[SOLVED] Does the router matter when using wired connection ?

[jawa]

Hello,

I have a Question regarding routers, as I am considering to buy a new one.
I currently have my ISP's router which is a HUAWEI B528s-23a.
The router is a Plug&Play kinda model, where i just insert the SIM-Card and plug it into the Power outlet of my wall.
My current Data Plan is 40Mbit/s Down and 10Mbit/s UP.

I live in a crowded City relatively near to the City center.
I am using a wired connection via Ethernet cable for my Desktop-PC in order to browse the web and game.
Usually my Ping, while gaming (League of Legends e.g.) is around 40-50ms, but lately its always hovering around 70-100ms while I haven't changed anything.
I am now thinking of upgrading my router, but I am not sure if that will make any difference, since I am using wired connection anyway?

So my question is.: Does upgrading to a newer router make any difference, if I am using wired connection anyway (in terms of Ping while gaming)? Should i potentially exchange the Ethernet-cable?

Already thankful for your advice!

 

[bill001g]

In your case it will make no difference.

If you were connecting to a gigabit fiber connection then there could be a small chance. Some older routers did not have the cpu capacity to keep up with these fast connection. Almost all new routers including very cheap ones have a hardware NAT function in them that allows them to pass traffic close to 1gbit WAN/LAN.

In your case your internet is so slow the router will not be the bottleneck. I suspect since you say it uses a sim card you are using a mobile broadband connection. These tend to have higher latency and it can actually change if the ISP decide to put you on a different cell tower because of network load.

With a bad ethernet cable you generally see data loss not higher latency. Now if you had a very fast internet connection a bad cable can drop you to 100mbps rather than gigabit but even if that were to happen in your cases you are still well below 100mbps.

 

[jawa]

In your case it will make no difference.

If you were connecting to a gigabit fiber connection then there could be a small chance. Some older routers did not have the cpu capacity to keep up with these fast connection. Almost all new routers including very cheap ones have a hardware NAT function in them that allows them to pass traffic close to 1gbit WAN/LAN.

In your case your internet is so slow the router will not be the bottleneck. I suspect since you say it uses a sim card you are using a mobile broadband connection. These tend to have higher latency and it can actually change if the ISP decide to put you on a different cell tower because of network load.

With a bad ethernet cable you generally see data loss not higher latency. Now if you had a very fast internet connection a bad cable can drop you to 100mbps rather than gigabit but even if that were to happen in your cases you are still well below 100mbps.

Thank you very much for your in depth reply!
In understand a lot btter now.
So what would be your suggestion in this case?
Change the data plan? Would it be an option to opt for a higher data plan like 80Mbits? Or is that basically still the same thing if I don't change to fiber?

 

[bill001g]

Higher data plan does not decrease the latency.

There are 2 big thing that affect latency. The first is distance to the server which is a speed of light restriction. The other is data being held in buffers because of congestion or other overhead. If you were exceeding your bandwidth data will be delayed. In those cases increasing bandwidth would decrease the buffers. BUT if you are not exceeding your bandwidth there is not data being buffered so there is no added delay.

With a mobile broadband network there is a lot of overhead. This is partially because it is designed for mobile use. Cell networks are designed to allow users to seamless transfer from tower to tower. There is a lot of delay built into the technology to allow this. You don't care about this feature since you are not moving around but the overhead is still built into the system. This is very hard to predict because your performance will be affected by other people say in their cars using the network.

In general you should not use mobile broadband if you have another option. Only satellite is worse. To get good latency you pretty much have to have some kind of wire running to your house.