Fritz!Box 7390 ADSL2+ modem/router

The Fritz!Box 7390 will dazzle you with the huge array of features that it offers. It's by all means a model that will please enthusiast users, however also consumers who want a no-fuss set-up for their home networking needs. It's better than the 7270 entry model that we reviewed previously this year, as it adds Gigabit Ethernet and simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi.

The Fritz!Box 7390 ADSL2+ modem/router is a little more advanced than the Fritz!Box 7270 that we reviewed in the beginning of the year. It has internal Wi-Fi antennas and supports Gigabit Ethernet to boot to many other great features. It's one of the best all-in-one networking devices on the market, and possibly a perfect device for a networking enthusiast who wants to know every little intricate detail about their Internet connection and local network.

The Fritz!Box 7390 works with any ISP nevertheless it

The Fritz!Box 7390 works with any ISP nevertheless it was originally offered by Internode. If you're in the market for an all-in-one device, it's so then worth a look. It's a unit that has just about every home networking function in accordance with the sun: it's an ADSL2+ modem/router, a 4-port Gigabit switch, an 802.11n wireless access point with simultaneous dual-band support, a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) base for DECT phones, an ATA for analogue phones, and it can even be used to share a USB hard drive or printer. And there's plenty more, too, just as VPN support, parental settings, comprehensive call features, traffic monitoring and extensive logging.

Setting up the Fritz!Box 7390 for Internet and wireless usage isn't difficult thanks to the included wizards in its Web interface — we were up and running within a few minutes to start our tests. Both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless networks can be set up to run simultaneously, nevertheless security for them has to be enabled from a different page, and you have to use the same password for both networks. In our tests, the wireless performance of the 7390 was on par with the 7270, yet it produced slightly better results than the 7270 from 10m away.

Using the 2.4GHz radio, the Fritz!Box 7390 recorded a rate of 7.78 megabytes per second from 2m away and 6.8MBps from 10m away. Using 5GHz, it recorded 9.8MBps from 2m away and 7.78MBps from 10m away. Simultaneously transferring data from 2m using the 5GHz network recorded 9.18MBps during media was being streamed on the 2.4GHz network. The 5GHz network seems to give better performance overall and we recommend using it wherever possible, especially if you live in a large apartment block that has many 2.4GHz networks surrounding your own network.

Laptop to an A

We had no problems at all wirelessly streaming HD video from a laptop to an A.C Ryan Playon!HD2 media streamer and the Fritz!Box proved to be reliable throughout our tests. A USB port on the rear of the router allows a hard drive to be plugged in and shared across the local network. Because the router supports UPnP, a media streamer will see the attached storage device and will be able to play files off it directly.

UPnP helps when forwarding ports, too, as some applications can add their rules to the router automatically. If you want to forward ports manually, at that time you will have to look for the setting called Permit Access pursuant to this agreement the Internet section of the Web interface. From here you can as well configure remote access, dynamic DNS settings, and VPN settings.

If you want to use IPTV, just as the FetchTV service, at that time you'll be pleased to know that the Fritz!Box 7390 is optimised to carry this traffic. There is even a graph that you can view to see how much bandwidth is being consumed by IPTV relative to the rest of your ADSL2+ connection. That's only one of the monitoring tools available in the router.