Portal WiFi Router Aims To Shred Congestion And Kill Buffering

A new WiFi router is on Kickstarter seeking funding called Portal. This WiFi router claims to use spectrum turbocharger technology inside to bring access to 300% more airwaves than any other router out there. The maker claims that extra airwave coverage brings as much as 300x more range and coverage. If you live in a location that has lots of WiFi signals flying around, portal still claims to improve your performance by 2x.

The tech inside Portal is FCC certified and dubbed FastLanes. This allows the router to operate in a protected portion of the 5GHz radio spectrum that was originally designated for use by weather radar systems. This patch of spectrum is about 3x wider than the spectrum conventional WiFi uses.

The design of the router hides all of the antennas to make the device more attractive. The makers claim that a single Portal device can cover a 2500 sq ft home. Up to two portals can be daisy chained together using enterprise-grade mesh technology to extend the network up to 200ft or more. That would allow coverage of a multi story home up to 5000 square feet. Portal supports guest networks with rolling codes and has smartphone based setup.

VPN access and WiFi Protected Access is supported. Parental controls allow web filtering and the device has integrated dual firewalls with SPI and NAT protection. Portal is on Kickstarter seeking $160,000 and raised over $400,000 with 43 days to go. A pledge of $159 or more will get a Portal with delivery expected in December 2016. One thing you have to wonder about is how long will it be before other routers are able to access the same protected 5GHz spectrum that Portal uses and congestion again becomes a problem. There is no indication that the tech or approvals allowing use of this spectrum are limited to the Portal device alone.

SOURCE: Kickstarter