Question TP-Link Archer C1200 (v1.0) - What's a good upgrade for home networking?

[BrainY]

I'm currently running the TP-Link Archer C1200 (V1.0) and I've never had any issues, but I do notice that my wireless connection speeds are possibly affected by the budget router. Currently I have 500Mbps/50Mbps internet and looking for an upgrade but I want to stick with TP-Link and looking at something below $80-100. My family works from home, we have 4 laptops/desktops connected at all times. We also have 3 TVs, 2 tablets, and 2 phones connected. What is something you recommend?

I've only really seen these two pop-up for that price range: TP Link AC1750 and the TP Link AX1800

 

[Lutfij]

With all due respect to the router that you currently have, you shouldn't be having an issue with your existing setup. Perhaps run a speedtest and see if you get the same across all devices tethered to the router. You should also see if your router is pending any firmware updates.

 

[bill001g]

It is all going to depends on your wifi end devices if this really makes any difference.

You want to use ethernet for every possible device to reduce the competition for wifi bandwidth. Your current router can actually support 1gbit ethernet wan to lan so getting a "better?" one will not change that.

What is different is the wifi BUT the router is only 1/2 the connection. If your end devices do not also support the new kinds of wifi it can not use the new features. So if you were to buy the ax1800 you might get slightly higher speeds on devices that support wifi6. The problem is device that only support wifi5 (802.11ac) will drop back and the router will run exactly like your current 1200 router when it runs 802.11ac.

In general unless you have some device that can only run wifi and it must do large data transfers you are not going to see much difference even if you buy high end router and new devices. Most portable devices are not downloading lots of data and extra bandwidth provides little benefit.

The newer routers do not really send the signal any father. In some ways the signal can be considered to go less distance but that gets into the messy concept of combing speed and distance. Using a more complex data encoding in the wifi increases the amount of data but the same complexity also makes it more susceptible to interference.

I guess it depends on what your actual problem is. You are best off spending any money to move devices to ethernet rather than trying to get faster wifi if that is your problem.

 

[BrainY]

Maybe I should consider a MESH instead? I think it's distance between devices and router.

 

[bill001g]

Mesh is mostly marketing to get you spend money for magic boxes that mostly just empty your wallet.

Unless you buy the really expensive ones that have extra radio chips they are just the same boxes they used to sell as repeaters or extenders with different names on them. They still suffer from all the problem repeaters do. Even the expensive ones have major issues with performance just bit less than the cheap ones.

These are not magic they must be placed in a location that they can get strong signal from the router and still send a repeated signals to the remote location. If it was a big open field you would place it half way. The problem in most houses is there really is no location that is optimal. Things like walls and ceilings are absorbing the signals.

You can look at solutions like MoCA if you have coax cables in your rooms or maybe consider powerline networks.