Question Upgrade Router - Make sense?

[gregq]

I was hoping someone with a better understanding of the specs than I do let me know if it would be worth the money to upgrade from Linksys AC1900 Dual Band MU-MIMO WiFi Router to a
TP-Link WiFi 6 AX3000 Smart WiFi Router (Archer AX50). Priority is improved security, speed and number of connections secondary. Thanks guys! Those links:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-WiFi...07YMFZ28Q/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Amazon.com: Linksys EA6900 AC1900 Wi-Fi Wireless Router Dual Band Router with Gigabit and USB 3.0 Ports (EA6900)- (Renewed) : Electronics

Amazon.com: Linksys EA6900 AC1900 Wi-Fi Wireless Router Dual Band Router with Gigabit and USB 3.0 Ports (EA6900)- (Renewed) : Electronics

www.amazon.com

 

[bill001g]

It is highly likely you will see no difference but it depends on your end device.

So if you do not have wifi6 devices it will run using the wifi5 (ie 802.11ac) just like your other router.

Next most end devices do not support 160mhz radio channels on wifi6. This means it drops back to 80mhz which is the same as wifi5. The other feature that makes wifi6 faster is the use of qam1024 but this only works well close to the router.

In general most people see almost no improvement over the older technology.

The solution to this is wifi6e, well we hope it is still very new. Since wifi6e runs on the 6ghz radio band and there is massive amounts of bandwidth it is easier to get 160mhz radio channels without interference from neighbors. There also is no weather radar rules etc which is why many end device only support 80mhz on the 5ghz radio. Problem with wifi6e is it is so new not many end devices support it. There are now lots of routers that support it but end device can take a long time before wifi6e is common. You do see motherboards and laptops that are just starting to come with it as standard.

 

[gregq]

Great, thanks for the clarification. And no improvement in security levels, right? That will be limited to the same software/WPA2 options?

 

[bill001g]

I forget where the WPA3 support comes in. I kinda ignore it since this is mostly a theoretical thing. Sure the government could drive up and park in front of your house with the quantum computer in their truck and crack wpa2. Not sure how long it takes if now they can do it in a year rather than 100 years. This is all based on the premise that the price will fall so low that the teen hacker can get a quantum computer and hack your wifi. There is very little benefit to hacking a home users wifi its not like they can steal anything of value from most people.

The biggest risk is the stupid WPS button they still put on routers. The WPS protocol requires it to also support a 8 digit numeric pin code that can not be changed. It takes a cell phone seconds to crack this, maybe a hour or so on routers that do stuff like only allow so many guesses per time.
Make sure you have this turned off. Unfortunately some device...say stupid/smart lights...only work with WPS. You then must turn the WPS feature on pair the device and then turn it off....until the device loses the code and you start all over.