Question Questions regarding 2.5gbe and if should switch to pfsense/opnsense

[Logick]

I currently have a RT-AC3200 and its starting to show its age. I'm currently eyeing the GT-AX11000, since I need tri-band and would like wifi 6. In addition I was told if I plug in my modem to the 2.5gbe port(my modem has one) it could eliminate bottlenecks, even though I only have a gigabit internet connection(I'm more likely to move to a place with fiber internet before getting fiber internet here).

I'm also weighing in if I should go build a pfsense/opnsense setup. That seems more appealing but the price is turning me off a bit. I'm assuming I'd need to find a wifi 6 tri-band WAP, a 2.5gbe switch(to eliminate bottlenecks), and box powerful enough to run the software. I calculated all that and it seems like it would be almost double the cost of GT-AX11000. In addition I have a work provided Untangle which is required to be plug into the router, I'm told it can cause the setup to not operate properly, could that be a thing?

As for what I use my network for, family uses it for streaming video, and I use it for work(engineer WFH full time), which at time can involve gigs of data being downloaded daily.

 

[bill001g]

Don't waste your money on wifi6 go wifi6e. Wifi6 because of all the issues with the 80mhz vs 160mhz radio bands and the massive overcrowding on the 5g radio band tends to not be any faster than 802.11ac (wifi5) for many people.

I am not sure what bottlenecks you mean. To actually use a 2.5 internet connection your are going to need a router that has at least 2 2.5 or faster ports. You need 1 for WAN and a second for LAN to hook your PC to. Asus has some model that does that but I forget which.

Using a PC instead of a consumer router depends on what you are doing. If you do simple internet/NAT most consumer routers have no issues keeping up. They have moved the NAT off the cpu chip into a hardware solution. Stuff like VPN will burden even a fairly large PC trying to run 2.5g. Still even very simple stuff like parental controls will disable the hardware assist and all the traffic will have to run via the CPU. Pretty much when you have a fast internet connection...say over 500mbps....you pretty much have to not use fancy features and let the router just do the NAT.

You don't need a tri-band AP. You will be better served by a couple dual band routers.....although almost all wifi6e routers have 3 radios 2.4,5 & 6.

You have to be careful about chasing the big number just to have the big number. Pretty much very fast internet connection only help with large file downloads. Things like netflix or games or web surfing use much much less and having more does not make them run faster or better. For most people even 100mbps is more than enough. I have the same issue a discount contract on 1gbit expires soon and I have to decide is how much per minute am I paying to get faster downloads. Is it really worth say saving 5 minutes on a download that I do a couple time a month worth the extra money.

I am not sure what sites you can actually use at 2.5g. I have issues getting a lot of sites like say steam to use my full 1gbit even though speedtest says my connection runs that fast. Steam depends on the game and the time of day you do downloads it seems, I don't think I have ever gotten much over 750mbps.

 

[Logick]

Wifi 6e routers are $400+. I don't have that kind of money ATM.

 

[kanewolf]

Wifi 6e routers are $400+. I don't have that kind of money ATM.

Then wait until you do or until the price of 6e comes down. WIFI6 will not provide any significant benefit since it used the same 5Ghz frequency as WIFI5.

 

[bill001g]

I thought the ax11000 was in the $500 range. Routers that have multiple 2.5g ports are extremely expensive also.

I would stay with what you have. It is already overkill compared to what most end devices support. Wifi6 is not going to be any faster with the limited bandwidth on the 5g radios.

 

[Logick]

Then wait until you do or until the price of 6e comes down. WIFI6 will not provide any significant benefit since it used the same 5Ghz frequency as WIFI5.

Also I get the vibe most manufacterers are going to skip making 6e products and go straight to 7. Is this assumption wrong?

 

[bill001g]

I have no idea I am not even sure they have finalized the standards. A couple of the things are almost stupid. They already have massive issues getting QAM1024 to work unless you are in the same room and now they think they can go 4 times that. From what I have seen they also intend to use even wider bands on the 6g. We will quickly be back to the same problem we have on the 5g bands with everyone stomping on each other.

You can wait but I suspect it will be at least 3 or 4 years before end device will have wifi7 commonly. Even right now it is hard to get wifi6e portable devices and wifi6e has been out around 2 years.

I can't see wifi7 doing much. The key thing that makes wifi6e better than wifi6 is all the new bandwidth the government allowed on the 6g radio. Regular wifi6 jumped up and down about how great it was going to be but it many cases it wasn't better than wifi5 because of the limitation of the 5g radio band. Wifi7 from the little I have seen just is trying to use more radio bandwidth and more dense data encoding. I mean if you live in a some area with no other neighbors using wifi and can sit 5 inches from the router it likely will be faster.

I wifi manufactures are some of the most deceptive of any business with the way the get the numbers they put on the boxes to scam the customers who think bigger number is always better.