[SOLVED] Wifi 6 router help

[semper731]

Hello everyone,

I'm new the forum, but a long time follower of Tom's Hardware which I always praise as the best advice one can get as a source. Since I'm new I'll throw a bit of information about myself. I live in CT using Xfinity 600mbps blast plan, and work from home office for Apple Inc. Use to be really into only gaming MMO's especially Age of Conan. Really havent found anything that pulls my interest game wise since then, but still dabble with some old friends on some co-op games. I consider myself somewhat Tech savvy, and have built my own rigs with some advice on components usually to guide me.

Now I do have a issue i'm wanting to scratch as its itching me. It has to do with my home network.

As I already mentioned I have Xfinity aka Comcast 600mbps blast plan. Originally my modem was a Arris Moto SB6121, coupled with a TP link AC1750 C7 router. Well I've been having wifi issues emerge with frequent disconnects especially on my two Smart TV's. My condo is about 1200 square feet and mainly 2 floors. 3rd if you include the garage underneath, but no tech down there. I knew my modem was bottlenecking my data plan so I upgraded to a CM500. That gets me around 450-500ish mbps through Lan on the same router. I still keep getting disconnects on wifi especially on the 2nd floor Smart TV. Matter of fact it usually disconnects every 15 minutes, and then i need to reset the tv network settings to get it to connect again. Other days its fine but its rare. I have a feeling my router has some issues and have talked with TP link many times to try and resolve with no prevail. At this point I'm just fed up and looking to upgrade the router to a wifi 6 router.

So this is where I'm stuck. I only upgraded my modem to a CM500 so do I spend extra money on the router and get something like the ASUS AX86U or maybe a AX82U? or should i try to just find something less expensive but will still get the speeds I pay for on my plan. I am loving the idea about ASUS routers having lifetime internet protection even though I hear things about Russian hackers getting into them lately. Think that was addressed with some Firmware updates?

So thats where I'm at. Looking for thoughts and suggestions on what would best the best wifi 6 router to couple with a 600mbps data plan on a CM500 router. Best to go big, or save some bucks and find something cheaper, but may still get me close to the speeds I would expect to get.

Thanks for any help

-Garrett

 

[kanewolf]

Hello everyone,

I'm new the forum, but a long time follower of Tom's Hardware which I always praise as the best advice one can get as a source. Since I'm new I'll throw a bit of information about myself. I live in CT using Xfinity 600mbps blast plan, and work from home office for Apple Inc. Use to be really into only gaming MMO's especially Age of Conan. Really havent found anything that pulls my interest game wise since then, but still dabble with some old friends on some co-op games. I consider myself somewhat Tech savvy, and have built my own rigs with some advice on components usually to guide me.

Now I do have a issue i'm wanting to scratch as its itching me. It has to do with my home network.

As I already mentioned I have Xfinity aka Comcast 600mbps blast plan. Originally my modem was a Arris Moto SB6121, coupled with a TP link AC1750 C7 router. Well I've been having wifi issues emerge with frequent disconnects especially on my two Smart TV's. My condo is about 1200 square feet and mainly 2 floors. 3rd if you include the garage underneath, but no tech down there. I knew my modem was bottlenecking my data plan so I upgraded to a CM500. That gets me around 450-500ish mbps through Lan on the same router. I still keep getting disconnects on wifi especially on the 2nd floor Smart TV. Matter of fact it usually disconnects every 15 minutes, and then i need to reset the tv network settings to get it to connect again. Other days its fine but its rare. I have a feeling my router has some issues and have talked with TP link many times to try and resolve with no prevail. At this point I'm just fed up and looking to upgrade the router to a wifi 6 router.

So this is where I'm stuck. I only upgraded my modem to a CM500 so do I spend extra money on the router and get something like the ASUS AX86U or maybe a AX82U? or should i try to just find something less expensive but will still get the speeds I pay for on my plan. I am loving the idea about ASUS routers having lifetime internet protection even though I hear things about Russian hackers getting into them lately. Think that was addressed with some Firmware updates?

So thats where I'm at. Looking for thoughts and suggestions on what would best the best wifi 6 router to couple with a 600mbps data plan on a CM500 router. Best to go big, or save some bucks and find something cheaper, but may still get me close to the speeds I would expect to get.

Thanks for any help

-Garrett

The problem is probably competing WIFI signals from all your neighbors. A new router won't change that. You pay to get ethernet cabling installed in your condo.

 

[gggplaya]

You can't go by the "up to 680mbps" advertisement on the modem. That assumes all 16x4 channels are being used. Also your internet service provider will upload their own profiles to the modem, so with their profile and firmware on that particular modem you might not get the full plan speed of 600mbps. I would get a Docsis 3.1 modem if you can.

You live in a CONDO which I assume means you have several neighbors within the same building. That's alot of wifi interference. I would get WIFI 6E if I were you, that way you can reside on the 6GHZ band, which will probably buy you at least 5 years before your neighbors upgrade to the 6ghz band. Normally you can upgrade most windows laptop wifi adapters fairly easily, you can also update your desktop easily as well with a simple internet wifi 6E board. But on a MAC, you'll need to use an adapter. My recommendation is to buy a wifi 6E access point or router which can be configured for bridge mode. Then you can plug that into ethernet on your docking station or desktop.

The other option is MOCA, is your condo wired for TV outlets on both floors? You can buy moca adapters for those outlets to create a home network using the coax in your house. Just make sure you use a POE(point of entry) filter where the cable enters your condo, so the network doesn't bleed into your neighbors cable as well. Cable TV and internet usually reside on 5-900mhz on Comcast. Moca uses frequencies 1100-1600mhz on the same cable, so they can co-exist in harmony. However, some devices like satelite tv boxes, and DVR systems that can work remotely from other tv's will use MOCA and interfere with the network.

 

[semper731]

Thanks for the feedback. Just to clarify our condos are more of a townhouse which has 4 units only per building. Also I’m on a end unit. So although not ideal for being near neighbors it’s not as bad as part of a apt complex or something. I totally agree that switching channels may help with stability, but you don’t think that with a new router to wifi 6 I won’t see a boost on speed?
Also do you know if any good wifi channel scanner apps for iOS? I only see ones for android

 

[bill001g]

Pretty much all channel scanner apps are worthless for a very similar reason wifi6 saw very little if any speed increase for most people.

So first scanner apps only see the routers they have no idea which are being used and which are not. You could have 100 routers on a channel doing nothing and it would still be a better choice than a different channel with one router but it running large file transfers constantly.
These scanner apps also do not actually tell you how much channel width the end device are using. The channel numbers mean very little when you consider the end devices are actually using groups of them rather than just 1.

So to get most the speed on wifi6 it attempt to use 160mhz radio band. This is a block of 8 of the so called channels you see on scanner apps. There actually is not even 1 block in the 5g range that is that big. They need to run special stuff that overlaps weather radar. This also means you pretty much overlap every neighbor using any of the 5g channels.

In addition many end devices do not support 160mhz radio bands because of the messy rules about weather radar and to use the same radio chip in multiple countries. Many only support 80mhz which is exactly the same as your current router.

So in the end wifi6 tends to not do much for most people.

If you have too much money in your pocket you could look at wifi6e equipment and replace all your end devices so they could also run wifi6e. We will see as more people get wifi6e if it really is the solution to all the problems like the marketing guys say, but they marketing guys like to tell massive lies about wifi.
Wifi6e runs on the the 6g radio which has a massive amount of bandwidth. This should allow mulitple people to run 160mhz radio bands and not overlap each other.....at least for a few years.

 

[gggplaya]

If you have too many neighbors, running 160mhz might not work well. You might be better off setting it to 40mhz channel width at 5ghz for better stability but less bandwidth.

Apple's Gps and wifi telemetry chips are treated as black boxes to developers. Apple doesn't allow them to look at what's inside. App developers only have access to certain information, which is why you can't find any wifi scanner apps. The same goes for GPS satellite apps, which give very limited information as well.