Summary
- Wi-Fi needs can change with your lifestyle, so test internet speed and consider upgrading router if necessary.
- Local networking functionality can affect your NAS or gaming streaming experience, ensuring you have the right setup is crucial.
- Coverage is key for Wi-Fi signal strength, mesh routers can help ensure a seamless connection throughout your home.
If you get the right router, you shouldn’t need to replace it for a few years at least, but if your needs have changed, your aging router could be struggling under the load. During the COVID-19 lockdown when people needed to transition to working at home, many of them discovered that while their home network was fine for streaming Netflix or sending chat messages, it wasn’t good enough to VPN into an office, or attend virtual work meetings. Similarly, as your internet needs evolve, you may find you need to upgrade your router before expected.
What’s your internet speed?
If you haven’t yet, start with an internet speed test to see what kind of internet speeds you’re actually getting. A speed test can help you understand what the actual data speeds you receive on your device. For the most accurate results, you should perform a speed test using a wired connection to get an idea of the theoretical max of your Wi-Fi speed.
Check your account with your ISP to see how much speed you pay for to see if your speeds are fairly close. It’s not uncommon to fall a bit short of the advertised speeds, but you should be close. ISPs tend to focus on download speed since most of what we do on our connections is download media, but if you’re trying to stream, including showing your screen and webcam for meetings, upload speed can be important. Unfortunately, on some ISPs, upload speeds are much lower than download.
Streaming video doesn’t take up all that much speed with 4K video coming in at around 25Mbps, but it helps to have a bit extra available to avoid buffering. Also, once you start sharing your connection with the rest of your family, your needs multiply.
If your Wi-Fi speeds aren’t keeping up with your internet speed, it’s probably time to start thinking about an upgrade. If your speeds match your ISP and it’s not fast enough for your needs, you may need an upgraded internet package instead.
Upgrading to a newer and faster router can give your wireless device the headroom it needs to achieve your full internet speeds. Wi-Fi 6 tech like 1024-QAM and OFDMA can also keep speeds high when you’ve got a lot of neighbors nearby causing congestion. If you can see a lot of other Wi-Fi access points when you’re connecting your device, you’re likely working around some congestion.
Do you do local networking?
Your local network is all of the devices connected to your home network, and if you set them up right, they can communicate with one another. One example of this is a NAS which allows you to access your files from the devices on your network. A high-end NAS can support SSD-like multi-gig speeds with the right components, and you’ll need a router with multi-gig networking to keep up. For the most part, this comes down to your Ethernet port speed. Most routers from the past few years support gigabit speeds as a minimum, which is plenty for most applications. There’s a chance some people with cheaper routers are still using Fast Ethernet, which is just 100Mbps.
What may be more common than a NAS is game streaming. If you’re using in-home streaming from a gaming PC or console, you’re using your local network. The most important thing for in-home streaming is latency, so a newer router with faster hardware could mean fewer dropped frames and better input delay.
For powerful local networking, your router should have plenty of fast Ethernet ports for all of your devices, and maybe even some multi-gig ports. With the right setup, accessing files on your NAS could feel as smooth as loading them from a drive on your PC.
How’s your coverage?
When you install a router in your home, you expect to get Wi-Fi coverage in every room with enough speed to be useful. This is doubly important if you’ve got a lot of smart home tech that runs on Wi-Fi. A higher-end router with a powerful amplifier, or well-designed antennas can improve your Wi-Fi coverage. Not only that, but a faster router will have some extra headroom to keep speeds high as the signal quality falls.
Mesh routers allow you to use multiple routers together to form a single Wi-Fi network. Like a Wi-Fi extender, this can be used to help with dead zones, but unlike an extender, you don’t need a separate Wi-Fi name and your portable devices can roam between the mesh routers automatically.
If you want mesh coverage, you can pick up a mesh Wi-Fi system with a couple of nodes in the box, or you can get a traditional router with mesh capabilities. The latter option is more flexible but will require a bit more router configuration as you will need to pair the mesh nodes. Still, some routers like the Asus RT-AX88U Pro make it relatively simple with its Asus-only AiMesh. Just make sure you know what your expansion options are before buying the router if you think you want mesh expansion.
What about security?
Not all Wi-Fi passwords are created equal, and there's more to it than picking special characters and numbers. Old routers using WEP, for example, needed to send the password to the router with every communication, making it quick and easy for someone with the know-how to ascertain your password simply by monitoring the traffic of devices already connected to your network. Most routers from the last few years have upgraded to WPA-2, which is much more secure than WEP, but the password can still be pulled with the right hardware and software.
The latest routers support WPA-3, which is much more secure. Unfortunately, a lot of older Wi-Fi tech doesn't support WPA-3, so you're stuck running a mix of WPA-2 and WPA-3, which defeats the purpose. Some routers allow you to create multiple VLANs, which are virtual networks that keep devices separate from one another. For example, you could a Wi-Fi network for less secure IoT devices with another for your more important tech, like a work PC.
Besides that, routers need to be kept up to date to combat hackers who may discover vulnerabilities in software. If the manufacturer of your router has stopped offering updated firmware, it could be a good idea to upgrade to a router that's still receiving support.
Who owns your router?
If your router was provided by your ISP, often called gateways instead of routers, you’re stuck with what they give you. Sure, you can get your own modem with a router or pick up a router-modem combo, but there may be a better way. If your ISP-provided router is more than a couple of years old and not keeping up, contact customer service and ask for a new one. While ISPs have done well to obscure the fee, if you’re using their equipment, you’re probably paying for it.
One of the few benefits of renting a gateway from the ISP is that you don’t need to worry about upgrading it or paying for it. That being said, no businesses are in a hurry to send out a bunch of new equipment, so you probably need to ask. Many ISPs have moved to Wi-Fi 6 or newer equipment, so getting better performance could just be a phone call away.
