Editorial methodology

This page describes how Router Academy works today. When our practice changes — for example, when we begin hands-on testing — this page changes first.

How we label evidence

Manufacturer specifications: Specifications published by the manufacturer. We label them as such and do not treat marketing figures (like coverage area) as measurements.
Independent measurements: Results measured by a named third party, attributed to that publisher by name together with the conditions they reported.
Router Academy testing: Our own hands-on measurements. We do not test hardware yet; this label will only appear once real testing has happened, with the method and date.
Our analysis: Our interpretation of the evidence above: who a product or setting suits, trade-offs and alternatives.

How we research

Sources. We prioritize standards bodies (IEEE, Wi-Fi Alliance, IETF), regulators (such as the FCC), manufacturer documentation, and independent testers who publish their methods. Low-quality affiliate sites and content farms are never used as sources.
Specifications. Product specifications come from the manufacturer's own pages and are labelled as manufacturer-provided. Where a value isn't published, we say so instead of guessing.
Independent measurements. We quote measurements by naming the organization that took them and the conditions they reported. We don't average results from different testers, because different methods aren't comparable.
Recommendations. Every buying guide explains its criteria before its picks. Each pick states why it is included and who it is not for.

Fact-checking and editorial validation

Every guide starts with research: we collect the relevant standards, regulations, manufacturer documentation and independent sources, record what each one says, and write the article from that record. Before publication, every guide passes our editorial validation:

Each factual claim is traced to supporting evidence of an appropriate kind — regulatory statements to regulators, specifications to manufacturers, measurements to the people who measured them.
Where sources disagree, the disagreement is resolved and recorded, never silently picked.
Every evidence reference and internal link must resolve, and product details must come from structured product records.
Language that implies hands-on testing is blocked unless real test records exist.
The article is reviewed for accuracy, clarity and usefulness against its research brief.

Our research record for each guide — the sources consulted, the claims they support and how any disagreements were resolved — is kept and used whenever the guide is checked or updated. Articles attribute information to its origin in the text where that matters (for example, "the FCC's rules" or "Intel rates it at"), rather than appending a bibliography. When a named editor has individually reviewed a specific article, the article says "Reviewed by" with their name.

Corrections and updates

If we get something wrong, we fix it and record the correction in the article's history with the date and a description of what changed. Each article shows its publication date and, when there has been a substantive change, an updated date. We do not change dates for cosmetic edits, and reviews that find nothing to change don't alter the date shown.

You can report an error using the details on our contact page.

Testing

Router Academy does not test hardware yet. We are planning a documented, versioned test method; until results from it exist, no page will describe our own measurements, and pages that discuss products say that we haven't tested them.

What we don't claim

We have not tested the products discussed on this page ourselves.
Manufacturer specifications are identified as manufacturer-provided.
Independent measurements are attributed to the organization that took them.
Router Academy testing will only be reported once real testing has occurred.
We do not show prices, star ratings or review counts.

Independence and conflicts of interest

We don't publish sponsored content and no manufacturer pays for inclusion. Some product pages include affiliate links; how that works is explained in our affiliate disclosure. If we ever receive a product on loan or as a gift, we will disclose it on every page that uses it.