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TP-Link

TP-Link prints the sum, then rounds it on the badge

Wireless routers and a three-node mesh set, an access point managed under a controller, an unmanaged gigabit switch, a sixteen-socket powered switch, a HomePlug AV2 pair, a folding USB adapter, a plug-in repeater, a 2.5-gigabit card and a multimode optic. No other maker of active equipment reaches across this site as far.

The arithmetic, printed and then rounded

The access point publishes 2976 Mbit/s as the sum of its two radios rather than the badge above it. The mesh set publishes the same figure and prints AX3000 on the box. The router publishes both band rates and prints no badge at all. The powerline listing goes further than any of them and explains, in its own first bullet, that a half or a third of the headline rate is what a mains link usually returns.

What is left for the seller to answer

The 2.5-gigabit card names its Ethernet standard, its brackets and its operating systems, and never the PCIe generation or the lane count the slot has to provide. The folding adapter puts no rate on the USB side of the link and names no chip. The repeater publishes one rate without saying which band it belongs to, and counts a LAN socket without rating it.

Every TP-Link unit reviewed here

TP-Link accessories reviewed here

  • TP-Link TL-SM311LM multimode gigabit SFP module with an LC optical port

    TP-Link TL-SM311LM, multimode gigabit SFP, 850 nm, 550 m stated

    The module of a switch maker sold for other makers’ switches, with the shortest specification on this shelf: a wavelength, a distance and an LC socket, plus a storage temperature standing where an operating one should be.

    Module form factor
    SFP, named a MiniGBIC in the first bullet — the gigabit cage. The second bullet places it on a switch with SFP ports
    Module rate
    Gigabit — stated as such in the title, with the first bullet calling it a multi-mode MiniGBIC module. No figure in megabits or gigabits per second is printed anywhere on the page
    Optical or copper medium
    Optical — multi-mode, stated in the title and in the first bullet, with the second naming enterprise fibre networks, campus fibre networks and ISP networks as its use
    Fibre type
    Multimode — stated in the title and in the first bullet. The grade is not published on the listing: no OM1, OM2, OM3 or OM4 designation appears, and the third bullet gives 550 m at 850 nm in its place
    Stated reach
    550 m — stated in the title as a reach of up to 550 m, and in the third bullet as a transmission distance of 550 m
    Connector type
    LC — stated in the title as an LC interface. Whether that is a duplex pair or a single position is not published on the listing, and no bullet returns to the subject
    Wavelength
    850 nm — stated in the third bullet, in the same line as the distance
    Vendor coding stated
    Not published on the listing — the title claims compatibility with Cisco, Meraki, Ubiquiti and Mikrotik, and no coding, no part number and no module list is named against any of them. This is a switch maker’s own module, offered for other makers’ switches
    Operating temperature range
    Not published on the listing — the fourth bullet publishes a storage temperature of -40 to 85 °C, an operating humidity of 10 to 90 % relative and a storage humidity of 5 to 90 % relative, and never the temperature the module is meant to work at
    Amazon reference
    B001800S6M (same reference on 6 Amazon marketplaces)
    EAN
    1210002612036
    • Made by a switch maker, and the model designation in the title is that maker’s own catalogue number
    • Publishes a wavelength beside the distance, which is the pair a multimode reach claim needs
    • No operating temperature anywhere, on a page that finds room for two humidity ranges

    Best for: A short multimode run inside one building, into a switch that accepts third-party modules without argument.

    ≈ £22 / 17 €
    Check price on Amazon

Every price named in a summary was read on the date that review carries. What a shop asks today is shown beside the product, and it moves.