We stripped a DStv Wi-Fi connector — with a pleasant surprise

Tests by MyBroadband showed that it is possible to use a DStv Wi-Fi Connector as a Wi-Fi network adapter on a Windows computer by using the right drivers.
The DStv Wi-Fi Connector USB 3000 is the official product from MultiChoice to connect Explora decoders to the internet via a wireless network.
Second-hand DStv Wi-Fi Connectors are available from around R100, and is often bundled for free with a DStv Explora on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree.
The Wi-Fi Connector is not advertised to work on any device other than a DStv decoder, but we decided to test if it was usable on a computer.
MyBroadband connected the device to a Windows computer to see if it would pick it up.
When connected to a Windows machine, the DStv Wi-Fi Connector appears under the name “802.11AC WLAN”.
Windows did not automatically install a driver for the connector, and it was therefore not usable as a network adapter. However, it was a good sign that the operating system picked up the device.
We tried drivers from the list included in Windows, but none of them worked. Many even caused the computer to crash.
It was time to strip away the plastic DStv casing to see what was under the hood.
We opened up the DStv Wi-Fi Connector and found a MediaTek MT7612U chip. The driver for this chip is available for download from the MediaTek website.
After installing the driver and forcing the connector to use it in “device manager”, the DStv Wi-Fi Connector appeared as an “802.11ac Wireless LAN Card”.
It was now working perfectly as a wireless network adapter.
The adapter was able to connect to both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi networks, confirming that it featured AC Wi-Fi.
According to the specifications on the MediaTek website, the chip supports data throughput of up to 866Mbit/s – the standard for an AC1200 adapter.
This test showed that the DStv Wi-Fi Connector could serve as an affordable Wi-Fi adapter, even when bought new.
The DStv Wi-Fi Connector is available on Takealot for R189 — the cheapest USB AC Wi-Fi adapter that we could find.
Alternatives include the TUFF-LUV adapter for R279, which only supports 433Mbps on 5GHz, or a TP-Link Archer T3U AC1300 adapter for R349.