC Pro Pack license, the Remote Configurator Tool can be loaded directly from the NCC portal or increase traffic monitoring to 30 days.
Zyxel’s FWA510 and its 5G NR support will attract domestic workers in rural areas as well as remote offices that require always access to the internet. It is easy to use and can monitor the cloud, but unless the firmware upgrade implements, its Wi-Fi 6 service is no faster than the NR5101.
