We love how plenty of places offer free public Wi-Fi these days, allowing us to get online without the need to use phone data or mobile hotspots. Problem is, connecting to free public Wi-Fi can be quite the frustrating affair, especially when you have multiple devices you need to get online. That’s when a travel router that let you connect just one device to the network really comes in handy. If you want the fastest travel router available, you might want to consider the TP-Link BE3600.
Equipped with Wi-Fi 7, the travel router delivers a maximum 3.6 Gbps of bandwidth, allowing you to maximize whatever the available wherever you are. More importantly, though, it makes connecting to public Wi-Fi easier and safer, since you only have a single point of connection, requiring you to simply connect to the free Wi-Fi once using the Tether app, regardless of how many devices you’re actually using.
The TP-Link BE3600 is a compact travel router that measures just 5 x 3.7 x 1.5 inches (width x depth x height) and weighs half a pound, making it small and light enough to cram into most pockets for easily taking with you on the go (just make sure to fold down the antennas). When connecting to public Wi-Fi, you want to use it in Hotspot Mode, which lets you connect once to a public network, which you can then share with connected devices. According to the outfit, the router can support up to 90 different devices in this mode, which should be sufficient enough even for large groups traveling together.
Of course, there’s also a Router Mode that lets it function as a traditional router, with internet access coming via an Ethernet connection to a modem, a USB modem, or phone tethering. It can also serve as an access point, a range extender, and a Wi-Fi client, so you can use it in a variety of ways, depending on your needs.
The TP-Link BE3600 supports secure surfing via VPN, which should be doubly important when you’re using unsecure public networks. To ensure this, it supports both OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols, allowing you to connect to 35 compatible VPN providers alongside your regular internet connection. It has four VPNs pre-installed, by the way, namely SurfShark, NordVPN, IPVanish, and PureVPN. Suffice to say, they made sure you can take the necessary precautions when using this with publicly-accessible free Wi-Fi networks. Unlike some mobile routers that come with built-in batteries, though, this one has none. Instead, you’ll have to plug in to a power source via a USB-C connection. It only requires a 5V USB power source, so you can hook it up to any power bank or even an open USB slot on your laptop.
The router comes with USB 3.0 port and two Ethernet slots (one 1Gbps and one 2.5Gbps), so you can connect your laptop to it via a wired connection for even more stable speeds. It’s dual band only (2.5 and 5Ghz), so the newer 6GHz band isn’t supported.
