Point of Powerful Wireless Routers?

[urik]

I may sound like a noob, but this question has been bothering me for a while now. My question is primarily related to throughput. What's the point of routers with 100+ Mbps etc. on either band when the ISP gives typically much less? For instance, I just signed up for Centurylink here in Phoenix and will be getting 40 down/20 up advertised. How would a router that theoretically provides better throughout at all increase the speed of my connections? Any bottleneck would be coming from the ISP, right?

 

[thiggins]

For internet traffic, yes. The higher wireless speeds provide faster transfers for local data, which is important to many users.

Also keep in the mind that starting out at higher throughput levels usually provides higher throughput as signal levels decline. See How Much Throughput Can You Really Get From An AC Router?

 

[KGB7]

The point of 100Mbp +, is so you can transfer files faster between computers on your network. But, you wont get faster speeds from your ISP that you are paying for.

 

[azazel1024]

Both better performance at range and also for the multitude of users who transfer files between computers on the same LAN or WLAN.

I have a 75/35 package, with usable 80/36 through speed testing. I also have a nice Gigabit LAN and a server with dual gigabit links in part to feed/be feed from my desktop, which also has dual gigabit links.

In the same room as my router, I can get 21MB/sec speeds on my laptop, double what my internet connection can push, but I sit on my back deck, just 30 feet and an exterior wall away, it drops to about 8MB/sec, below the speed of my internet connection. If I had a faster router, I could probably at least max out my internet connection on my deck then.

Or as the case stated, LAN transfers, 21MB/sec transfers a paltry compared to the 114MB/sec I can get plugging the laptop in to on my my LAN drops for big transfers, let alone the 200+MB/sec I get between my desktop and server.

So upgrading my routers to 802.11ac is in my near term plans (I have a 7260 in my laptop now). Even if it just nets me 30-40MB/sec, that would be a nice improvement.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
When networking not only surfing Internet, better speed, better throughput is always desired within Intranet

 

[L&LD]

The point of a powerful router is to make the mechanics of connecting and sharing information between devices disappear.

This is accomplished best with the most powerful/newest router you can buy.


It does this by:

Having firmware capable of accomplishing what you need to, directly.

Having an newer SoC that not only is more powerful than yesterdays equipment; it also reduces noise and increases the ratio of clean signal that is output at a given power level - this increases range and throughput and with the faster processor aboard, it does this effortlessly too.

Not choking on multiple users using the network concurrently.

Allowing you to reach your high ISP speeds even with features like QoS turned on that disable HW acceleration.

Offering you increased performance (instantly) as you acquire (this is a given) new clients compatible with the latest standards that the latest routers are already compatible with.

While an older router may provide good enough performance - the added robustness and the increased capacity a new router offers is reason enough for me to consider buying the latest model even at a ~$200+ price point (after I thoroughly test it, of course).


A recent customer with an older Netgear (WNDR3400?) needed help with their network (very small office setup) and mentioned they were willing to spend up to $1K to fix the wireless range and throughput (they were quoted for 2 or 3 routers plus setup time for their (large) single room office space!).

I offered to let them try an RT-AC66U for a couple of days and see if it would make any improvements for them. They agreed to test one. However, I was paid in full before I left their office: the difference was night and day and they couldn't deny it:

Print jobs would complete from any computer, even when everyone hit print at once.

Internet would not stall, cut out or otherwise be interrupted depending on what someone else would be doing.

Backups went from a 12-15 minute affair (with random disconnects at times) to less than 3 minutes (of course; fast Ethernet vs. GB Ethernet ports).

The system stability with up to a dozen people (and about 30 devices) working at once were at a level they couldn't believe (and the router cost them less than $175 - just $19 more than the RT-N66U they could have bought with significantly less performance in the 5GHz band which they can use and enjoy from many of their current devices and will get even more performance as they buy new devices with AC class WiFi inside).

In the end, spending money foolishly is not what I'm recommending. Spending the least money over the longest time period is.

And while this may seem to indicate that business class hardware is what we should be looking at, ideally, the reality is that most business class (commercial) hardware is priced at so high up the scale, that the cost is never recuperated unless you keep using it almost indefinitely.

While the features and performance compared to the latest consumer models continue to leave me wanting more.

Always buy what you can afford, but also try to buy more than what you think you need. More performance is never wasted. Needing to replace a 'good' component with a 'better' one in a short time (less than a year) is.

 

[stevech]

Opinion: Post #6 above is 80 or 90% uninformed rhetoric.

 

[L&LD]

Opinion: Post #6 above is 80 or 90% uninformed rhetoric.

It may be 100% opposite of what you believe; but it is not uninformed.

 

[remixedcat]

Here's an enterprise grade router at a consumer grade price:
http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2014/02/cisco-meraki-z1-review.html

it's between 168-220USD. Sure it doesn't have .ac but it's still very nice and the features are awesome.

 

[sinshiva]

i did a little research on meraki and was quite impressed, really. that's an excellent system that i'm sure has much further to go, yet. their pricing is very reasonable, particularly for the lower end of the scale. i remember being disappointed in their Pix firewalls; cisco had quite a dry spell for the 'small business' side of things not terribly long ago. i know it's gotten a lot better since, but i haven't kept up. however, their 'meraki' system is more in line with what i feel best represents cisco.