[SOLVED] Best Option To Increase Bandwith/Speed in House

ElementAMD

Reputable
Sep 10, 2015
110
0
4,710
Currently, at my house, our setup for internet is a NetGear Nighthawk R7000 Router and a NetGear CM1000 Modem with 100mbps down from our ISP, Midco.

Our situation is that we have a growing number of internet connected devices that all use the internet quite consisently throughout the day. This includes TVs streaming Netflix, Alexa-enabled speakers, my gaming PC, my dad's home PC, work computer, phones, iPads, laptops, etc. For the most part, our computers don't typically experience connection interruptions often. It does happen, though, and can take a full restart of both the modem of router to allow all of our devices to connect to our network properly. Only our TVs connect via the 5GHz band as far as I am aware.

We just got an advertisement from our ISP for an upgrade to 500mbps down for only 10 dollars more monthly. But, I am unsure of where the problem lays for the intermittent interruptions of streaming and dropped connections to the occasional and random phone or laptop. We do have a range extender, and the speeds are still good at the other side of the house from where the router and modem are.

So, what would be more cost effective and efficient at solving our networking issues? A new router, modem, or an upgrade to our download speeds? I'm not well versed in networking tech, so I could really use some advice here!
 
Solution
Moving fixed location devices to wired is the best thing you can do to improve your network.
Second would be to add additional WIFI sources (access points) wired to your primary router.
Increasing your WAN bandwidth could benefit but getting things to wired and 5Ghz is more important, IMO.

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
Moving fixed location devices to wired is the best thing you can do to improve your network.
Second would be to add additional WIFI sources (access points) wired to your primary router.
Increasing your WAN bandwidth could benefit but getting things to wired and 5Ghz is more important, IMO.
 
Solution