How much to spend on a router for a small home?

[Rayzioz]

I've just moved to a 2 bed home and will be on the fastest available NBN plan (australia) in my area at 250mbps download. only reason being i'm currently on the 100mbps plan and have the internet dramatically slow down when i'm watching youtube + playing game and partner wants to do anything online, but when i was on a 6 months trial of 250 mbps this issue didn't exist so it must not be enough bandwidth (?) to go around

 

It looks like the entry price for wifi 6 routers are $150AUD, like this model https://www.mwave.com.au/product/tplink-archer-ax20-ax1800-dualband-wifi-6-router-ac34683

and the next tier up is at aprox $250AUD with these sort of routers available https://www.mwave.com.au/product/tplink-archer-ax72-ax5400-dualband-gigabit-wifi-6-router-ac45505

 

my main question: is there any point in spending $100 more to get higher speed capable router when my max download is at 250mbps anyway? i could get an older wifi 5 router and still not reach the advertised wifi speeds?

i don't see much of a difference in the two models other than the more expensive router being able to go 4800mbps in 5ghz. again, not sure if that even matters if my speed going into the router is capped at 250.

 

my main computer that i play games and watch content is connected via ethernet cable, don't have space for a pcie wifi card so will likely stay this way for a while. if anyone can help me understand routers in general it's much appreciated, all i'm seeing are higher speeds and a router i bought 4 years ago (which i gave away) seems to not reach my available speed anyway so is there any point to spend more than the minimum.

[HanZie82]

Just fyi 100mbps is enough for:

6x 4K Netflix streams

20x 1080p Netflix streams

 

Bandwidth is how much data can be sent, latency is how long it takes to get there.

 

And i think you're on the right track of getting a new router. Sounds like its already needed for the 100mbit connection.

The main reason for getting a more expensive router, is not wifi speed. There is a limit.
But its the rest, a better CPU more RAM better software. All things HIGLY important for fast internet.

[SupaKomputa]

Xiaomi 4A gigabit AC router, only cost around $30 AUD.

You don't need wifi 6 for only 2 rooms apt. Especially if your download rate is only 250mbps.

[Rayzioz]

14 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Just fyi 100mbps is enough for:

6x 4K Netflix streams

20x 1080p Netflix streams

 

Bandwidth is how much data can be sent, latency is how long it takes to get there.

 

And i think you're on the right track of getting a new router. Sounds like its already needed for the 100mbit connection.

The main reason for getting a more expensive router, is not wifi speed. There is a limit.
But its the rest, a better CPU more RAM better software. All things HIGLY important for fast internet.

so am i having a bandwidth issue or latency issue if i can't simultaneously watch and play on multiple devices at once? on the smart tv the video just stops and buffers so it sounds like a bandwidth issue but is that caused by router not being able to provide enough bandwidth to multiple devices?

in that case, why did this problem not occur once when we were on the faster speed internet from the ISP?

 

will start reading about the cpu/ram/software in these routers and see if i can find the difference in them. cheers.

 

[SupaKomputa]

22 hours ago, Rayzioz said:

in that case, why did this problem not occur once when we were on the faster speed internet from the ISP?

 

250mbps is the bandwidth allocated from the ISP, it will be shared to all devices, so if 1 of your device using 150mbps, the rest should only use max 100mbps.

A 1080p netflix will cost 20-30mpbs while 4k should be around 80.

Distance and obstacles is also key for better signal.

[HanZie82]

On 4/15/2022 at 3:53 PM, Rayzioz said:

so am i having a bandwidth issue or latency issue if i can't simultaneously watch and play on multiple devices at once? on the smart tv the video just stops and buffers so it sounds like a bandwidth issue but is that caused by router not being able to provide enough bandwidth to multiple devices?

in that case, why did this problem not occur once when we were on the faster speed internet from the ISP?

 

will start reading about the cpu/ram/software in these routers and see if i can find the difference in them. cheers.

 

I'm more thinking towards CPU overload on a cheap (altho undisclosed) router. Maybe not having the wireless bandwidth.

As every device wirelessly connected will make the whole slower, as they all will have to wait on one another. Which can introduce latency.

But most likely its a combination of things.

However it is indeed weird that going from 250mbit to 100mbit gave so much troubles, it really shouldn't. (at least not like that).

I would first check Speedtest.net and see what the speeds are, and also the latency.
And just to be sure also test on Fast.com which is Netflix's bandwidth test site.

(I currently have a 100mbit connection and i can watch even 8K Youtube videos with no problem. so 4K or lower should surely work too.)

 

 

  

2 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

250mbps is the bandwidth allocated from the ISP, it will be shared to all devices, so if 1 of your device using 150mbps, the rest should only use max 100mbps.

A 1080p netflix will cost 20-30mpbs while 4k should be around 80.

Distance and obstacles is also key for better signal.

If i may correct you on the numbers. ^{(altho these are averages, they can be higher or lower).}
4K is around 15Mbps
1080p around 5mbps.

This is Netflix and thus has a relatively low bit-rate, and high codec compressions. (compared to things like Blu-ray)

Source: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

[Falcon1986]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:53 AM, Rayzioz said:

so am i having a bandwidth issue or latency issue if i can't simultaneously watch and play on multiple devices at once? on the smart tv the video just stops and buffers so it sounds like a bandwidth issue but is that caused by router not being able to provide enough bandwidth to multiple devices?

in that case, why did this problem not occur once when we were on the faster speed internet from the ISP?

Sounds like your existing router is choking when trying to manage bandwidth allocation to multiple connected devices. This might result in bufferbloat.

 

You won't notice this much on higher bandwidth connections since there is so much bandwidth to share, even a little bit of slowdown isn't enough to be noticeable.

 

Yes, getting a more expensive router with "better numbers" might solve the issue, but the real problem might be the protocol that the router uses to manage the traffic. Routers or firewall OSes that use some form of queue management (e.g. SQM) will be much more efficient at intelligently allocating the necessary bandwidth to the type of traffic coming into the LAN thereby preventing any one device from slowing down.

[Donut417]

On 4/15/2022 at 9:19 AM, Rayzioz said:

$100 more to get higher speed capable router when my max download is at 250mbps anyway?

I live in a 1300 Sq foot home. At the time we had 100/10 service. I spend $200 on my router. Its the Synology RT2600AC. I was happy with the purchase. Not only does it cover the whole house and part of the back yard, it also has some nice features. One of the features I use is the per device bandwidth monitoring. We have a 1.2 TB data cap with Comcast, so I can check to see what devices are hogging the data. This router has more features than Id ever use, but between 3 adults and lots of streaming between my Plex server and what ever streaming services we use at the time, plus my gaming it does well. 

 

Speed is not the only concern here. You need to figure out what features you want. Also cheaper routers tend to have weaker SOC's and can get bogged down if your pushing tons of data thru them. That all being said, I do know that at least before the inflation and all the shortages the minimum I would have suggested paying would have been $80 ish and that would have gotten you something from TP Link, while it wouldn't have been feature rich, it probably would have worked fine.