I have internet at home with speeds that top out around 250 Mbps. I find that good enough for what our household does with internet usage and streaming and such.
I am confused about the various WiFi router speeds that are advertised these days. Does it really matter? We have an Eero Pro mesh network. Would newer equipment make any meaningful difference?
In: Technology
You are right that it is not important for you. We have reached a point when the Internet is fast enough and you will not be able to use any additional Internet speed. You probably have 250Mbit/s Internet so the speed of your internal wifi network does not matter as long as it is better then your Internet speed. There are people who do a lot of bulk uploads and downloads though who might struggle a bit with only 250Mbit/s. Typically only the case if you work with large video files.
But you might still see some benefit from better wifi technology. Your wifi router shares the airways with all the other routers in your neighborhood. And there is a limited total amount of bandwidth available to all. If your wifi router is spending a lot of time sending data slowly to your laptop it is going to interfere with your neighbors wifi signal. So they will get higher latency and lower bandwidth because of your old router. Similarly when your neighbors wifi router is able to send then your router have to patiently wait so your wifi speeds will be lower. A newer router might be able to send short bursts of data at higher speeds and is therefore less affected by your neighbors wifi.
But unless you have an issue with your current system I would not bother much. And even if you started to notice some issues I would rather invest in network cables where possible as these are better then wifi can ever be.
Latest Answers