INTRODUCTION

   Powerline network adapters may already count quite a few years in the market (i used my first set well over 5 years ago) but the main consumer base has just now begun to learn of their existence and as expected most network equipment manufacturers have recently focused their efforts in the release of models featuring 1GbE connectivity. We've reviewed such models already and although we're quite satisfied with their performance we do feel that they leave much to be desired especially in terms of features and available settings. Devolo is amongst the very few such manufacturers that have already tried to improve on that area by releasing powerline adapters with Wi-Fi capabilities but again i can't honestly say that we were overwhelmed with what they had to offer (at least the models we have reviewed and/or used so far). AVM aims to change all that however with the highly anticipated FRITZ!Powerline 546E model.

   AVM offers a wide range of products for high-speed broadband connectivity and smart home networking. With the FRITZ! product family, AVM is a leading manufacturer of broadband devices for ADSL, cable, and LTE as well as Smart Home products for wireless LAN, DECT, and Powerline in Germany and Europe. The FRITZ!Box is the best known brand for wireless routers in Germany. In 2014 the communications specialist had 500 employees and generated a turnover of 340 million euros. Founded in Berlin in 1986, from the outset the company has focused on developing its own secure, innovative products for broadband connections. FRITZ! stands for fast Internet, the networked home and convenient telephony. Millions of satisfied customers and hundreds of award-winning products confirm AVM’s commitment to high-quality FRITZ! products and first-class customer service.

   Unfortunately the very first thing you will notice when checking out the FRITZ!Powerline 546E is that it doesn't feature 1GbE connectivity (1200Mbit/s) and so it can only support speeds of up to 500Mbit/s via its dual 10/100 Base-T RJ45 Ethernet ports. The FRITZ!Powerline 546E however has something most powerline network adapters don't it supports IEEE 802.11b/g/n wireless connectivity via the 2.4GHz band secured via WPA2 (Wireless Protected Access 2). That's not all however since AVM has equipped the FRITZ!Powerline 546E with a integrated 230V electrical socket and repeater function and has also given it support for QoS (Quality Of Service), IGMP multicast sessions, AES 128-bit encryption, IPv6 and WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup). Perhaps the most important however feature is the ability to control and monitor the FRITZ!Powerline 546E via a web browser so let's move forward so you can all see what we mean.