Does more number of devices benefit from a 450 Mbps router rather than 300 Mbps?

[The Tiger]

There are 450 Mbps N routers available in the market. Now we know that these are no more useful than 300 Mbps routers if the receiving adapter does not support 450 Mbps. Most devices connect at 150 Mbps, a few at 300. I couldn't find a single USB WiFi adapter that supports 450 Mbps at 2.4 GHz N band.

Now I was thinking about getting a new router. But I am confused about going for 300 or 450. If I connect lots of WiFi devices (say at 150 Mbps each), would I benefit from a 450 Mbps router over a 300 Mbps?

For example, say, if

Scenario 1: I connect 3 computers with 150 Mbps adapters with a 450 Mbps router.

Scenario 2: I connect 3 computers with 150 Mbps adapters with a 300 Mbps router.

Will moving files to and fro the 3 computers in local network at random, be faster for Scenario 1, than for Scenario 2 since in Scenario 1, three 150 Mbps devices are getting one dedicated stream each from one antenna?

 

[ElectrO_90]

If the max of the router is 300 then Scenario 1 will be better.

 

[BFG-9000]

No, Wireless-N can only connect to one device at a time in timeslices, so while broadcasting to a single 150Mbps device at say 5GHz, all of the excess bandwidth is wasted. Consider also that this is half-duplex so not only is all bandwidth limited to 150Mbps in such a scenario, but it is only one-direction at a time. The 2.4GHz is a separate radio so it can simultaneously communicate on a separate frequency, so up to two devices at the same time for N.

What you are describing is multiuser MIMO which is an option in the Wireless-AC specification. That allows up to 4 simultaneous connections per radio. Many AC routers also have multiple 5GHz radios as well to drive up the marketing number on the box--these are essentially multiple 5GHz APs in the same box. The 2.4GHz side operates at Wireless-N so can add only one additional device at a time.

 

[The Tiger]

Awesone explanation, BFG9000! You saved me a thousand INR. Thank you very much.

 

[bill001g]

You are over thinking this. Yes in a perfect world you can do fancy things. As state above MU-Mimo...which is not support on 2.4g..to a point can do this.

The main problem is wifi is half duplex. The end devices will may times transmit over each other because they can not detect each other but they can talk to the router. The router will see both signals but since they interfere it will degrade both.

This is all mostly a theoretical discussion. All this fancy wifi stuff that works great in labs tends to be of little value in the real world. Wifi is actually getting worse and worse unless you live far away from everyone else. In many apartments everyone has at least one router and many have multiple repeater/extenders trying to overcome the interference but making the overall issue worse. There is so much radio traffic that you are lucky to get the most simple data encoding to work well much less fancy 4 stream mu-mimo things.


But as you point out if your end device does not support extra features like 3 antenna/feeds you will get no benefit form buying a fancy router. Too many people come here after buying the router with the largest "number" they can find asking why it does not run any faster than their old router. The do not understand what you seem to partially understand is the end device is 1/2 the connection and its abilities must be considered.

 

[The Tiger]

Thank you so much, Bill, for the clarification.