Question Will a new router make a difference?

[axlrose]

So our local ISP is changing systems/hardware whatever. We just made the change this morning. Internet speeds are much higher now that we have fiber available. We used to be maxed at 50mbps before the fiber. I think we moved up to 250mbps after fiber was installed. I just moved us up to a half gig. We have on older router. Part of the upgrade with the ISP included a new router. I decided not to get it because it was an off brand I'd never heard of, and I have my own mesh system. I figured I wouldn't be able to get into a rented router and run the mesh system. ISP confirmed, a mesh system running off of their rented router probably wouldn't work.

So...I am getting around 370mbps with my current router. ISP said I wouldn't be able to get the full half gig on my current router, but a newer router would likely allow it.

Wondering if anyone has suggestions for new routers? Money is tight, so I'm not looking for anything cutting edge, but I currently have a tp-link AC 1200.

Would a newer router make any difference? I'm happy with speeds in the 300's, but if I'm paying for 500 and can get that much faster with a newer router that I can find a deal on, I at least want to look into it. (People seem unexcited about wifi 6)

 

[axlrose]

Something like this be any noticeable upgrade?

This looks almost the same.

 

[kanewolf]

So our local ISP is changing systems/hardware whatever. We just made the change this morning. Internet speeds are much higher now that we have fiber available. We used to be maxed at 50mbps before the fiber. I think we moved up to 250mbps after fiber was installed. I just moved us up to a half gig. We have on older router. Part of the upgrade with the ISP included a new router. I decided not to get it because it was an off brand I'd never heard of, and I have my own mesh system. I figured I wouldn't be able to get into a rented router and run the mesh system. ISP confirmed, a mesh system running off of their rented router probably wouldn't work.

So...I am getting around 370mbps with my current router. ISP said I wouldn't be able to get the full half gig on my current router, but a newer router would likely allow it.

Wondering if anyone has suggestions for new routers? Money is tight, so I'm not looking for anything cutting edge, but I currently have a tp-link AC 1200.

Would a newer router make any difference? I'm happy with speeds in the 300's, but if I'm paying for 500 and can get that much faster with a newer router that I can find a deal on, I at least want to look into it. (People seem unexcited about wifi 6)

Is that 370Mbit on a wired connection to the primary router? If so, I would start with a factory reset of the router. Sometimes, you set some option that causes the router to force all traffic through an inefficient internal path. Do the factory reset, then set just the admin password, SSID and WIFI password. Nothing else. Retest with a wired connection direct to the router.

 

[axlrose]

Sorry. I should have clarified that. That is a speed test on my pc. Ethernet into the house, through the router, to my pc.

 

[kanewolf]

Sorry. I should have clarified that. That is a speed test on my pc. Ethernet into the house, through the router, to my pc.

Then I would definitely do the factory reset with the minimal configuration. Then retest.

 

[axlrose]

Hold my hand a bit. That doesn't sound hard. Should be a button to depress to make a factory reset. Power it back up and it will prompt me to set an admin password? I haven't been in the router for a while. I will need to google the address to access the router correct? And then there will be somewhere in the settings to change the password from the factor default? Wifi password should be easy to reset in the settings. What is the action about SSID?

Thanks.

 

[axlrose]

Either way, would there be any befit to moving up to a wifi 6 or wifi 6e router?

 

[kanewolf]

Either way, would there be any befit to moving up to a wifi 6 or wifi 6e router?

Not for a wired connection. You could get faster WIFI for newer handheld devices.

 

[bill001g]

You have to remember the router is only 1/2 the connection on wifi. Do you have true wifi6 devices or wifi6e.
Wifi6 has been pretty much a disappointing technology. Because of all the limitations on using 160mhz radio bands many end devices only supported 80mhz. This is the key feature that lets wifi6 be faster than wifi5 (802.11ac) but if you run it at only 80mhz then wifi6 and wifi5 are pretty much the same other than the ability to use a more dense data encoding that only works well in the same room.....where you can use a ethernet cable.

Wifi6e is a lot better because there is a massive amount of radio bandwidth in the 6ghz radio band with none of the weather radar avoidance rules you see on the 5ghz band. Problem is 6ghz has more issue going through walls.

So IF your have end devices that can do wifi6e then buying a wifi6e router might be beneficial.


The next question why do you actually need more speed. More bandwidth really only helps with large file downloads. Other stuff like say 4k netflix or web browsing need well under 100mbps and will not use more even if you have it. In addition most wifi devices are portable...ie phones....the do not have anyplace to store large amounts of data so its not like you are going to download a 20gbyte game to your phone.

You really want any gaming machine on ethernet. Except for downloading the game they use very little bandwidth, under 1mbps. What they want is very consistent latency which wifi can not provide.

 

[axlrose]

Sounds like I'm probably good with my current setup then. The 370mbps that I'm getting is certainly better then and 50mbps I was getting just a few years ago.

Are wifi 6e compatible devices still somewhat new/rare? We have a gaming pc, four cell phones, four laptops, two tv's now running on the ethernet instead of coax, a bunch of alexas, a few doorbells... Is there any sort of quantity at which point going to 6 or 6e makes any sense?

 

[bill001g]

Wifi6 does not add additional radio channels, it just attempts to use more of the existing channels on the 5g radio band. In many ways it make things worse for the number of devices that can be supported.

Wifi6e has been out I think for around 2 years it has just started to become more available in the last year or so. But wifi7 just got finalized last month but it will likely make things worse even if it is faster for some people. It attempt to hog large amounts of the new bandwidth in the 6ghz band. This is the whole problem to begin with. If people didn't chase big speed number more people could get a chunk of the radio bandwidth without overlapping all their neighbors.

You want to plug anything into ethernet that you can to leave more radio bandwidth for other devices. The largest problem with wifi is that it is half duplex and the end devices themselves must avoid transmitting at the same time as other devices. The problem is many times the end devices can hear the router but can not hear each other. So 2 devices transmit at the same time and when the signal gets to the router they have damaged each other and the router wifi chip tells them to resend the data.....this is what causes the lag spikes.

In general for common usages...even watching netflix...wifi devices use very little bandwidth and use tricks like using buffers to hide data retransmission. It would be unlikely most people get 100mbps of total simultaneous usage.

2 exceptions both related to online game. If you were to download a larger game on wifi, the download itself will work fine but it will impact the other users. The second is when you try to play a game. This uses almost no bandwidth, under 1mbps in most cases, but it can not use the buffer trick to hide packet retransmission so you see lag spikes in games.

Key is to try to put online gaming machine on ethernet, or use MoCA or powerline instead of wifi.

In your case since you would have to buy new end devices to get wifi6e if you actually have a problem with your devices using too much bandwidth it would be better to add a second radio. There are expensive so called "tri band" routers that have a 2.4g and 2 5g radios. It is cheaper to buy a second small router and run it as a AP. This would give you a addition 5g radio channel to use and to a point a extra 2.4g. This of course ignores the fact that this just makes you overlap even more channels with your neighbors.

I would not mess with any of this unless it is actually causing you a problem. Ignore the speed test numbers can you actually use your end devices for what you want to use them for is all that is important.