- Apr 19, 2014
- 2
- 0
- 4,510
I am creating this thread because I need help choosing a new router for my home network.
First, let me give you a basic description of my home networking situation. Usually, my wife and I are the only two people in the house, and we each have a laptop, phone, and iPad. We also have a Chromecast which we use somewhat regularly, and I also have a home-built desktop which connects via Ethernet, so that's 8 devices total and 7 using wireless. My wife watches TV shows on Netflix regularly, so video streaming makes up the bulk of our network traffic. I also download games occasionally, but we don't download very many things otherwise, and the games I play are not online games. We are college students, so we can't afford the highest data rates from our ISP. I currently have a 15 Mbps plan with my ISP, and we are using a Motorola Surfboard cable modem and a Netgear N300 wireless router. The router drops its wireless signal and has to be rebooted at least once a day, and it is driving me insane.
The sole purpose of our home network is for Internet access. Neither of us has any need for transferring files between computers within our local network. I say this to emphasize that I have no need for gigabit transfer speed in a wireless router, LAN or otherwise. If I really do suddenly need to back up tons of data in my home network, one of my friends has already offered to give me a gigabit switch he doesn't use anymore. With that, unless I am significantly less informed about networking than I thought, I would be able to have gigabit speeds between computers in my local network since those connections wouldn't be going through the router.
I'm likely never going to achieve an Internet speed greater than 100Mbps, so I'm not concerned with routers that boast enormous speeds. 300Mbps is perfectly fine with me. What I'm a bit more concerned with is whether I should get a router with the 802.11ac standard. My current router is 802.11b/g/n, I think, and it only has the one 2.4 GHz band. I am highly tempted by the 5GHz band in many of the dual band routers I've seen, but what I can't seem to find out is whether I would benefit from them in any way. I have heard that the 5GHz band can have a much lower range, but my house is honestly pretty small. I just have a 2 bed 1 bath house, no more than 1000 square feet, and the router would be in the middle of the house. In fact, there is never more than one wall between the router and anywhere you can be in the house. I have been doing a lot of research, but I can't figure out a few things.
My desktop has an awesome wireless card that I know supports 802.11ac, but will the rest of our devices benefit in any way? I think the Chromecast supports 802.11ac, but I'm not sure about our Apple devices and Windows laptops. I honestly don't mind if the laptops don't get any benefit, because we don't use those for streaming video anyway. My desktop is the only device which downloads major files that aren't videos, and our mobile devices typically stream the videos.
Would the specific features of 802.11ac, such as the beamforming technology, be beneficial to us in any way? It sounds cool in theory, but I just don't understand it well enough to know if we would be able to use the higher bandwidth in the 80GHz and 160GHz channels with more than one or two devices.
From what I've gathered, 802.11ac is great for high quality video streaming. However, what I have not pinpointed is whether it is good for high quality video streaming only within a local network or if it is also good when streaming from the Internet. If the former is true, then I honestly don't think we need 802.11ac since we basically just watch Netflix. However, there also may be benefits of 802.11ac which would be relevant to my situation that I haven't considered, and that is part of the reason I have published this novel today.
Basically, I just want to know if I should spend the money to get a router with 802.11ac or if it would be pointless to do so based on my situation. I appreciate you if you took the time to read all of this, and I would be grateful if you would respond with your thoughts. I'll try to keep an eye on this, so if I haven't been clear on something, respond with any questions you have and I'll try to answer quickly. Thanks, everybody!
First, let me give you a basic description of my home networking situation. Usually, my wife and I are the only two people in the house, and we each have a laptop, phone, and iPad. We also have a Chromecast which we use somewhat regularly, and I also have a home-built desktop which connects via Ethernet, so that's 8 devices total and 7 using wireless. My wife watches TV shows on Netflix regularly, so video streaming makes up the bulk of our network traffic. I also download games occasionally, but we don't download very many things otherwise, and the games I play are not online games. We are college students, so we can't afford the highest data rates from our ISP. I currently have a 15 Mbps plan with my ISP, and we are using a Motorola Surfboard cable modem and a Netgear N300 wireless router. The router drops its wireless signal and has to be rebooted at least once a day, and it is driving me insane.
The sole purpose of our home network is for Internet access. Neither of us has any need for transferring files between computers within our local network. I say this to emphasize that I have no need for gigabit transfer speed in a wireless router, LAN or otherwise. If I really do suddenly need to back up tons of data in my home network, one of my friends has already offered to give me a gigabit switch he doesn't use anymore. With that, unless I am significantly less informed about networking than I thought, I would be able to have gigabit speeds between computers in my local network since those connections wouldn't be going through the router.
I'm likely never going to achieve an Internet speed greater than 100Mbps, so I'm not concerned with routers that boast enormous speeds. 300Mbps is perfectly fine with me. What I'm a bit more concerned with is whether I should get a router with the 802.11ac standard. My current router is 802.11b/g/n, I think, and it only has the one 2.4 GHz band. I am highly tempted by the 5GHz band in many of the dual band routers I've seen, but what I can't seem to find out is whether I would benefit from them in any way. I have heard that the 5GHz band can have a much lower range, but my house is honestly pretty small. I just have a 2 bed 1 bath house, no more than 1000 square feet, and the router would be in the middle of the house. In fact, there is never more than one wall between the router and anywhere you can be in the house. I have been doing a lot of research, but I can't figure out a few things.
My desktop has an awesome wireless card that I know supports 802.11ac, but will the rest of our devices benefit in any way? I think the Chromecast supports 802.11ac, but I'm not sure about our Apple devices and Windows laptops. I honestly don't mind if the laptops don't get any benefit, because we don't use those for streaming video anyway. My desktop is the only device which downloads major files that aren't videos, and our mobile devices typically stream the videos.
Would the specific features of 802.11ac, such as the beamforming technology, be beneficial to us in any way? It sounds cool in theory, but I just don't understand it well enough to know if we would be able to use the higher bandwidth in the 80GHz and 160GHz channels with more than one or two devices.
From what I've gathered, 802.11ac is great for high quality video streaming. However, what I have not pinpointed is whether it is good for high quality video streaming only within a local network or if it is also good when streaming from the Internet. If the former is true, then I honestly don't think we need 802.11ac since we basically just watch Netflix. However, there also may be benefits of 802.11ac which would be relevant to my situation that I haven't considered, and that is part of the reason I have published this novel today.
Basically, I just want to know if I should spend the money to get a router with 802.11ac or if it would be pointless to do so based on my situation. I appreciate you if you took the time to read all of this, and I would be grateful if you would respond with your thoughts. I'll try to keep an eye on this, so if I haven't been clear on something, respond with any questions you have and I'll try to answer quickly. Thanks, everybody!
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