CNET uses custom-made scripts designed by our in-house lab engineer, Gianmarco Chumbe, to carry out our testing and data analysis. We focus on three main measurements when testing routers: speed, reliability and distance. We want to know how well a router will translate the internet from your provider into a wireless connection, and how far it can do so — even with obstacles like walls and floors in the way. To capture all three, we conduct two types of tests: Data-throughput and signal-strength measurements.
CNET’s testing is unique because we remove the internet provider from the equation entirely. Even the most reliable internet connections are fairly erratic: factors like time of day, network congestion and even the condition of your neighborhood’s broadband infrastructure can all affect your internet speed. To make sure these variables didn’t skew our analysis of each router, we set up a separate server to measure the raw
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