Wifi Routers - Affect speed?

skylight

(please - in basic laymans terms.......)

Our broadband speed is slow - currently on AOL getting a whopping 2mb. I have been to sites to test our line and they claim the best we are going to get is about 4.5mb. Fair enough.

But what does the router do? Looking at some their speeds range from 54mbps to 300mbps - does this affect my download speed to or upload speed or is it obvious that I do not have a clue????

I am looking to move to Sky - faster speed and less money than AOL (with another free wireless router that I assume will be basic) and I was also wondering on why I may need a faster router? I would only be using the laptop in the house (small one) or the garden (just as small!)

As cost is a primary issue - on a very tight budget these days which is why a saving of £5 a month may not seem a lot, but it is to me!

Andy_L

your internet speed, ie from AOL's computers to your phone point is 2mb/s. The speed from the router to your computer will be at least 54mb/s ie 27x faster (strictly speaking a bit slower than that as the router has to do some dataprocessing). The bottleneck is the speed of your intenet connection, not the router. As an analogy you might drive a sportscar but if you're stuck in traffic you go no faster than a 1.2l supermini

A faster router is only an advantage if you are transfering date between computers directly connected to that router, eg your laptop and desktop

tradetime

A faster router is only an advantage if you are transfering date between computers directly connected to that router, eg your laptop and desktop

Or you're buying a house in Ebbsfleet Valley

ajdadd

well if its cheaper and better than the service your getting it may be worth a switch.

not only that but if you switch you could save about a fiver which will help with other bills.

hope that helps

emweaver

im confused, so does the wireless slow down your speed?

spud17

emweaver wrote: »

im confused, so does the wireless slow down your speed?

In reality, nothing you'll notice.

BillScarab

emweaver wrote: »

im confused, so does the wireless slow down your speed?

No! Most wireless connections are at least 54mbps (some people may still have 8011.b which is only 11mbps). Your internet connection is going to be slower than that. For example most ADSL broadband is sold as up to 8mbps, so even if you got the full 8mbps your wireless link is still nearly 7 times faster.

richt71

As stated the router won' make any difference unless it's years old and an old 11mps and you're lucky enough to have the fastest cable package of 20mps.
The only difference appart from the rate of speed of the latest routers is the new ones are better with security and range.

Reggie_Rebel

currently on AOL

that's your problem, not your router.

test our line and they claim the best we are going to get is about 4.5mb

you are unlikey to get that speed due to a comibanation of things including, who far you are from the exchange, what ratio of sharing you have, how many pigeons are sitting on the telephone line etc etc

superscaper

Reggie_Rebel wrote: »

how many pigeons are sitting on the telephone line etc etc

Aah yes the coo-ntention ratio.

Bob63

If you have an 802.11b laptop (e.g. early Intel Centrino) or 802.11b router then wireless will definitely affect your Internet throughput on broadband max.

Although 802.11b is rated at 11 Mbit/s its actual throughput is much closer to 5 Mbit/s - which is lower than the 8 Mbit/s that Broadband Max can manage on a good day. Even the more typical 6 Mbit/s will be constrained by an 802.11b connection.

802.11g runs at 54 Mbit/s with a real throughput of around 27 Mbit/s which is much faster that current broadband connections.

However, all of this assumes that you have the perfect wireless setup and that you are in the same room and able to get those maximum speeds. Move to the next room or the other side of the house and your throughput will drop dramatically as the wireless speed is downgraded to cope with the weaker signal.

The only way to ensure high speed connection is a direct ethernet cable into the back of the broadband router, using your wireless in the same room (or very close), or using other technology such as HomePlug ethernet-over-mains - but do go for the 85 Mbit/s not the 14 Mbit/s version.