Apple AirPort Extreme claims top marks in consumer-grade wireless router survey

A recent customer satisfaction survey of home router technologies places Apple comfortably on top of the heap, despite recent reports of the division closing down, and engineers re-assigned to other projects.

J.D. Power's U.S. Wireless Router Satisfaction Report measured overall satisfaction with wireless router manufacturers among 3037 customers who purchased a router during the 12-month period prior to responding.

Apple reportedly endangered AirPort Extreme family claimed first place handily with a rating of 876. Asus came in second at 860, with D-Link and TP-Link close behind. The average score came in at 847.

Satisfaction is measured by users ranking offerings on Wi-Fi range, reliability, speed of upload/download, ease of connection restoration, security capabilities, price, ease of use, variety of features, intuitive user interface, and customer service, in order of importance.

The survey also found that price is the primary reason for choosing a wireless router brand, followed by range of signal strength, brand reputation, and ease of use.

During the survey period, 16% of users experienced a problem with their router, with the most commonly reported problem being the frequency of the need to reset the device, followed closely by slow internet speeds.

On Nov. 21, reports started circulating that Apple had disbanded its wireless router team, and had assigned the engineers in the department to other projects within the company. The AirPort Extreme was last updated in 2013 with 802.11ac capability, with the AirPort Express range extender and audio streaming target still stuck on 802.11n.

107 Comments

coolfactor 2329 comments · 20 Years

About 7 years ago

I bet ASUS is very happy about Apple exiting this market.

I actually was very impressed with the setup process for an ASUS router about 4 years ago. Worked perfectly with a Mac.

williamh 1045 comments · 13 Years

I've used Apple Airports for many years now and I am generally happy. I expect the high marks are because most people are intimidated by the idea of the setup of other brands (although they're mostly easy enough.) Airports have fewer distinguishing features now as a many other routers can also do printer and drive sharing. The main advantage is Time Machine backup for multiple machines on the network. If you only have one machine to back up, you may as well plug in a drive.

The Airports are pretty weak when it comes to custom configuration options. In particular, competitors have some content-filter / child safety sorts of options that Airport doesn't have at all. My kids are too old for that sort of control now, but for little kids it is something.

slprescott 759 comments · 10 Years

"...and engineers re-assigned to other projects"

Reassign them to the AirPods division. It needs help, apparently.

blastdoor 3562 comments · 15 Years

Watching Apple right now is like watching the X-Files in those years when they clearly had no idea where to take the show.

How does it make sense to cancel a product like this (or displays) but keep a very niche product like Logic?

If you depend on any product from Apple other than the iPhone, iPad, or MacBook I suggest you start looking for alternatives because no matter how good the product is, no matter how popular within its market, and no matter how much you are willing to pay -- Apple can and in many cases will kill the product with no clear reason and no warning.

OutdoorAppDeveloper 1292 comments · 15 Years

Letting the news get out that the entire development staff for the Airport routers have been reassigned without putting out an official statement on the matter is the first sign of serious problems in Apple's management. How do you create a smart AI based home hub that does not have at its core a completely secure network router? To do a good job of routing packets to VOIP or NetFlix streaming requires deep network packet sniffing on the local network and that requires very strong encryption on the router. Only a router can sense that there are insecure devices on the network such as Chinese IP cameras and firewall them. This is a disaster for local network security. Apple needs to tell its millions of customers how they are now supposed to secure their home networks. Who else but Apple would you trust with your most private data?