AVM Fritz!Box Fon WLAN 7390 review

AVM may not be well-known in the UK, but the German company's latest wireless router is packed full of telephony features. Should smaller businesses and branch offices buy it? Kat Orphanides and Andrew Webb take a closer look.

The router can be set to forward incoming connections to IP addresses on your network on a per-port basis, and can also set one IP address to be a DMZ host. UPnP can also be enabled to allow programs on your network to open ports as required, but was disabled by default. However, the 7390 does not have support for accounts with multiple IP addresses from your ISP. It can only forward ports from the router's own external IP address, and incoming connections cannot be filtered by source. These missing features are common in business-class routers, so their omission here is notable.

Other features include Dynamic DNS support for both predefined providers and for user defined ones, a built in print server, UPnP streaming of media on attached USB drives, QoS prioritization (which was preconfigured for VoIP traffic), call blocking, site blocking controls which can be configured on a per-computer basis for your network and remote control of the router from inside your network using iPhone and Android apps.

So what's our verdict?

Verdict

Although its wireless performance is somewhat underwhelming, it's not bad enough to make us any less impressed by this router, although you might want to invest in an additional wireless access point if you want to extend a 2.4GHz network over a wide area that suffers from significant interference. For the small office requiring internet access and phone services in a single device, the Fritz!Box Fon WLAN 7390 is ideal. Simple to use and full of features, it lets you effectively handle almost all your office communications needs with a single compact device.

Product type: ADSL2+ Modem Router / Ethernet router Wired networking: 4x 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports Wireless networking: dual-band 802.11n Security: WEP (64-bit, 128-bit), WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK, RADIUS Antennas: 3 internal, non-upgradeable Features: Firewall, MAC address filtering, DMZ, UPnP, DHCP server, MAC spoofing, DDNS, port forwarding, WDS support, USB device support, QoS Power consumption: 3W Part code: AVM7390

K.G. Orphanides

K.G. is a journalist, technical writer, developer and software preservationist. Alongside the accumulated experience of over 20 years spent working with Linux and other free/libre/open source software, their areas of special interest include IT security, anti-malware and antivirus, VPNs, identity and password management, SaaS infrastructure and its alternatives.

You can get in touch with K.G. via email at reviews@kgorphanides.com.