INTRODUCTION

   Online gaming has come a long way since the early days of dialup connections so today at least in most parts of the world people have access to blazing fast download and upload speeds and very low ping numbers (latency) largely thanks to VDSL and cable connectivity. Even however if you're not into online gaming the fact of the matter is that we live in the internet era so having a fast and reliable internet connection is something all people should have. Unfortunately as we've pointed out numerous times in the past although ADSL/VDSL connectivity is quite popular there aren't that many feature-rich and high-performance modem/routers in the market and with most ISPs (internet service providers) offering very basic models (most of which don't even feature Gigabit Ethernet ports) this can be a serious problem especially for demanding users. The FRITZ! Box line of ADSL/VDSL modem/routers by AVM has always been among the bestselling ones in the EU and today we'll be testing their latest flagship model the 7590.

   AVM offers a wide range of products for high-speed broadband connectivity and smart home networking. With its FRITZ! product line, AVM is a leading manufacturer of broadband devices for DSL, cable, LTE (4G) and fiber optics in Germany and Europe. Smart Home products based on wireless LAN, DECT and powerline standards provide for an intelligent as well as secure home. The operating system FRITZ!OS makes handling all FRITZ! products easy. Thanks to free updates all FRITZ! products regularly receive new functions for more convenience and increased security. FRITZ! is the leading brand for home networking in Germany. Founded in Berlin in 1986, from the outset the company has focused on developing its own secure, innovative products for broadband connections. In 2016 the communications specialist had 660 employees and generated a turnover of 440 million euros.

   Just like the FRITZ!Box 7490 the 7590 is a dual band ADSL/VDSL model router (compatible with both Annex A/B and analogue/IDSN lines out of the box) filled with all the goodies AVM was able to squeeze inside its rather small enclosure. So this time over under the hood we find the AnyWAN GRX550 Network Processor and the XWAY VRX518 DSL Frontend by Intel (supports up to 300Mbit/s via super vectoring 35b), Spartan-6 FPGA by Xilinx, QCA9984 Wave-2 802.11ac 5GHz dual-band 4x4 radio (1733Mbit/s peak speed - fully supports Multi-User MIMO with both 160MHz and 80+80MHz channels) and QCA9985 802.11n 2.4GHz radio (800Mbit/s peak speed) by Qualcomm, MaxBeam High Gain Antennas by Airgain (up to 7.0dBI - support beamforming), 512MB DDR3 DRAM by NANYA and a 512MB flash by Macronix (340MB of which are used for the NAS feature). In terms of connectivity the FRITZ!Box 7590 features both analog and digital landline connectivity, two USB 3.0 ports, DECT base station for up to 6 handsets, gigabit WAN port and 4 gigabit Ethernet ports. So the brand new FRITZ!Box 7590 offers all the things we liked in the 7490 and then some so let's take a closer look.