Is my router too old... time to replace ?

[MonkeyyWrench]

I have 100Mbps plan (ik too slow but all I can afford rn)

I get 90-100Mbps on ethernet but on my phone or my laptop I get max 20Mbps 

 

 

This is my current router https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B001FWYGJS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Also if it is outdated please suggest some good ones at a cheaper rate

Budget between 50-70$

Thank you !

[Jumballi]

You definitely could use an upgrade, nearly all devices released today are wifi6 and the router you have is wifi3.
That said, I do not know your budget and as a result can't make a recommendation for routers other than consider getting one that is at least wifi5, 1 generation old but still recent and cheap compared to newer wifi6e routers releasing today.

[MonkeyyWrench]

6 minutes ago, Jumballi said:

You definitely could use an upgrade, nearly all devices released today are wifi6 and the router you have is wifi3.
That said, I do not know your budget and as a result can't make a recommendation for routers other than consider getting one that is at least wifi5, 1 generation old but still recent and cheap compared to newer wifi6e routers releasing today.

Budget between 50-70$ if I can get good one in cheaper then also great

[Jumballi]

https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-Archer-C6-Wireless-MU-MIMO/dp/B07GVR9TG7/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=wifi+router&qid=1673249024&s=computers&sr=1-6
great discount
last gen
fast

https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-Supported-HomeShield-Archer-AX53/dp/B09NC4SSSQ/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=wifi+router&qid=1673249024&s=computers&sr=1-10
right in your budget
many devices in your home won't support the newest and fastest standard

both of these options are good
you'll notice they say ac and ax in the name, that's to show off the generation of the wireless signal
understand that wifi isn't as fast as wired, and that some devices have speed limiters built in
most routers are forwards and backwards compatible

[MonkeyyWrench]

Just now, Jumballi said:

https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-Archer-C6-Wireless-MU-MIMO/dp/B07GVR9TG7/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=wifi+router&qid=1673249024&s=computers&sr=1-6
great discount
last gen
fast

https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-Supported-HomeShield-Archer-AX53/dp/B09NC4SSSQ/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=wifi+router&qid=1673249024&s=computers&sr=1-10
right in your budget
many devices in your home won't support the newest and fastest standard

both of these options are good
you'll notice they say ac and ax in the name, that's to show off the generation of the wireless signal
understand that wifi isn't as fast as wired, and that some devices have speed limiters built in

The last gen fast one you mentioned is good enough right ? no issues in performance of speed with the the other one you sent

 

And yes I get there is difference in wired and wifi but getting only 20% at max sitting below wifi was kinda annoying 

[Jumballi]

Just now, MonkeyyWrench said:

The last gen fast one you mentioned is good enough right ? no issues in performance of speed with the the other one you sent

 

And yes I get there is difference in wired and wifi but getting only 20% at max sitting below wifi was kinda annoying 

From my personal experience, wifi routers should be replaced every 2-4 years, so save the money
By the time you need the features of the newer wifi standard, you'll be needing to replace the router anyway.

[MonkeyyWrench]

So I can go with the previous gen one right? since my plan is of 100Mbps don't need the 3000Mbps one either

[Bdavis]

1 hour ago, MonkeyyWrench said:

So I can go with the previous gen one right? since my plan is of 100Mbps don't need the 3000Mbps one either

Either one should handle 100mb just fine.

[Falcon1986]

4 hours ago, Jumballi said:

most routers are forwards and backwards compatible

While I agree with your budget recommendations and them being "backward compatible", no off-the-shelf consumer wireless router is forward compatible. Or else, why would you need to upgrade your router anyway?

 

4 hours ago, Jumballi said:

and that some devices have speed limiters built in

Not sure what you mean here, but the antennae/chipset will perform to a maximum for which they were designed. Usually, many people misinterpret the speed label on the box, but in reality that is a theoretical speed in the perfect testing environment with the perfect wireless client and, also, an aggregate speed (i.e. total throughput from all wired and wireless devices through the router, sometimes in both directions).

 

4 hours ago, MonkeyyWrench said:

So I can go with the previous gen one right? since my plan is of 100Mbps don't need the 3000Mbps one either

Don't believe the advertising. It's misleading and gives you false expectations. Read #6 from this article and my previous comment above.

 

4 hours ago, Jumballi said:

From my personal experience, wifi routers should be replaced every 2-4 years, so save the money
By the time you need the features of the newer wifi standard, you'll be needing to replace the router anyway.

Agree with your second statement here. Personally, I would recommend upgrading when you need the features, and that will usually be dictated by the client devices you have.

 

For example, most people don't realize that even though it's nice to have the latest WiFi 6e router, not many of their gadgets have antennae for 6GHz! WiFi 6e support has still not penetrated many devices we use today, save maybe for a few smartphones and high-end motherboards/laptops. So the extra features of WiFi 6e are wasted now until your new devices catch up in the future, when a new standard will be released anyway.

 

Improvements to WiFi technology also take a long time to reach completion. These improvements are not as significant in real-world application as you might think. If you already had a solid WiFi 5 (wave 1, or better: wave 2) router at home, I wouldn't jump to WiFi 6/6e. But moving from the WiFi 3 or 4 generation, that's a bigger jump in improvement because now your clients can take advantage of the features.

 

5 hours ago, MonkeyyWrench said:

So I can go with the previous gen one right? since my plan is of 100Mbps don't need the 3000Mbps one either

Which brings me to my last point...

 

If, after installing the Archer C6, you realize that you're still not getting the speeds you wanted, that's not to say you should ditch it for the Archer AX53 in hopes that the more modern one will fix the problem. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Realize that poor WiFi performance is due to wireless interference or obstruction in the majority of scenarios, something that all wireless routers have trouble with. The solution is to look for the sources of interference, remove the obstruction, and tune your WiFi settings to best suit the environment you were dealt. Unfortunately, some scenarios (e.g. apartment buildings with dense WiFi broadcasts) are the worse of them, and you'll just have to lower your expectations or move to a predominantly wired setup if that is conducive.

[MonkeyyWrench]

54 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

While I agree with your budget recommendations and them being "backward compatible", no off-the-shelf consumer wireless router is forward compatible. Or else, why would you need to upgrade your router anyway?

 

Not sure what you mean here, but the antennae/chipset will perform to a maximum for which they were designed. Usually, many people misinterpret the speed label on the box, but in reality that is a theoretical speed in the perfect testing environment with the perfect wireless client and, also, an aggregate speed (i.e. total throughput from all wired and wireless devices through the router, sometimes in both directions).

 

Don't believe the advertising. It's misleading and gives you false expectations. Read #6 from this article and my previous comment above.

 

Agree with your second statement here. Personally, I would recommend upgrading when you need the features, and that will usually be dictated by the client devices you have.

 

For example, most people don't realize that even though it's nice to have the latest WiFi 6e router, not many of their gadgets have antennae for 6GHz! WiFi 6e support has still not penetrated many devices we use today, save maybe for a few smartphones and high-end motherboards/laptops. So the extra features of WiFi 6e are wasted now until your new devices catch up in the future, when a new standard will be released anyway.

 

Improvements to WiFi technology also take a long time to reach completion. These improvements are not as significant in real-world application as you might think. If you already had a solid WiFi 5 (wave 1, or better: wave 2) router at home, I wouldn't jump to WiFi 6/6e. But moving from the WiFi 3 or 4 generation, that's a bigger jump in improvement because now your clients can take advantage of the features.

 

Which brings me to my last point...

 

If, after installing the Archer C6, you realize that you're still not getting the speeds you wanted, that's not to say you should ditch it for the Archer AX53 in hopes that the more modern one will fix the problem. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Realize that poor WiFi performance is due to wireless interference or obstruction in the majority of scenarios, something that all wireless routers have trouble with. The solution is to look for the sources of interference, remove the obstruction, and tune your WiFi settings to best suit the environment you were dealt. Unfortunately, some scenarios (e.g. apartment buildings with dense WiFi broadcasts) are the worse of them, and you'll just have to lower your expectations or move to a predominantly wired setup if that is conducive.

My laptop and my phone are wifi 6 compatible and I use ethernet on my pc and I would move to wifi 5 cause I understand most gadgets won't utlize wifi 6e 
Although I have a 2016 sony bravia android tv which I doubt would have wifi 5 so is there any solution to that? Does a wifi dongle work on android tvs?

[Falcon1986]

7 minutes ago, MonkeyyWrench said:

Although I have a 2016 sony bravia android tv which I doubt would have wifi 5 so is there any solution to that? Does a wifi dongle work on android tvs?

I have never tried any. I tend to wire in my TVs via ethernet and disable the WiFi.

 

What exact problem are you having with your Sony TV?

 

Wireless adapters on smart TVs are several generations behind because, even at 4K UHD, they rarely need to exceed 20Mbps. Also their ethernet ports can't achieve gigabit, but they don't need to.

[MonkeyyWrench]

5 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

I have never tried any. I tend to wire in my TVs via ethernet and disable the WiFi.

 

What exact problem are you having with your Sony TV?

 

Wireless adapters on smart TVs are several generations behind because, even at 4K UHD, they rarely need to exceed 20Mbps. Also their ethernet ports can't achieve gigabit, but they don't need to.

The problem with the sony tv is that it buffers sometimes at 4k it works fine at 1080p but prime video goes to 4k on tv without option to reduce quality 
But then I get the same speed on phone and laptop same as the tv so I guess the problem is my router cause it is wifi 3

[Falcon1986]

42 minutes ago, MonkeyyWrench said:

The problem with the sony tv is that it buffers sometimes at 4k it works fine at 1080p but prime video goes to 4k on tv without option to reduce quality 
But then I get the same speed on phone and laptop same as the tv so I guess the problem is my router cause it is wifi 3

Your current router only has support for WiFi broadcasts on 2.4GHz, which is an already-busy band.

 

Does your TV have support for the 5GHz band?

[MonkeyyWrench]

4 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

Your current router only has support for WiFi broadcasts on 2.4GHz, which is an already-busy band.

 

Does your TV have support for the 5GHz band?

Wi-Fi Certified 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Certified 802.11a/b/g/n 

This is the specs of my tv wifi I pulled it from the sony website.

[Falcon1986]

22 minutes ago, MonkeyyWrench said:

Wi-Fi Certified 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Certified 802.11a/b/g/n 

This is the specs of my tv wifi I pulled it from the sony website.

Then you should be able to use the 5GHz band instead and take advantage of the higher bandwidth, provided there is minimal interference on the selected channel. Hopefully, the TV isn't too far from the wireless router since 5GHz has a shorter range than 2.4GHz.

[Jumballi]

10 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

While I agree with your budget recommendations and them being "backward compatible", no off-the-shelf consumer wireless router is forward compatible. Or else, why would you need to upgrade your router anyway?

Forwards compatible in the sense that newer devices are backwards compatible with older routers, hence old router works on newer future devices.

 

10 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Not sure what you mean here, but the antennae/chipset will perform to a maximum for which they were designed. Usually, many people misinterpret the speed label on the box, but in reality that is a theoretical speed in the perfect testing environment with the perfect wireless client and, also, an aggregate speed (i.e. total throughput from all wired and wireless devices through the router, sometimes in both directions).

Some devices like the ps4 have antennas and lan ports that are faster than than the OS allows them to run at. Software limited and not hardware, but yes, cheaper antennas will run at a lower speed and nothing will truly run at the speed it says on paper.

[Jumballi]

9 hours ago, MonkeyyWrench said:

My laptop and my phone are wifi 6 compatible and I use ethernet on my pc and I would move to wifi 5 cause I understand most gadgets won't utlize wifi 6e 
Although I have a 2016 sony bravia android tv which I doubt would have wifi 5 so is there any solution to that? Does a wifi dongle work on android tvs?

If you're having internet issues with your TV, I recommend getting a streaming stick over any solution to improve the wifi. The rabbit hole of usb wifi adapters and sony using 10mbps Ethernet ports on their TVs is one I really don't want to go down a second time.
At roughly the same cost of a network solution, the streaming stick will work faster, have better video, and solve the initial issue you have with the TV.