[SOLVED] Need help buying a New Wifi 6 Router

xmasholiday

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Jan 15, 2013
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So currently I have a Spectrum ISP with the 1gbs speeds they gave me a wifi 6 router but it sucks can't even login to it and the signal drops all the time and even on ethernet which I researched the type of wifi 6 router spectrum gave me and there seems too be hundreds of threads of the same issue so it's definitely the router I also recently moved and have way more stuff connected to my router now.
Me and my wifes parents all bought a big house together so there is a top and bottom floor along with 4 computers 4 iphones 2 printers 6+ tv's connected normally at any time lol. upwards of 15-20 things connected to my router at anytime. Now my main question is also I plan on spending 200-300$ and I was looking at the Asus ones now would it be better for me to buy a Nice dual band router like Asus RTAX86U or buy a Tri-band router for the extra 5ghz lane?
 
Solution
No tri-band routers have been around for a while. All they did was add a second 5g wifi chip. The messy part of having 2 5g chips is how your end device know which one to connect to.

In some ways wifi6e routers are tri-band. They have a 2.4, 5, and now 6g radios.

You can come back in a few months and tell us how good/bad wifi6e works. Not a lot of people have them so there is not a lot of information from real people running it in a real house. You now at least see it on all the major vendor sites, 6 months ago you had to already know wifi6e even existed and search for devices.

kanewolf

Titan
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So currently I have a Spectrum ISP with the 1gbs speeds they gave me a wifi 6 router but it sucks can't even login to it and the signal drops all the time and even on ethernet which I researched the type of wifi 6 router spectrum gave me and there seems too be hundreds of threads of the same issue so it's definitely the router I also recently moved and have way more stuff connected to my router now.
Me and my wifes parents all bought a big house together so there is a top and bottom floor along with 4 computers 4 iphones 2 printers 6+ tv's connected normally at any time lol. upwards of 15-20 things connected to my router at anytime. Now my main question is also I plan on spending 200-300$ and I was looking at the Asus ones now would it be better for me to buy a Nice dual band router like Asus RTAX86U or buy a Tri-band router for the extra 5ghz lane?
Did Spectrum give you a modem and separate router or a combo unit? You would have to get a modem to use the Asus.
 

xmasholiday

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Separate cable modem which is 3.1 docsis so the cable modem they gave me is actually good I researched that also. It's just the router that suck's. I forgot about the two laptops are kids have running all the time so lets increase the amount of devices connected normally to 17-22 now lol. Me and my wife also game together as well if that matters along with my kids.
 
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Sound kinda simple when you just read marketing speak from the hardware vendors.

The major problem with almost all current wifi is you have way too much competition for wifi bandwidth. All these manufactures seem to think you do not have 20 neighbors trying to use the same radio bandwidth.

On the 5g radio band there are only 2 80mhz blocks. It you were to buy a tri-band router you would be using both of them. So all your neighbors would have to turn off their routers :)
There also is no magic with a tri-band router. It does a very poor job of balancing clients between the 2 radios. You pretty much have to use different SSID and configure the clients to use the one you want.

Wifi6 stuff has very similar issues. First to effectively use wifi6 you must have end device that fully support it. The router you list support 160mhz radio bands but the vast majority of end devices only support 80mhz.
You need to check the specs but in general most portable devices only support 80mhz. The reason for this is to get 160mhz there are all kinds of rules related to weather radar avoidance and they vendors did not want to put all that logic in their chips.

If you run wifi6 on 80mhz then you are not going to get much better speeds than wifi5 (802.11ac) which can also use 80mhz.

The only real solution for this appears to be wifi6e. There is a massive amount of new bandwidth on the 6gz channels which should reduce the overlapping of neighbors and allow use of 160mhz bands. It will likely be a year or so before we know if it actually performs up to all the hype.
Wifi6e devices are kinda hard to get and are quite expensive yet.

You might be better off looking at 2 lesser cost 802.11ac routers and place the second one in a remote area to get better coverage. This also gives you the extra 5g and a 2.4g radio without paying the large premium for a tri-band router.
 

xmasholiday

Distinguished
Jan 15, 2013
124
2
18,695
Sound kinda simple when you just read marketing speak from the hardware vendors.

The major problem with almost all current wifi is you have way too much competition for wifi bandwidth. All these manufactures seem to think you do not have 20 neighbors trying to use the same radio bandwidth.

On the 5g radio band there are only 2 80mhz blocks. It you were to buy a tri-band router you would be using both of them. So all your neighbors would have to turn off their routers :)
There also is no magic with a tri-band router. It does a very poor job of balancing clients between the 2 radios. You pretty much have to use different SSID and configure the clients to use the one you want.

Wifi6 stuff has very similar issues. First to effectively use wifi6 you must have end device that fully support it. The router you list support 160mhz radio bands but the vast majority of end devices only support 80mhz.
You need to check the specs but in general most portable devices only support 80mhz. The reason for this is to get 160mhz there are all kinds of rules related to weather radar avoidance and they vendors did not want to put all that logic in their chips.

If you run wifi6 on 80mhz then you are not going to get much better speeds than wifi5 (802.11ac) which can also use 80mhz.

The only real solution for this appears to be wifi6e. There is a massive amount of new bandwidth on the 6gz channels which should reduce the overlapping of neighbors and allow use of 160mhz bands. It will likely be a year or so before we know if it actually performs up to all the hype.
Wifi6e devices are kinda hard to get and are quite expensive yet.

You might be better off looking at 2 lesser cost 802.11ac routers and place the second one in a remote area to get better coverage. This also gives you the extra 5g and a 2.4g radio without paying the large premium for a tri-band router.

I have no neighbors though closest guy is half a mile away but from what I did grasp from your writing is that the tri-band is too New too precisely dictate how it will perform but a dual band router has accurate data which we can measure so im gonna get the dual band 6E router then thanks for the help buddy.
 
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No tri-band routers have been around for a while. All they did was add a second 5g wifi chip. The messy part of having 2 5g chips is how your end device know which one to connect to.

In some ways wifi6e routers are tri-band. They have a 2.4, 5, and now 6g radios.

You can come back in a few months and tell us how good/bad wifi6e works. Not a lot of people have them so there is not a lot of information from real people running it in a real house. You now at least see it on all the major vendor sites, 6 months ago you had to already know wifi6e even existed and search for devices.
 
Solution