Question WiFi 6 at slower internet speed

[feca1020]

Hey!

Im looking into getting a new router because it has been acting up lately and I was wandering, is it worth to get a WiFi 6 router if my internet speeds are on the lower side (around 50Mbps right now and up to a 100Mbps plan)?

There is no provider around here that provides higher speeds and I dont see it happening for a while still.

 

[piechockidocent9]

Even though you migh not need full transfer speed 6 offers I'd still go with it. Wifi 5 was for instance created in 5ghz in mind, it supported 2,4ghz still but as a form of backwards compatibility. 6 is more of a multifunctional, upgraded version of 5.

 

[feca1020]

Even though you migh not need full transfer speed 6 offers I'd still go with it. Wifi 5 was for instance created in 5ghz in mind, it supported 2,4ghz still but as a form of backwards compatibility. 6 is more of a multifunctional, upgraded version of 5.

Alright.

Thanks for the help

 

[bill001g]

Wifi6 never lived up to the hype. The largest issue is many end devices do not support the use of 160mhz radio channels. So even if you purchased a router that does if you do not have end devices that support they will only use 80mhz which is the same as wifi5. The 160mhz radio channel width is the main thing that makes wifi6 faster.

There are major issues conforming to rules related to interference when using 160mhz. They have for example detect weather radar and stop using the radio channels if they detect it. Lots of end devices did not want to support that so they just limited it so 80mhz.

If you want something better buy wifi6e. It uses 6ghz radios and there is lots of bandwidth. BUT you must also have end devices that support wifi6e. The cost of wifi6e has dropped a lot since wifi7 was announced it might be worth buying even if you do not currently have wifi6e devices. The extra cost over a wifi5 router is not a real lot.

Do not buy wifi7. It is very expensive and not a lot of end devices support it and the ones that do not not support all the features yet.

 

[dwd999]

It depends on how congested your neighborhood is. In my neighborhood there are over 40 neighbors who use the 5Ghz band and some of them have strong signals because the cable company provides them with routers from that French company. So I switched to wifi 6E and I'm the only one on the 6.135Ghz band so I can get better response.

 

[BFG-9000]

It can be worth it if you use local devices on your network that can be accessed with higher bandwidth than your ISP, such as a NAS--and your clients also support the higher speed. Also keep in mind that the less time it takes to send data, the more battery life your portable devices will have. Congestion also results in reduced battery life as your devices must wake up to see if any traffic is actually intended for them. If your clients can use 6GHz then very few detectable neighbors should be seen.

If you are staying on 5GHz, then you might choose to limit things to 80MHz wide or even 40MHz anyway since those can work well with 3dBm and 6dBm less signal, respectively than 160MHz--meaning actual performance improvement may be nil.

It also depends on the age of your present Wifi5 router--many of the ARM ones from 11 years ago just went EOL this summer, so drivers and firmware should still be relatively current. However most of the MIPS ones went EOL 5 years ago (MIPS Technologies themselves went bankrupt and discontinued MIPS architecture licensing) so the last drivers are around that old and may have increasing numbers of security vulnerabilities that will never be fixed. Even though third-party firmware continues patching kernel vulnerabilities and updating software packages, they can't do anything about old proprietary drivers.

 

[Ralston18]

@feca1020

Regarding "Im looking into getting a new router because it has been acting up lately".

It is quite natural to think about getting a new router: however, I am wondering about any troubleshooting etc. that was done towards narrowing down and identifying some device or network problem.

Fully agree that the router could be the culprit.

Consider that there are other potential suspects as well - hardware, software, cables, network adapter and network configuration settings, and so forth.

I am wondering about the current network topology: modem, router, switches, Access Points, etc..

Your home network having a connection path similar to the following line diagram where ----> represents an Ethernet cable:

ISP === (coax, DSL, fiber) ===> Modem ---->[WAN Port] Router [LAN Port] ----> [LAN Port] Office Wifi Access Point ~~~~> Wireless network devices

With other Router LAN ports -----> Wired network devices.

Make and model information? Modem, router, etc.. How connected?

Feel free to edit and correct my line diagram as necessary to show your network devices and connectivity.

Run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt. Copy and paste the full results - good starting point.

Will not take much effort and may uncover some problem(s) that can be easily resolved and save you the cost of a new router.

Perhaps just moving the wireless router a bit could make a difference. Or using USB extension cables if using a USB wireless network adapter.

A new router may be moot if there are other network issues.

 

[feca1020]

@feca1020

Regarding "Im looking into getting a new router because it has been acting up lately".

It is quite natural to think about getting a new router: however, I am wondering about any troubleshooting etc. that was done towards narrowing down and identifying some device or network problem.

Fully agree that the router could be the culprit.

Consider that there are other potential suspects as well - hardware, software, cables, network adapter and network configuration settings, and so forth.


Perhaps just moving the wireless router a

Firstly it is a very old and quite budget

TP-LINK TL-WR841N​

Ita been used for like 10 years or more, not even sure exactly. Also the main problem is the range and speed. Speed should be arouns 60Mbps and its usualy around 20 or less. Alao I cant recall any firmware update being done like ever.

 

[Ralston18]

Indeed: the TP-Link router may be at or nearing some designed in EOL (End of LIfe).

Especially if the range and speed have been degrading. Contingent upon ever being 60 Mbps at some time in the past.

Overall point being that there should still be some baseline comparisons and measurements with respect to "before" and "after".

Yes: a new router could immediately improve network performance.

However there are no guaranties; suppose that the new router does not perform better or just marginally so.

If that happens then you will be able to look at the bigger picture with some quantifiable measurements, etc. for comparison purposes and do some additional troubleshooting.

Keep your options open.

Simply as a matter of practice and methodology.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[BFG-9000]

That's a Wifi4 2.4GHz-only N300 router from as long ago as 2008. It's so old that the oldest hardware version with downloadable firmware still available is v7 and that's from 2012. They are up to v14.8 now, from 2022.

TP-Link usually only supports a device with firmware for a couple years, even if like that model they continued to make it for 14 years, alternating between MediaTek and Atheros chipsets so only the model number is the same--the hardware inside between revisions is completely different, and they have no incentive to continue to update the firmware for older revisions. Because their customers want the cheapest, so they can go buy the cheapest from them more frequently.

While a few revisions had 8MB of flash memory, enough to even run a current OpenWRT release, most had only 4MB and some even only came with 1MB of flash. Something's got to give to be the cheapest.

While you could make the argument that it might be safe enough to use such an old device as an AP behind a gateway router, it's probably a really bad idea to use such a known unsafe device as a gateway itself.

 

[lantis3]

You have to feel lucky to run a wifi router for 10 years.

It's time to replace it.

You can consider flash it with 3rd party firmware but I really doubt it helps.

Check hardware version make sure it's correct if you really want to flash it. Wifi vendors will use different versions on the same model.

Installing DD-WRT on the TP-LINK TL-WR841N

My experience installing DD-WRT open source router firmware on the TP-LINK TL-WR841N wireless router and using it to extend my home's wireless network.

greggborodaty.com