UPGRADE TO BUSINESSCLASS WI-FI

A HOME OFFICE DESERVES A PROFESSIONAL NETWORK. DARIEN GRAHAM-SMITH MAKES THE SWITCH

- DARIEN GRAHAM-SMITH

Whether you're self-employed or simply blessed with an enlightened employer, many of us work at least partly from home. But is your home network up to professional standards? Most businesses run on specialist professional hardware, and there's no reason why you can't do the same. This month I tried moving my own home office onto a businessgrade network, to see whether it's worth the investment.

At first this might seem like a big step into the unknown. There probably won't be a drop-in "business class" replacement for whatever home router you're currently using, so you'll need to do some research - which might include familiar consumer brands such as Asus, TP-Link and Netgear, and some that are better known in the enterprise world, such as Cisco and Ubiquiti.

If you're expecting your network to grow over time, your initial choice of vendor could have long-lasting implications. Most professional routers use a unified management platform that integrates with any wireless access points, switches or gateways that you may add in future, so it's important to think about the whole ecosystem you're buying into.

For a home office, though, you're unlikely to be investing in large numbers of companion appliances, so it's less of a concern. And for this - what we might call the microbusiness end of the market - two brands that particularly stand out are DrayTek and Zyxel. In my case I went with the Zyxel AX6000 Wi-Fi 6 Security Router, an affordable little box that's tailor-made for small home offices. Here's how it went, and what I learnt.

PRO WI-FI IS CHEAPER THAN I EXPECTED

When I think of professional networking gear, I picture expensive gateways, switches and wireless access points costing thousands of pounds.

To be honest, that's a big part of what's put me off making the investment for all these years.