What does MLO mean on your router and should you enable it?

The first problem with MLO is that the term actually refers to two different implementations. Simultaneous Transit and Receive mode is MLO as it's frequently advertised, using multiple radios in the router to connect to several bands simultaneously. Enhanced Multi-Link Single Radio mode uses a single radio that constantly monitors all available bands and switches to the best available option, but without the signal interruptions sometimes caused by traditional band steering. In a February 2026 report, hardware testing site Rtings found that not a single Wi-Fi 7 router actually supported the full multi-radio version of MLO.

That might still represent a step up over older routers, but device compatibility raises other issues. Since Wi-Fi 7 is a new standard, it's likely that anyone upgrading an existing network will be tempted to mix new routers with those still running Wi-Fi 6 or older versions. But since only Wi-Fi 7 supports any form of MLO, any device connected to a Wi-Fi 6 access point won't get any of the new standard's benefits. On top of that, not every device is set up to receive the benefits of Wi-Fi 7, even with a perfectly configured network. If your phone, laptop or network card isn't Wi-Fi 7 compatible, it won't be able to use MLO features at all and turning the feature on could introduce some network instability.